This post is not intended to insult any national themed regions being discussed here.

The human race would benefit tremendeously by letting go of nationalistic crap. Insuring our children survival for generation to come by developping renewable resources should be the first priority. Creating a "one world, one people" themed region and letting everyone contribute would be nice, I think. Exploring current world problems and possible solutions could be one way to share ideas. Doing this in 3D using original designs would take advantage of the grid's potential as an effective communication tool.

My point of view is that any project that makes reference to a nationality, culture or religion, no matter how good the intention, will attract someones criticism. Even if your project will save millions of lives, if it is attached to nationalistic ideas, it will become a target and attract negative actions from those whose cultural or religious point of view are different. As the saying goes, you can't please everyone.

Now, if you do it in the name of the human race, without any reference to any country, region, culture, religion, ideology, etc... then we may have a chance for acceptance by all.

Of course, language is a difficult obstacle to overcome. Cultural bias, which is propagated through language, is equally difficult to break through. The only universally human action I know of is compassion. Not love, not hate, not fear, although those are considered universal feelings, their causes or triggering acts are dependent upon the culture. Only compassion, the act of selflessly helping a person in need, is free from any selfish stains.

Of course, my statement is based upon buddhist thoughts, and is inspired from the effect of karma and the law of cause and effect. Any action that is assosciated to an intention or desire will generate karma, which will inevitably return a reaction. Selfless compassion is not dependent on personal desire nor intention. Selfless compassion flows from the situation at hand. It is performed according to one's own capacity and abilities. But even if one has nothing material to offer in any situation, one can always offer selfless compassion. Being present and listening to someone's grief without judging nor criticising is an example of what I'm talking about.

So, let people offer solutions to this planet's problems, each in their own way, according to their best abilities and resources, but please let go of any references to countries, nationalities, culture or religions. Those are the worst justifications to do anything because they are not universal. If someone has something to offer, let them do it selflessly, as a gift to life. And if someone start to say something like "oh, this is a german idea!" or "this will profit the Phillippino people", just show these people the error of their views by letting them see the results of our actions.

Karen Palen wrote I can only [mis]quote Marshal McLuhan: If in 50 years the Internet makes English everyone's secomd language then it will be the best thing ever to happen to the human race, but if in 500 years it means that English is the ONLY language then it will be the greatest possible disater! Different nationalities and xultures are valuable becaue they bring different (VERY different!) viewpoints and "mind sets" to our everyday world. If we lose that then we lose who we are as humans! Conversely we don't need to murder 12 million people just because they are different! In RL I have travelled enough to treasure th evastly different cultures that still exist in the world. We need to accept that diversity really is a treasure and not a liability! (quote from a Rabbi who taught me much of what I know about Christianity) Second Life makes McLuhan's "Global village" more apparent than it is in real life. We all have our place in "The Wheel of Life" - let us treasure that for what it is! Remember that the reality is that 99.999% of the people on this planet want nothing more than to (1) raise their family in peace, (2) make a better life for their children and (3) make a better life for themselves! Our biggest problem as a species is that this is easy with 4 billion people, but impossible with 8 billion, and the poorest people are having all the children! Be thankful that yesterday almost 6 billion people went obout their daily lives and nothing much happened! When I was born (1944) that was not the situation

I am not against the different nationalities and cultures, that is not the point. What I am against the way people stamp their nationalities or culture on everything they do as a mark of superiority, and insist that their way is best over everyone else's.

That song wasn't by the Beatles. Sorry.

Speaking of obstacles to unity, it was actually by the man now popularly recognised as the main reason why the Beatles split up. It was Paul McCartney. He wrote 'Ebony and Ivory' and performed it with Stevie Wonder. Definitely NOT a Beatles song.

I tend to agree with Josh on the attitude problem, but prefer not to feed the trolls.

And Yoko is the reason behind the Beatle split...