I'm un-stabled, I'm not a show horse

Your interesting hypothetical question for the day.

Let's say...someone comes into SL after a long absence. Has a certain draw, charisma, appears to be connected even though no one not from that era really recognizes the name. It is an old SL name. There are some very old accounts who know who this person is. As far as can be told from the outside, the account seems to be held by a fairly well funded tech hobbyist, at the very least.

How should people best engage with this person? Is aggression, negativity and backstabbing useful? It may have removed this person from SL's sphere of influence for some time, but...the avatar seems to be back, with no real intent to leave. So, even if aggression, negativity and backstabbing had been used in the past, is it at all useful now?

Would befriending this account be a better idea? Or if not befriending, at least tolerating?

Let's toss in something else. Let's say this person is very loyal to friends, very supportive of friends, in all ways, and very much death, at least in a philosophical sense, to enemies. Wouldn't it be easier to be a friend? Wouldn't it require far less effort than declaring direct opposition?

You have someone, in essence, who's willing to throw away monthly rent on a studio apartment in New York, effectively, in perpetuity, without monetization--is fighting this person in the best interests of anyone, long-term?

I'll leave you with one statement from the avatar in question:

"I tried for years to build things that complement or [are] part of existing estates. Given the aggressive behavior trying to drive me away, I decided to just build my own space."

Isn't that what Des did? Isn't that what the Clockwinder did? Isn't that why Baron Wulfenbach now has his own sim? That they just wanted to build things they wanted to see in the world? Why is this wrong?

But the more people try to drive this kind of creativity away, the less the person behind the creativity is going to care about your projects.

At the end of the day, no one is asking anyone to fall in love with this particular account. Not hating him would be good. Not trying to spin falsehoods about his motivations would be great. But there's a great deal of live and let live going on. This avatar is not interested in making things untenable, they're just tired--we're all tired--of other people making the situation untenable.

So maybe that's the last point, after all. If you can't like this account...if you can't tolerate this account...can you at least employ basic civility and realize that honey will work better than battery acid in the long run? He's been willing in the past to support a variety of projects, and it's only prevalent, constant, dunning distrust and rumor-mongering that's driven him from supporting many things he did in the past. He's still able to offer support. Maybe even could be talked into it again.

But not as long as things stand as they are. Who wants to play in a space where they're distrusted, sniped about, whispered about? Where their motivations are constantly second-guessed? Where the rumor mill constantly grinds? Who wants to go back to that sort of high-school environment?

Where's the creativity in that? Where's the joy in that?

That's all. Just something to consider.