From - Wed Jan 14 17:26:01 1998 Return-Path: Received: from relay1.UU.NET by mrco.carleton.ca (4.1/SMI-4.0) id AA07547; Fri, 26 Feb 93 18:20:57 EST Received: from nyx.cs.du.edu by relay1.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA12545; Fri, 26 Feb 93 13:36:30 -0500 Received: by nyx.cs.du.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA26762; Fri, 26 Feb 93 11:31:04 MST From: ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu (andy) Message-Id: <9302261831.AA26762@nyx.cs.du.edu> X-Disclaimer: Nyx is a public access Unix system run by the University of Denver. The University has neither control over nor responsibility for the opinions or correct identity of users. Subject: FutureCulture Digest #260 To: future-digest@nyx.cs.du.edu Date: Fri, 26 Feb 93 11:31:02 MST X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 19665 X-Lines: 486 Status: RO X-Mozilla-Status: 8001 ______________________________________________________________________ |______________ / | | / | | u t u r e <___________ u l t u r e | _______________________________________________________________________| Issue #260 Friday, February 26th 1993 Today's Topics: --------------- !mindgun Admins & Gateway Sites, please read Re: !mindgun Re: cyber elitism Returned Life: Purpose Unknown Spivak vs. McLuhan typical me schtuph on infoculture __________________________________________________________________________ From: zane@ddsw1.mcs.com (Sameer Parekh) Subject: Re: cyber elitism Date: Fri, 26 Feb 93 01:38:15 -0600 In message , Dazed N. Confused writes: > which god decided on it. Information, free, wants? Does > information have a soul with which to be free? In my view it's a metaphor. Information is a quantitative/qualitative (Information/knowledge is a vector..), yes, but it's nature is that it can't be controlled. It "appears" to have a will, which wants to be free. The term seems to be getting awfully cliche, but maybe that's only because I interact mostly with net-folk and I don't speak all too much with mainstream-folk. ____________________________________________________________________________ | Sameer Parekh-zane@ddsw1.MCS.COM-PFA related mail to pfa@ddsw1.MCS.COM | | Apprentice Philosopher, Writer, Physicist, Healer, Programmer, Lover, more | | "Be God" - Me ____________________________________________________________/ \_____________/ ______________________________ From: zane@ddsw1.mcs.com (Sameer Parekh) Subject: Re: cyber elitism Date: Fri, 26 Feb 93 01:42:55 -0600 In message <9302251823.AA23155@nyx.cs.du.edu>, hawkeye writes: > > we needn't care about the mass media? we NEED care about Everything, > methinks. > Good point, good point. (Arg, you choose different NAMES *just* to make things confusing don't you? :-) He, he.) An issue of how much I worry. If the mass media sucks I don't give a big deal. Sure I care, I'd like to have it better, and hell I *do* produce a form of mini-mass-media, distribution of the ol' Free Journal at my high school. (OK, not *mass*, but it's not personal/interactive like the net.) I guess we need care about everything encompass everything ("Be God"), but I'm going to place some priorities. (Hopefully I'm placing them in the way which creates the proper path for myself..) ____________________________________________________________________________ | Sameer Parekh-zane@ddsw1.MCS.COM-PFA related mail to pfa@ddsw1.MCS.COM | | Apprentice Philosopher, Writer, Physicist, Healer, Programmer, Lover, more | | "Be God" - Me ____________________________________________________________/ \_____________/ ______________________________ Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1993 09:54:03 -0500 From: Subject: Spivak vs. McLuhan Last night I went to see a lecture by one of the intellectual masterblasters of our time, Gayatri Spivak, and she had some interesting but disturbing things to say about the subject of infoculture. Basically (and I'll probably do this argument a real injustice, so please bear with me) she was expressing concern over the McLuhanesque metaphor of the global village. Her argument is that contemporary online America (North) somehow feels that it can return to preindustrial culture via telematics and not only escape the problems of industrial society, but also of the preindustrial ("Village") society it would mimic. IMOH it seems that this is also linked to what Hakim Bey calls *cybergnosis*, the attempt to (or dream of) transcend(ing) physicality via technology. Talk amongst yourselves. I'm getting a little vclempt. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Darren Wershler-Henry (grad3057@writer.yorku.ca) "Ben Grimm's incessant whining used to really chap my ass. Who was he kidding? I would've gladly taken lumpy orange skin, cartoon mouse hand and foot digit allotment, and who-knows-what-kind of genitalia for the ability to crush cheap essential scenery like papier-mache." ("Bolt Upright," in THE CHEAP TRUTH #4) ______________________________ Date: Sat, 27 Feb 93 02:49:16 +1100 From: Kenneth McKenzie Wark Subject: !mindgun Mitchell asked about a zine called !mindgun. Its address is : The Society for Digital Redistribution P.O. Box 582 Broadway 2007 Australia Its e-address is (i think) alethia@anon.penet.fi If that doesn't work try me again. I've picked up a lot of !mindgun infor from local bbs in Sydney, where it originates. Its a pirate 'zine which basically makes cool stuff from the internet available in a zippy print layout for people with bbs cred but no internet access (which is very common in Sydney, and i guess much of Australia). Yu can ask to be put on the mailing list, but you won't stay on it unless you send the Society for Digital Redistribution *information* that is interesting. Its an information barter deal. No money involved but no freeloading either. You can send them anything interesting on any aspect of media/tech/cyber/future culture. Can be original stuff, stuff captured off nets, or even a page ripped from a magazine - anything interesting. They send you back the 'zine. They promise to change the name every issue, so you get whatever the next incarnation is. There is a very limited print run for each issue and no back issues. !mindgun had agrippa (natch), Bruce Sterling's history of the internet, some stuff on leri-l, nintendo, bosnian tv and an extract from Howard Rheingold's next book on virtual communities. There's probably no point in people outside Australia asking for copies, but as there are a few Australians on the list i thought it worth posting this. Seems strange going all the way around the world to get a message to fellow netrunners in Brisbane and Melbourne, etc, but that's the net for ya. Willard the evil bastard "now here's what's happening in your world (even as we speak)" ______________________________ From: ahawks (perpetually living) Subject: typical me schtuph on infoculture Date: Fri, 26 Feb 93 9:59:07 MST grad3057@writer.yorku.ca, not Bob, says: | |Last night I went to see a lecture by one of the intellectual |masterblasters of our time, Gayatri Spivak, and she had some |interesting but disturbing things to say about the subject of |infoculture. Basically (and I'll probably do this argument a real |injustice, so please bear with me) she was expressing concern over the |McLuhanesque metaphor of the global village. Her argument is that |contemporary online America (North) somehow feels that it can return |to preindustrial culture via telematics and not only escape the |problems of industrial society, but also of the preindustrial |("Village") society it would mimic. IMOH it seems that this is also |linked to what Hakim Bey calls *cybergnosis*, the attempt to (or dream |of) transcend(ing) physicality via technology. rather i think post-post-industrial society as an infoculture would, as it evolves, solve some of industrial society's problems, or at least allow us to analyze them in a completely different context which is something Americans never want to do - we just whine and bitch and add a new couple of strokes to the canvas we've created - why not turn the painting upside down, punch a hole in the middle, or do *something* drastic rather than say "hey everyone, look at this wonderful painting we've made - it can be yours for only $19.95". that is america, right there. we *sell* our painting (metaphor of culture and "Way of Life", in case you missed it) to the rest of the world for $19.95....order right now, we'll throw in Mtv, a poster of Madonna, some Levis, and a vile of crack....sorry, no refunds, no c.o.d.s accepted.... how much longer can we live off a painting we keep making minor changes to - how much longer are people going to buy the shit.... why asre we limiting our resources, limiting our medium to just paint, when we live in a Mac-Art world.....(Mac-Art, Macintosh computer art, being a metaphor here for an infoculture)...Mac-Art world allows us to share, more quickly, easily, and more *interactively* with the rest of the world compared to a world where we just sell a painting.... it is this interactivity fuck i need to dos interactivity i'm losing the train.... the interactivity it's the interactivity that seperates pre-industrial culture from post-post-industrial culture.....infoculture rather...where Mr. Agrobuford in pre-industrial society lived for himself and those he supported via farming, some small business or whatever, infoculture transcends that completely to a point of interactivity for the sake of interactivity, because there's not real any other *choice*. methinks it's a natural state of cultural evolution. it won't stop....you will just be talking to more and more people overall, whether it be virtual or in rl....it's a natural spewge of society - more people in the same room = closer-cramped quarters and interaction, but not necesssarily communication...it's up to us to create that communication and make the infoculture real via communitek.... and regards to the wanky thing about, umm, what was it, oh yeah - the escapism aspect, that's crud. love, touch, physical interaction is practically necessary for survival. i think we all realize that - you need love and belonging [people are going to flame, i feel my toes getting warm] just as much as you need food and water and shelter. yep, the "cyberpunk" crowd is gonna hang me by my heels for saying you *need* love and belonging to survive..... i saw a donahue show the other day, they had videotape of this kid who had an imbalance of metals in his system or something, and he was really fucking out there - like Damien....666 on his forehead and all just about....he was i think 5 or 6, he would tell his mom he's going to pee down her throat - he says 'fuck' all the time and schtuph, i mean, usually i'm good with kids and i'm good at getting peole to tak when they're angry, but, that kid was very far out there... anyway, it just occured to me, this kid is an evolutionary mutation....his parents are both substance abusers, and they feel that might have something to do with the imbalance [remember, his condition is supposedly not environmental]....see? it's this invisibile link between genetics and environmental factors, sort of watching darwinism in progress in chaos.....like, umm, fetal alcohol syndrome or something - what the parents do in their environment affects the child beyond just environment, so it's innate....doesn't that hit anyone as weird? it puts genetic engineering in perspective - moms have crack babies all the time, every few seconds, but we don't want to experiment with genetic engineering, when we already are experimenting, by smoking crack, shooting smack, drinking, or smoking.... anyway, it was not only Darwin in Action, but also Freud and Erickson... had man not created crack or whatever his parents were doin', this kid might not be like this, so, freud was right - society *creates* it's own problems the more industrialized we get...they say this kid could grow up to be like a charlie manson.....society, then, does create charlie manson, we made charles manson, all of us....it's just what he did, on his own individual level, that we're supposedly not responsible for, because, after all, he's an indvidual, himself... i think that's crap....we are ourselves after we are society, because genetic comes before environmental....it's like we're all 50.0_1% society, and 49.9_% individual, because individuality always stems from pre-environment.... weird ain't it.... anyway, i got on this tangent because, we seem to think of infoculture as an individualistic thing - that's why the inane comparison with pre-industrial society, imho. but it's not, it's the exact opposite, but people still move towards the individual, towards The Edge..... i think my %ages above are a good model to strive for for succesful infoculture... flavor flav and a rabbi walk into a bar, flav has vanilla ice in one hand and big ben in the other. the rabbi says "it's just a sprinkling from the may queen" and turns into the velveteen rabbit on smack and flies off into the sunset. |Talk amongst yourselves. I'm getting a little vclempt. amongst ~= angst. in fact, amongst = mo' angst. hehe, existentialism in the very molecules.... ceaser! bring me my i'm going crazy sometimes stop me before i start quoting from the bible or mein kampf....i think they're by the same author - i have autographed copies and the hanfdwriting analyst is stumped. |------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |Darren Wershler-Henry (grad3057@writer.yorku.ca) | |"Ben Grimm's incessant whining used to really chap my ass. Who was he |kidding? I would've gladly taken lumpy orange skin, cartoon mouse |hand and foot digit allotment, and who-knows-what-kind of genitalia |for the ability to crush cheap essential scenery like papier-mache." |("Bolt Upright," in THE CHEAP TRUTH #4) -- andy ______________________________ From: ahawks (perpetually living) Subject: Re: !mindgun Date: Fri, 26 Feb 93 10:09:49 MST Kenneth McKenzie Wark, not Bob, says: | |Mitchell asked about a zine called !mindgun. Its address is : |The Society for Digital Redistribution |P.O. Box 582 Broadway 2007 Australia | |Its e-address is (i think) |alethia@anon.penet.fi | |If that doesn't work try me again. I've picked up a lot of |!mindgun infor from local bbs in Sydney, where it originates. | |Its a pirate 'zine which basically makes cool stuff from the |internet available in a zippy print layout for people with bbs |cred but no internet access (which is very common in Sydney, and |i guess much of Australia). | |Yu can ask to be put on the mailing list, but you won't stay on it |unless you send the Society for Digital Redistribution *information* |that is interesting. Its an information barter deal. No money involved |but no freeloading either. You can send them anything interesting on |any aspect of media/tech/cyber/future culture. Can be original stuff, |stuff captured off nets, or even a page ripped from a magazine - anything |interesting. They send you back the 'zine. They promise to change the |name every issue, so you get whatever the next incarnation is. There is a |very limited print run for each issue and no back issues. how surfpunk. it's weird how the current incarnation of my personal philosophy of "+ communitek = + individualization + specialization" is actualized by things like surfpunk and this. that's so weird, when you think about it: you And i get the same information. "I Process it My Way" sinatra-esque, and give it back to you, to show my processing. methinks there is a point in non-oz people getting it, just to see how people are processing things. it's weird. people on the net are starting to surf on the surface. meta-surfing, he offered. there is no end to it. |Willard how dare you speak His name without making a sacrifice first. it's so weird. nothing is weird. this post is complete bullshit. nevermind. i'm dumb. maybe not. i'll get back to you on that one, i have to think about it. -- andy ______________________________ From: ahawks (perpetually living) Subject: Returned Life: Purpose Unknown Date: Fri, 26 Feb 93 10:34:49 MST Here Fido, fetch - go long - yeah, real long - by the highway.... oops.... poor Fido, got run over on the Internet.... i just felt like sharing this....i hate fidonet..... stupid thing, especially their postal system....you actually have to *follow-up* to returned-mail vie e-mail to figure out what the problem is, it's like Deliverance on the net..... it's not automatic for the people, like the rest of returned mail is, you get the necessary info like that , but with fido you have to go to a buford shack out in the backwoods that has a bunch of rusty old cars out front, a dog missing a leg, 3 triplets named "Jeb" all missing some teeth, and grandma is sitting on the taterred couch in the front lawn peeing in her sleep.....uncle bob is sitting in the lawnchair trying to burp the national anthem and boasts "ya know, it still means somethin to me. always get a tear in my eye", and then stands up and salutes the ripped-up flag that is protruding from the homemade chimney. and now it's 2:30 in the afternoon and suzie pulls up riding the back of Junior's crappy bike, the loudest thing on earth, with brown smoke making a breadcrumb trail, and she's obviously drunk and hasn't showered in at least 4 days, and she's waving her "Cat" hat around in the air and then falls off the bike, and for the first time you notice the Grafix bong sticker on the front of Junior's motorcycle helmet, and as he takes off the helmet he's grabbing Suzie's breasts like a robot. Uncle Bob looks over, burps, mutters "wench" out of the corner of his mouth, and reaches over his undershit and the nasty protruding pale flesh of his stomach to switch the channel to a fishing show that he never messes "cuz those guys *know* fishin!!!". Junior and Suzie are laughing hysterically because life is beyond having no meaning for them, and they stomp off through the creaky half-assed screen door to a back bedrrom in the "house". the dog is busy carrying it's own shit in it's mouth down to the creek. that's the creek where "city folk go and don't come back". there's blood on the smooth grey rock by the decaying oak tree. and the whole thing smells heavily of methane, home brew, and dried bark, with just a pinch of stale urine. cuz they know fishin! haven't lived until your unfit overalls on one shoulder are filled with grease. deliverance. the irony. fidonet sucks. i think grandma just passed on, but we won't know for a couple daze. ______________________________ From: ahawks (perpetually living) Subject: Admins & Gateway Sites, please read Date: Fri, 26 Feb 93 10:44:33 MST I'm trying to get a very accurate account of the general readership of future-culture . If you gate FutureCulture whether it be in realtime or daily digest, to a newsgroup, or if you regularly distribute FutureCulture in realtime or digest to beyond yourself, please let me know. Please give me a general idea of how many people at your site are reading futureculture, if you in fact do gate it or distribute it in anyway. -- andy _________________________________________________________________________ | | | That's all for today! | | To send a message to the list: future@nyx.cs.du.edu | | To subscribe/unsubscribe/change format: future-request@nyx.cs.du.edu | | All other requests: future-request@nyx.cs.du.edu | | List Maintainer is: (andy [aka hawkeye]) ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu | |_________________________________________________________________________| | | | The opinions expressed in FutureCulture are those of the individual | | author only. | |_________________________________________________________________________|