From - Wed Jan 14 11:43:52 1998 Return-Path: Received: from relay1.UU.NET by mrco.carleton.ca (4.1/SMI-4.0) id AA05915; Thu, 21 Jan 93 14:30:19 EST Received: from nyx.cs.du.edu by relay1.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA02612; Thu, 21 Jan 93 14:23:38 -0500 Received: by nyx.cs.du.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA20558; Thu, 21 Jan 93 11:30:51 MST From: ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu (andy) Message-Id: <9301211830.AA20558@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 #187 To: future-digest@nyx.cs.du.edu Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 11:30:48 MST X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Status: R ______________________________________________________________________ |______________ / | | / | | u t u r e <___________ u l t u r e | _______________________________________________________________________| Issue #187 Thursday, January 21st 1993 Today's Topics: --------------- 7-11's Meme Synergy (yet *another* possible thread) MEMES & I.NET as a developing organism-thingy... MEMES & I.NET as an organism-in-progress... memetic resonance Re: Anti-Hacker Hysteria... Re: your mail Stuphs TEST univeral truths answered. CHEAP! Warning From UUCP Weekly FC Administrivia WIRED online? __________________________________________________________________________ Subject: Meme Synergy (yet *another* possible thread) From: morpheus Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 20:13:11 EST uunet!nyx.cs.du.edu!ahawks (max legroom) writes: > However, does anyone get the feeling that some of these > net.dark.corners are overlapping to the point of a synergy? I don't > want to expand upon this until I hear if people agree or not, and > until people say what net.dark.corners they feel are coming together > in the light.... I'm not saying this is some sudden realization or > spasmatic evolution, it just seems part of a slow continual process > that the net has been engaging in for a long time now..... YeS, aND I ThINk tHe NeT StANdS To LoSe bECaUsE OF It. In sYnERgY Is UnItY In UnItY IS CoNfORmItY ANd iN COnFoRmITy iS DUlLnEsS. (wow, programmable-editor FuN!) When uniqueness is gone, boredom ensues. To use a BBS analogy (please direct all BBS-bashing flames to your nearest fidonet board, thankyou), often when a board hooks up with a net, it loses most of it's local conversation, and loses it's character, becoming just one node of a giant organism. So the Leri people who mush with the FC people who mush with the sfrave people who mush with the extropian people who mush with the telecom digest people who mush with the cud people who much with the LOD fan club who mush with the alt.druggie people who much with the comp.lang.c people all become one. Boredom city, d00dz. (err, sorry, isn't that (tm)ed by Jersey City?) morpheus@entropy.mcds.com [primary] | A name changes toys into tools.. morpheus@f208.n2606.z1.fidonet.org | - Skinny Puppy ______________________________ Date: 21 Jan 1993 04:21:52 -0600 (CST) From: "free agent .rez" Subject: TEST rmgmfgpopfgmfhhfmhrh! ______________________________ Date: 21 Jan 1993 03:00:09 -0600 (CST) From: "free agent .rez" Subject: MEMES & I.NET as a developing organism-thingy... >Ditto. That's what I've felt since that weird email/alife thread.. >These grottos overlap to the point that it seems like another life >or personality goes online whenever I read email.. Digital schis. >But from leri-l, FC, alt.cyberpunk, cypherpunks and my time doing >fringeware, the people and memes involved converge to the point of >being more than just ASCII rants. Zat what u mean by net.dark.corners ? >1/e^2 >pxn. ok. ok ok ok ok ok. it seems germaine, so it's getting posted, a day late. *TRANS-LIST POSTING* a while ago i sent a message asking a general question about VIRTUAL CULTURE. i've recieved quite a few responses, and they were all enlightening. i figured it was time to give something in return. what it'll be is a very succinct overview of the approach i'm taking to i.Net in general and VIRTUAL CULTURE in particular. i'm in the process of working up a series of 3 articles for general i.Net distribution, but until then, this should fill in some gaps. much of the impetus to embark on my project stems from 2 very pin-downable sources. the primary influence is my personal experiences with the Net; how i became involved, how it has effected MY life. the second, and the main driving force behind my attempt to create a fully functioning academic field in, on and about VIRTUAL CULTURE lies in *inferrences* made after reading a very particular book: "The Selfish Gene," by Richard Dawkins (a professor/ biologist-type fellow at Oxford). in it he introduced 2 very powerful notions. 1: the notion that the GENE "will have been" (always like to speak outside of time once in a while... ;) ) an incessant replicator producing countless "survival machines" (that's us, folks) for the purpose of passing genes on, AND 2: the concept of the MEME; the reason why CULTURAL evolution has NEVERTHELESS quite rapidly outstripped genetic evolution. without further Ado (to which i'm fatally prone), i'll forward the metaphors that are going into this project, couched apologetically in his text. i don't know if the reproduction of bits of his text in here (virtuality) is still in accordance with the Fair Use Laws (as it IS scholarly, this exposition i'm attempting,) but like Gibson and Agrippa, if Dawkins DIDN't expect this to happen, he'd be short-sighted to be surprised by it, as you may infer from the text. i'll make this as short and sweet as i can; *all in quotes is copyright Richard Dawkins, from "The Selfish Gene";* all in [braces] is my exposition. 1: THE MEME. note that this is drawn from one of the LAST chapters in his text, and i'll skip to one of the FIRST after it. he begins the chapter, "Memes: the new replicators" by speaking of cultural evolution. "Geoffery Chaucer could not hold a conversation with a modern englishman, even though they are linked to each other by an unbroken chain of some twenty generations of englishmen, ... Language seems to 'evolve' by non-genetic means, and at a rate which is orders of magnitude faster than genetic evolution." (189) [so far so good. recognise that he's speaking of language and culture in GENERAL, without the speed-'advantages' granted by the Net. (foreshadowing? nah, not me...)] "... do we have to go to distant worlds to find other kinds of replicator and other, consequent, kinds of evolution? I think that a new kind of replicator has recently emerged on this very planet. It is staring us in the face. It is still in it's infancy, still drifting clumsily about in its primeval soup [make note of this metaphor; it will be returned to and contextualised in a very short time], but already it is achieving evolutionary change at a rate that leaves the old gene panting far behind. "The new soup is the soup of human culture. We need a name for the new replicator, a noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of *imitation.* 'Mimeme' comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like 'gene.' I hope my classicist friends will forgive me if I abbreviate mimeme to 'meme.' If it is any consolation, it could alternatively be thought of as being related to 'memory,' or to the French word, me^me. It should be pronounced to rhyme with 'cream.'" (192) [just like that. the meme is traceable to this little paragraph, which is why I put the whole thing here. the idea certainly 'resonated' with me (metaphorically speaking), and in time i have come around to a 'definition' of the MEME: a fundamental agent of communicative resonance. another def would be a unit of mimesis, which is closer even to his original phrasing, however vague, and has the advantage of applying specifically to copied behavior between BIOLOGICAL systems...] "Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or building arches." (ibid) [catch the drift?][heh, can't help it; somewhere in my noggin Max Headroom stammers out: "C/c/c/c/c/catch the wave..." and boop. there's a meme-seed right there. ah, Pop (soda) culture. ;) ] "The old gene-selected evolution, by making brains, provided the 'soup' in which the first memes arose. Once self-copying memes had arisen, their own, much faster, kind of evolution took off. ... I have mentioned particular examples of qualities that make for a high survival value among memes. But in general they must be the same as those discussed for the replicators of chapter 2: [which we're getting to] longevity, fecundity [fertility; how often/fast they 'reproduce'], and copying-fidelity." (194) "When we die there are two things we can leave behind us: genes and memes." (199) "The point that I am making now is that, even if we look on the dark side and assume that individual man [and woman] is fundamentally selfish, our conscious foresight -- our capacity to simulate the future in imagination -- could save us from the worst selfish excesses of the blind replicators [the selfish gene]. we have at least the mental equipment to foster our long-term selfish interests rather than merely our short-term selfish interests. We can see the long-term benefits of participating in a 'conspiracy of doves,' and we can sit down together to discuss ways of making the conspiracy work. We have the power to defy the selfish genes of our birth and, if necessary, the selfish memes of our indoctrination. We can even discuss ways of deliberately cultivating and nurturing pure, disinterested altruism -- something that has no place in nature, something that has never existed before in the whole history of the world. We are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power to turn against our creators. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators." (200-201) Whew. now. while i still have your attention... you may think this is a load of hogwash for differring reasons -- I find it to be hog-washish in SEVERAL places. it may be that you don't feel that the genes are "selfish" -- many feminists i have talked to feel this strongly. you may, conversely, feel that altruism of ANY kind is just plain old impossible. but i for one, after reading this text, knew one thing. howEVER i felt about what it asserted, i knew i had to find a comfortable place to hang out for the duration, find my niche in virtuality in particular. i chose "everywhere." the reason is that the Net seems to be a VERY volatile "memetic environment." far FASTER than "everyday life," and even, at times, allowing for more "copy-fidelity." for a moment i had an idea of how the Net might be functioning. then it went away. it didn't come back until i took the leap of employing as metaphor an earlier segment of the text, one in which he discusses the original "primordial soup." IT IS CRUCIAL THAT ALL OF THIS BE CONSIDERED AS METAPHOR -- NO MORE, NO LESS. i'm a Humanities major; i'm ALLOWED to route my project in the direction of cultural metaphor. metaphor is my mathematics. so i started thinking that i could 1: consider the Net as a sort of prototype petri-dish for applied memetics; a sort of "primordial memetic soup" that would actually be easily considerable. and 2: (this was the FAR more liberal assumption) that i could apply the METAPHOR of the meme to dawkins' accounts of GENEtic evolution and get, if NOT anything remotely resembling "truth," then at LEAST some good *METAPHORS.* at this point, i wanted to consider every possibility. we're on the home stretch now. i went back to chapter 2, which discussed the original PRIMORDIAL SOUP, in theorhetical terms. here; i'll just do a running quote of his model, and stick in the appropriate ANALOGIES. you can sort it out. 2: I.NET: "The primeval soup [i.Net] was not capable of supporting an infinite number of replicator molecules [users]. For one thing, the earth's size [number of nodes] is finite, but other limiting factors must also have been important. ... We have considered the factors that would have increased the numbers of favoured kinds of replicator [meme]. We can now see that *less* favoured varieties must have actually become *less* numerous because of competition, and ultimately many of their lines must have gone extinct [defunct]. There was a struggle for existence among replicator varieties [memes]. They [i.Net as a whole] did not know they were struggling, or worry about it; the struggle was conducted without any hard feelings, indeed without feelings of any kind [obviously dawkins has never lurked on alt.flames; this may be the achilles heel of my metaphor. ;) ] But they were struggling, in the sense that any mis-copying that resulted in a new higher level of stability [memetic resonance], or a new way of reducing the stability of rivals [new lurkers/users gained from other regions of i.Net], was automatically preserved and multiplied. The process of improvement was cumulative. Ways of increasing stability and of decreasing rivals' stability became more elaborate and efficient. Some of them may have even 'discovered' how to break up molecules of rival varieties chemically, and to use the building blocks so released for making their own copies. [news.groups; particularly the myriad 'alt' ones... :)] These proto-carnivores simultaneously obtained food and removed competing rivals. Other replicators [memes] perhaps discovered how to protect themselves, either chemically, or by building a physical wall of protein around themselves. [mailing.lists] This may have been how the first cells appeared. Replicators [memes] began not merely to exist, but to construct for themselves living containers, vehicles for their continued existence [mailing.lists...] The replicators that survived were the ones that built *survival machines* for themselves to live in. The first survival machines probably consisted of nothing more than a protective coat. But making a living got steadily harder as new rivals arose with better and more effective survival machines. Survival machines got bigger and more elaborate, and the process was cumulative and progressive. "Was there to be any end to the gradual improvement in the techniques and artifices used by the replicators [memes] to ensure their own continuation in the world [i.Net]?" (19) Whew, again. well, now that i've got this down, i'm not sure if i should even post it. if the analogy holds, it certainly paints a grim picture of i.Net. communities of ensconced users, spewing amongst themselves ideas which are then re-inforced or brutally attacked; gibson has already given us the Sprawl, and a lot of the Net IS under a state of urban warfare, mob rule. i'm not a fan of flames myself... i don't know exactly why. a big reason (intimated earlier) why i.Net's a crucial place for this study of memes is because of the sheer SPEED of transmission/mutation/growth, spread, what-not. it's all just happenning SO fast on here that transcription is practically AUTOMATIC. cyberspace is being determined by the words said in, on, and about it, no doubt in my mind. every casual phrase, every utturance. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS "NOISE." not here. not ever again. if the "metaphor" holds, i.Net can be meaningfully considered as a vague sort of organism-in-progress, and its pseudopods already swell and move with the momentum of our intentions. agents & agencies. all that mumbo-jumbo. as real as anything you see. the QUESTION, then, is this: does the GNOWLEDGE of the influence of the meme, once accepted, CHANGE the scenario any? like playing poker with 5 suits -- does it alter the odds? who knows. it's all a simple "metaphor" for me right now, but i'm involved in a peculiar kind of "research," i'm finding. i'm not supporting the mores of objectivity and non-interaction. heisenberg convinced me of the delusion of THAT approach long ago. the question is, what AM i doing? spreading the word, i guess. get comfy; soon we'll see what we can do. * * * * * * * * * THIS ARTICLE MAY BE DISTRIBUTED AT WILL. * * * * * * * * * * * * I AM NOT, NOR DO I CLAIM TO BE, RICHARD DAWKINS. THE QUOTATIONS EMPLOYED IN THIS ARTICLE WERE ORIGINALLY ACCREDITED FULLY TO HIM. THEY ARE EMPLOYED HERE FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY, NOT FOR PERSONAL OR CORPORATE PROFIT. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ______________________________ Date: 21 Jan 1993 03:25:19 -0600 (CST) From: "free agent .rez" Subject: memetic resonance morpheus: >So the >Leri people who mush with the FC people who mush with the sfrave people who >mush with the extropian people who mush with the telecom digest people who >mush with the cud people who much with the LOD fan club who mush with the >alt.druggie people who much with the comp.lang.c people all become one. >Boredom city, d00dz. (err, sorry, isn't that (tm)ed by Jersey City?) i have yet to become one with anybody... i have yet to lose my identity... and right about now, i'm FAR from "bored..." .rez ______________________________ Date: 21 Jan 1993 02:04:05 -0600 (CST) From: "free agent .rez" Subject: MEMES & I.NET as an organism-in-progress... >That's what I've felt since that weird email/alife thread.. >These grottos overlap to the point that it seems like another life >or personality goes online whenever I read email.. Digital schis. >But from leri-l, FC, alt.cyberpunk, cypherpunks and my time doing >fringeware, the people and memes involved converge to the point of >being more than just ASCII rants. Zat what u mean by net.dark.corners ? >1/e^2 >pxn. ok. ok ok ok ok. ok. so it seems germaine, so i WILL post that essay. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - *TRANS-LIST POSTING* a while ago i sent a message asking a general question about VIRTUAL CULTURE. i've recieved quite a few responses, and they were all enlightening. i figured it was time to give something in return. what it'll be is a very succinct overview of the approach i'm taking to i.Net in general and VIRTUAL CULTURE in particular. i'm in the process of working up a series of 3 articles for general i.Net distribution, but until then, this should fill in some gaps. much of the impetus to embark on my project stems from 2 very pin-downable sources. the primary influence is my personal experiences with the Net; how i became involved, how it has effected MY life. the second, and the main driving force behind my attempt to create a fully functioning academic field in, on and about VIRTUAL CULTURE lies in *inferrences* made after reading a very particular book: "The Selfish Gene," by Richard Dawkins (a professor/ biologist-type fellow at Oxford). in it he introduced 2 very powerful notions. 1: the notion that the GENE "will have been" (always like to speak outside of time once in a while... ;) ) an incessant replicator producing countless "survival machines" (that's us, folks) for the purpose of passing genes on, AND 2: the concept of the MEME; the reason why CULTURAL evolution has NEVERTHELESS quite rapidly outstripped genetic evolution. without further Ado (to which i'm fatally prone), i'll forward the metaphors that are going into this project, couched apologetically in his text. i don't know if the reproduction of bits of his text in here (virtuality) is still in accordance with the Fair Use Laws (as it IS scholarly, this exposition i'm attempting,) but like Gibson and Agrippa, if Dawkins DIDN't expect this to happen, he'd be short-sighted to be surprised by it, as you may infer from the text. i'll make this as short and sweet as i can; *all in quotes is copyright Richard Dawkins, from "The Selfish Gene";* all in [braces] is my exposition. 1: THE MEME. note that this is drawn from one of the LAST chapters in his text, and i'll skip to one of the FIRST after it. he begins the chapter, "Memes: the new replicators" by speaking of cultural evolution. "Geoffery Chaucer could not hold a conversation with a modern englishman, even though they are linked to each other by an unbroken chain of some twenty generations of englishmen, ... Language seems to 'evolve' by non-genetic means, and at a rate which is orders of magnitude faster than genetic evolution." (189) [so far so good. recognise that he's speaking of language and culture in GENERAL, without the speed-'advantages' granted by the Net. (foreshadowing? nah, not me...)] "... do we have to go to distant worlds to find other kinds of replicator and other, consequent, kinds of evolution? I think that a new kind of replicator has recently emerged on this very planet. It is staring us in the face. It is still in it's infancy, still drifting clumsily about in its primeval soup [make note of this metaphor; it will be returned to and contextualised in a very short time], but already it is achieving evolutionary change at a rate that leaves the old gene panting far behind. "The new soup is the soup of human culture. We need a name for the new replicator, a noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of *imitation.* 'Mimeme' comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like 'gene.' I hope my classicist friends will forgive me if I abbreviate mimeme to 'meme.' If it is any consolation, it could alternatively be thought of as being related to 'memory,' or to the French word, me^me. It should be pronounced to rhyme with 'cream.'" (192) [just like that. the meme is traceable to this little paragraph, which is why I put the whole thing here. the idea certainly 'resonated' with me (metaphorically speaking), and in time i have come around to a 'definition' of the MEME: a fundamental agent of communicative resonance. another def would be a unit of mimesis, which is closer even to his original phrasing, however vague, and has the advantage of applying specifically to copied behavior between BIOLOGICAL systems...] "Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or building arches." (ibid) [catch the drift?][heh, can't help it; somewhere in my noggin Max Headroom stammers out: "C/c/c/c/c/catch the wave..." poof. a meme, a seed. just like that. ah, Pop (soda) culture. ;) ] "The old gene-selected evolution, by making brains, provided the 'soup' in which the first memes arose. Once self-copying memes had arisen, their own, much faster, kind of evolution took off. ... I have mentioned particular examples of qualities that make for a high survival value among memes. But in general they must be the same as those discussed for the replicators of chapter 2: [which we're getting to] longevity, fecundity [fertility; how often/fast they 'reproduce'], and copying-fidelity." (194) "When we die there are two things we can leave behind us: genes and memes." (199) "The point that I am making now is that, even if we look on the dark side and assume that individual man [and woman] is fundamentally selfish, our conscious foresight -- our capacity to simulate the future in imagination -- could save us from the worst selfish excesses of the blind replicators [the selfish gene]. we have at least the mental equipment to foster our long-term selfish interests rather than merely our short-term selfish interests. We can see the long-term benefits of participating in a 'conspiracy of doves,' and we can sit down together to discuss ways of making the conspiracy work. We have the power to defy the selfish genes of our birth and, if necessary, the selfish memes of our indoctrination. We can even discuss ways of deliberately cultivating and nurturing pure, disinterested altruism -- something that has no place in nature, something that has never existed before in the whole history of the world. We are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power to turn against our creators. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators." (200-201) Whew. now. while i still have your attention... you may think this is a load of hogwash for differring reasons -- I find it to be hog-washish in SEVERAL places. it may be that you don't feel that the genes are "selfish" -- many feminists i have talked to feel this strongly. you may, conversely, feel that altruism of ANY kind is just plain old impossible. but i for one, after reading this text, knew one thing. howEVER i felt about what it asserted, i knew i had to find a comfortable place to hang out for the duration, find my niche in virtuality in particular. i chose "everywhere." the reason is that the Net seems to be a VERY volatile "memetic environment." far FASTER than "everyday life," and even, at times, allowing for more "copy-fidelity." for a moment i had an idea of how the Net might be functioning. then it went away. it didn't come back until i took the leap of employing as metaphor an earlier segment of the text, one in which he discusses the original "primordial soup." IT IS CRUCIAL THAT ALL OF THIS BE CONSIDERED AS METAPHOR -- NO MORE, NO LESS. i'm a Humanities major; i'm ALLOWED to route my project in the direction of cultural metaphor. metaphor is my mathematics. so i started thinking that i could 1: consider the Net as a sort of prototype petri-dish for applied memetics; a sort of "primordial memetic soup" that would actually be easily considerable. and 2: (this was the FAR more liberal assumption) that i could apply the METAPHOR of the meme to dawkins' accounts of GENEtic evolution and get, if NOT anything remotely resembling "truth," then at LEAST some good *METAPHORS.* at this point, i wanted to consider every possibility. we're on the home stretch now. i went back to chapter 2, which discussed the original PRIMORDIAL SOUP, in theorhetical terms. here; i'll just do a running quote of his model, and stick in the appropriate ANALOGIES. you can sort it out. 2: I.NET: "The primeval soup [i.Net] was not capable of supporting an infinite number of replicator molecules [users]. For one thing, the earth's size [number of nodes] is finite, but other limiting factors must also have been important. ... We have considered the factors that would have increased the numbers of favoured kinds of replicator [meme]. We can now see that *less* favoured varieties must have actually become *less* numerous because of competition, and ultimately many of their lines must have gone extinct [defunct]. There was a struggle for existence among replicator varieties [memes]. They [i.Net as a whole] did not know they were struggling, or worry about it; the struggle was conducted without any hard feelings, indeed without feelings of any kind [obviously dawkins has never lurked on alt.flames; this may be the achilles heel of my metaphor. ;) ] But they were struggling, in the sense that any mis-copying that resulted in a new higher level of stability [memetic resonance], or a new way of reducing the stability of rivals [new lurkers/users gained from other regions of i.Net], was automatically preserved and multiplied. The process of improvement was cumulative. Ways of increasing stability and of decreasing rivals' stability became more elaborate and efficient. Some of them may have even 'discovered' how to break up molecules of rival varieties chemically, and to use the building blocks so released for making their own copies. [news.groups; particularly the myriad 'alt' ones... :)] These proto-carnivores simultaneously obtained food and removed competing rivals. Other replicators [memes] perhaps discovered how to protect themselves, either chemically, or by building a physical wall of protein around themselves. [mailing.lists] This may have been how the first cells appeared. Replicators [memes] began not merely to exist, but to construct for themselves living containers, vehicles for their continued existence [mailing.lists...] The replicators that survived were the ones that built *survival machines* for themselves to live in. The first survival machines probably consisted of nothing more than a protective coat. But making a living got steadily harder as new rivals arose with better and more effective survival machines. Survival machines got bigger and more elaborate, and the process was cumulative and progressive. "Was there to be any end to the gradual improvement in the techniques and artifices used by the replicators [memes] to ensure their own continuation in the world [i.Net]?" (19) Whew, again. well, now that i've got this down, i'm not sure if i should even post it. if the analogy holds, it certainly paints a grim picture of i.Net. communities of ensconced users, spewing amongst themselves ideas which are then re-inforced or brutally attacked; gibson has already given us the Sprawl, and a lot of the Net IS under a state of urban warfare, mob rule. i'm not a fan of flames myself... i don't know exactly why. here's the other reason the Net is so crucial, memetically. it was intimated earlier. memes in i.Net have the capacity to spread/mutate/grow/die so *FAST* ... at SUCH a high turnover. once i was armed with the "metaphor" of the MEME, i could actually make some semblance of sense out of the "motion of the whole," if that can even reasonably be said of i.Net at this point. i think it can. i really, truly, do. and i think the "metaphor" holds. the Net is as alive as we are, and its pseudopods are filled with our motivations. the QUESTION, then, is this: does the GNOWLEDGE of the influence of the meme, once accepted, CHANGE the scenario any? like playing poker with 5 suits -- does it alter the odds? who knows. it's all a simple metaphor for me right now, but i'm involved in a peculiar kind of "research," i'm finding. i'm not supporting the mores of objectivity and non-interaction. heisenberg convinced me of the delusion of THAT approach long ago. the question is, what AM i doing? spreading the word, i guess. get comfy, and we'll see what we can do. * * * THIS ARTICLE, AFTER CONSIDERATION, MAY BE REPRODUCED AT WILL * * * * * I AM NOT RICHARD DAWKINS, NOR AM I ATTEMPTING TO PRESENT MYSELF THUSLY.* * * * THIS ARTICLE IS PART OF AN ACADEMIC PROJECT. FREE USE LAWS APPLY.* * ______________________________ From: uucp@swift.sw.oz.au (Uucp administration) Subject: Warning From UUCP Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 23:58:33 AESST We have been unable to contact machine 'peg' since you queued your job. peg!mail passn8 (Date 01/19) The job will be deleted in several days if the problem is not corrected. If you care to kill the job, execute the following command: uustat -kpegCaaf3 Postmaster@swift.sw.oz.au Sincerely, swift!uucp ############################################# ##### Data File: ############################ ______________________________ From: ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu (max legroom) Subject: Stuphs Date: Mon, 18 Jan 93 18:31:20 MST Just some stuph to rattle-rattle on about.... -=) The Weekly FC Administrativa thing was messed up, somehow..The digest list got deleted somehow last nite, so I had to put a backup copy in.... So if you unsubscribed from the digest between 1AM ET and 8AM ET on Jan. 18, you're still on the list...So, we actually have 699 members (ooo, very sexual) not 417, which isn't that sexual.... |This ice cream cake floated by..floated between my legs.... | | it didn't hurt because Mr. Rogers kissed it and made it | better... | | the talking cockroach.... | | [alarm] | Oops, sorry, that wasn't me.....=) -=) Thanx to Scotto for his last post which was the net.highlite of my day... -=) If Paco reads this, could you forward that post to the Fringeware list about your [potential, but hopefully soon2b-real] catalog? Or maybe someone else could forward it here...I just thought there might be a decent amount of interest on this list... -=) I hope all of you caught the report about Wired on CNN by now, since I don't think they'll be showing it this week....It wAs also nice to see a couple people from this list and the net in general on the report....I could probably transcribe it since, of course, I tape everything like that from tv, but you'll miss the aesthetic of the mag... latez... -- ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu FutureCulture: In/f0rmation ahawks@mindvox.phantom.com future-request@nyx.cs.du.edu ______________________________ From: uucp@swift.sw.oz.au (Uucp administration) Subject: Warning From UUCP Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 23:47:46 AESST We have been unable to contact machine 'peg' since you queued your job. peg!mail passn8 (Date 01/19) The job will be deleted in several days if the problem is not corrected. If you care to kill the job, execute the following command: uustat -kpegCaaa5 Postmaster@swift.sw.oz.au Sincerely, swift!uucp ############################################# ##### Data File: ############################ ______________________________ From: ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu (freud is my mother) Subject: Re: Anti-Hacker Hysteria... Date: Sun, 17 Jan 93 18:00:58 MST New fresh-scented *Christopher L. Tumber* (150% real fruit juices!) says: | |My sociologist girfriend has to do a paper for her propaganda class. |She's considering writing about anti-hacker media hysteria/propaganda |if I can supply her with enough material. | |I have some of the obvious sources (Forbes, Stuff on the 2600 Washington |Flack, EFF stuff) but I don't want to miss anything. Specifically, |anything from the past year or so is best. With print media and TV/Radio |in particular being most important (I know, I know, but the whole point |is mass media manipulation etc..) Ok, here's some off-hand notable media stuff from the past couple years: CYberpunks by Katie Hafner and John Markoff The Hacker Crackdown by Bruce Sterling (those are both books) PumpCon/H0h0Con stuff (check out recent 2600's or ftp.eff.org) read CuD (ftp.eff.org pub/cud/cud) Phrack (ftp.eff.org pub/cud/phrack) Steve Jackson games (ftp.eff.org pub/SJG) Mindvox (telnet phantom.com) "EFF as hacker defense fund" (ftp.eff.org) Tv Shows I can remember: Geraldo's thing (I transcribed it, which is avai;lable on ftp.eff.org) (Now It Can Be Told) Hackers on Dateline NBC (LoD guys, I think I also wrote up the transcript on ftp.eff.org) There's a report on CNN right now about downloading kiddie-porn and other porn from BBSes -- ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu FutureCulture: In/f0rmation ahawks@mindvox.phantom.com future-request@nyx.cs.du.edu ______________________________ From: uucp@swift.sw.oz.au (Uucp administration) Subject: Warning From UUCP Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 23:54:01 AESST We have been unable to contact machine 'peg' since you queued your job. peg!mail passn8 (Date 01/19) The job will be deleted in several days if the problem is not corrected. If you care to kill the job, execute the following command: uustat -kpegCaacf Postmaster@swift.sw.oz.au Sincerely, swift!uucp ############################################# ##### Data File: ############################ ______________________________ From: ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu (andy) Subject: Weekly FC Administrivia Date: Mon, 18 Jan 93 10:00:06 MST ______________________________________________________________________ |______________ / | | / | | u t u r e <___________ u l t u r e | _______________________________________________________________________| ________________________________________________________________________________ Vital ListStats as of January 18th 1993: Realtime: 254 Digest : FAQ-Only: 163 ::::::::: Total : 417 Current Digest is Issue #183. ________________________________________________________________________________ To post to the FutureCulture list, send your message to: future@nyx.cs.du.edu ALL Requests to FutureCulture must be sent to: future-request@nyx.cs.du.edu [All request messages should garner an auto-reply msg. ] [If future-request does not *consistently* work for you ] [then please send your message to: ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu] The subject of request mail must have one of the following: subscribe realtime -subscribe in realtime (reflector) format subscribe digest -subscribe in daily-digest (1 msg / day format) subscribe faq -subscribe to faq only (1 msg every few months) unsubscribe realtime unsubscribe digest unsubscribe faq help -receive a help file send info -receive this file send faq -receive a recent copy of the faq if you need one (list subscribers *automatically* receive this) send agrippa -Gibson's poem send agr1ppa -PKK's work * When unsubscribing, you must unsubscribe from the same address you subscribed from. (IMPORTANT!) * Right now, unsubscriptions usually don't work so well, thus you might have to send a message to me at ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu. (Try future-request@nyx.cs.du.edu first!!). When sending unsubscribe mail to me at ahawks, please put 'unsubscribe ' in the header where = realtime|digest|faq. * To change formats, first send a message unsubscribing from the crrent format, and then send another message to resubscribe. * Please note that when posting to the list, you should expect to receive at least 1 "Failed Mail" message because, inevitably, there is a problem with the addresses of one or more of the subscribers. Sorry. list administrator: andy (hawkeye)(dali)(freshjive) ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu ahawks@mindvox.phantom.com _______________________________________________________________________________ I do not keep archives of the digests, or the list in general. So, if you're looking for archives, I can't help you out, probably. But it wouldn't hurt to ask on the list. If you're looking for an FTP site that carries FutureCulture related stuff, try: ftp.css.itd.umich.edu /poli/future.culture.d ftp.eff.org pub/cud/papers/future ftp.u.washington.edu public/alt.cyberpunk redspread.css.itd.umich.edu If you have IRC access, look for the '#future' channel. If it's not there, start it up! Don't wait for the #future, make the #future. =) You can also find the FutureCulture FAQ on the IRC, with the #CyberPunk Bot. Join Channel #CyberPunk and type: /msg CyberBot send info. _______________________________________________________________________________ If the list is dead, you might try posting something new. Here are some suggestions: computer underground cyberculture cyberpunk (literary and cultural movements) cyberspace new edge nootropics or other drugs raves technoculture virtual reality music, movies, books, magazines that fit into the mold _____________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________ From: uucp@swift.sw.oz.au (Uucp administration) Subject: Warning From UUCP Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 23:51:30 AESST We have been unable to contact machine 'peg' since you queued your job. peg!mail passn8 (Date 01/19) The job will be deleted in several days if the problem is not corrected. If you care to kill the job, execute the following command: uustat -kpegCaabd Postmaster@swift.sw.oz.au Sincerely, swift!uucp ############################################# ##### Data File: ############################ ______________________________ From: ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu (the bladerunner) Subject: Re: your mail Date: Sun, 17 Jan 93 9:28:50 MST New fresh-scented *Paul Fly* (150% real fruit juices!) says: | |I think its safe to say that less than 1 out of 10 people who take large |dosed of TV on a regular basis suffer negative side effects. But that |doesn't excuse the millions of people from not going out and researching |its history, its culture, its technical specifications. Those are the type |of people prone to becoming numbed vegetables. These are the people who've |become so clouded they don't even know what to blame their dead-end life |on. | |This is why I support the prohibition of TV. | |> but if [LSD] is to |> become legal to the degree that say alcohol is, then, odds are you're |> going to only have more societal problems. |[some statistics deleted] | |I agree, that's why I support the prohibition of driving. | |In fact, the works of Plato, Hume, and all those thoughtful people from the |past should be burned. People will work harder if they don't have "deep |philosophical" things to think about. There should be books of praise to |the Assembly Line and the Typing Pool. Gods of Labor. This is why I |support the Movement to Make Art Illegal (MMAI). | |> So, umm, if anyone replies to this, I'd especially be interested in |> people's opinions regarding evolution and psychedelics. | |sarcasm mode off. Well, I think that the effects of making LSD legal on |society are too complex to predict, period. The only way to find out is to |do it. To say "well, it seems like it will be bad, so let's not do it" is |akin, in my mind, to living a life of 9 to 5 work days without ever taking |a chance and trying something new because its scary. I think we should give a uzi to every living individual when they turn 18 so they can protect themselves from the violent world we live in. The effects of everyone having the same gun are too complex to predict, so let's just go ahead and do it. same logic, basically. I liked your post up until this point, where, honestly I thought it became quite wierd. Life is a series of intricate balances, and those careful balances have evolved from "just do it" attitudes...The more advanced we become, the more careful and delicate the balances of society. This is how we learn from our mistakes. If we didn't learn from our misstakes, the world would be *total* anarchy, history would *constantly* repeat itself. But since we learn somewhat from our mistakes, we don't live in complete anarchy and history doesn't constantly repeat itself ("it just rhymes" - Chris Beaumont said that, I believe).... The effects are not too complex too predict...Nothing is too complex to predict...I think your statement is the perfect implication for holding off until more research can be done, until we have a relatively large understanding of the brain and the mind in relation to hallucinations...This comes from scientific work, not just from people like Lilly and Leary, and it also depends on technology, which takes time.... Rushing into something like this without a suficient scientific understanding, without a sociological understanding, is IMHO just dumb and goes against what society has learned from itself. That is why legalization only for psychiatric use is a good idea. ______________________________ From: there,! |Anyhow, I make no claims to having the faintest clue as to what will happen |in the future, and what effect a change will cause, and I'm skeptical of |anyone who claims to have such knowledge. All I can say is what I know |myself. That's a good start, but odds are even though you've tripped a lot that you don't know all of yourself, otherwise, if everyone knew all of themselves, we would've reached the peak of human experience, and given that the future potentially offers growth that is proof that we haven't reached the high point of existence. I personally believe we're far from it. Anyway, predicting future trends is practically a science. Predicting future trends is how one succeeds in the world, since it increases your understanding of the present as well as the future. I heartily despise the "sit back and see wht happens" attitude since it is very passive. I can't stand a passive existence anymore. It's basically leeching off the world, IMHO. If you're not out there, changing your reality, working for success in your future reality, and if you're not making any contribution to society, then why live? It seems to me that a passivity towards the future is only anxiety rationalized. Anxiety of the unknown seems practically inherent in people. If that wasn't the case we wouldn't have prejudice, racism, wars, etc. |Every time I've tripped, I've come out with something very |important to me, realizations about myself and the situation I'm in, |Answers (disclaimer: Answers only within the independent memetic stew of my |consciousness, nothing objective). And every time at some point I remember |that what I've just done is illegal and it shocks me. Every time. From my |subjective vantage point on this Life and the World thing, its a serious |crime that this is illegal. Again I'd like to say that some people who feel they're happy and in a good state of mind have had bad experiences with LSD that have the potential of forever altering their realiy in a way which they are apparently inable or unprepared to cope with. Because it's the answer for you doesn't mean it's the answer for everybody. BTW, is it just more or does it seem that just about everyone who trips frequently loses some sense of objectivity in their relation with their world? It's subtle in this post, it's evident on the net, and it's clearly visible in Timothy Leary. Personally and with my friends I've found it to not only increase the area of subjective reality but objective as well, but when you come to the net and talk about it, most people seem to lose a sense of the dimensions of society and sometimes even the fact that everyone is ultiamtely intertwined, and everyone affects everyone, and that people function on an infinite specrtum of sensabilities and relations. -- ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu FutureCulture: In/f0rmation ahawks@mindvox.phantom.com future-request@nyx.cs.du.edu ______________________________ From: uucp@swift.sw.oz.au (Uucp administration) Subject: Warning From UUCP Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 23:53:23 AESST We have been unable to contact machine 'peg' since you queued your job. peg!mail passn8 (Date 01/19) The job will be deleted in several days if the problem is not corrected. If you care to kill the job, execute the following command: uustat -kpegCaac7 Postmaster@swift.sw.oz.au Sincerely, swift!uucp ############################################# ##### Data File: ############################ ______________________________ From: ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu (freud is my mother) Subject: Re: your mail Date: Sun, 17 Jan 93 17:53:20 MST New fresh-scented *Scotto* (150% real fruit juices!) says: | |The fun continues... | |>I think we should give a uzi to every living individual when they turn |>18 so they can protect themselves from the violent world we live in. |>The effects of everyone having the same gun are too complex to |>predict, so let's just go ahead and do it. |>same logic, basically. | |It may be the same logical *form*, but it is not at all the same logic. LSD |and UZIs are two *distinct* entities, and it is a fallacy to compare them in |this fashion. Yet if I substituted the word pillow for uzi and gun, would you reply this way? Pillows can be dangerous, like you've said before, and can be weapons. But noone frets about giving everyone in the world a pillow. You don't have to be 21 and undergo a waiting period and background check when you walk into K-Mart to buy a pillow. A pillow is a weapon, LSD could be a weapon (here, have some wine :: what kind is it? lace...errr white! )... Getting back to the original jive of the conversation, I think it's fairly safe to say that sufficient research and planning predating action has its benefits when society as a whole is concerned. I'm diluting that statement pretty heavily from my original comments in hopes of reaching a common ground. |>Rushing into something like this without a suficient scientific |>understanding, without a sociological understanding, is IMHO just dumb |>and goes against what society has learned from itself. | |Society hasn't learned *jack* from itself. So, technology doesn't exist? |Society legalizes alcohol and |tobacco, the two most dangerous, addictive, and destructive drugs available |(short of, perhaps, ice), while restricting *marijuana* and LSD. Society is a |morass of jumbled opinions, *not* an independent entity capable of making |reasonable distinctions. I see a tendency in this discussion towards |emphasizing those users who "freak out" while basically ignoring the untold |numbers who have no problems with this substance or others like it. Well, in my own defense, I've tried to put acorss the idea that LSD is great for the right people in the right circumstances, it can also be harmful for the wrong people under the wrong circumstances. I don't see myself as Nancy Reagan or Art Linkletter, and I'm sure most of my friends I hang around would agree to that. (hehehe, quite the opposite if you know me and some of the shit I've done). Alcohol and tobacco are a must adress in this thread, of course. I agree that both are harmful. You shouldn't drive drunk, but people do anyway. You also shouldn't be peaking while you drive, but I've tried it anyway, and I know other people have. Alcohol and togbacco are a more physically addicting then LSD and marijuana, that is true, and that increases the risks of possible dangers like deaths from drunk drivers. I personally see no reason pot shouldn't be re-legalized, especially considering all the benefits of hemp. I'm wearing a shirt made with it right now, and I signed the petition here in Colorado last year. The only problem I have with marijuana comes from friends who are baked EVERY DAY. I mean, they're cool people, but I wish they would expand their minds and explore *other* aspects of life - see it from different angles, different perspectives, etc. I feel that people (or at least me, since this is my own personal philosophy) should constantly be redefining their angles and perspectives on things. If you get stoned or trip every day, you're still viewing life from one perspective no matter how infinite your mind seems - it stil all stems from LSD. Ok, for example, (I wanna make this clearer), let's say that a person agrees with the philosophy that when you're tripping, that's your unconscious mind, since you're pre-conscious mind is done away with via LSD. So, everything you see means something to you and is from your unconscious mind - nothing is repressed. However, enduring repression is another, different perspective which is, in my mind, equally valid. (If you want to get existential, this is ultimately like saying chaos is as valid as some linear design, heaven as valid as hell, the infinite as valid as the void.) In my own life, I occasionaly use alcohol, but I don't abuse it, under standards set by my self, my group of friends, or society at large. Works for me, and I don't appreciate people shoving down my throat not to drink, yet I also do not go to high schools and advocate that the legal drinking age be dropped to 14 since I've had great experiences with it. |>That's a good start, but odds are even though you've tripped a lot |>that you don't know all of yourself, otherwise, if everyone knew all |>of themselves, we would've reached the peak of human experience, and |>given that the future potentially offers growth that is proof that we |>haven't reached the high point of existence. I personally believe |>we're far from it. | |This doesn't relate to Paul's argument. Paul *knows* the risks, so it's |acceptable for him to continue tripping, even though eventually, maybe, |someday, who knows, he might freak out. And there is *no* proof that we |haven't reached the high point of existence -- *potential* does not translate |into *proof*. I like to be optimistic about the future as well, but this is a |delicate topic, and caution is required. (heh) I find proof of humanity not having reached the high point in existence in that technology exists, and continues to develop, and that our world changes. Then some people would say, well, that doesn't necessarily mean we haven't already reached the "high point" of existence - we could just be leftovers of primordial soup swirling about with no direction. But even if that's the case, we sure haven't explored the whole bowl of soup, so let's keep going. Wouldn't we be somewhat aware of it if we had already reached the high point of existence? Then it would probably be Jim-Jones^100, mass suicide. Anyway, I see existence as a sine wave. The two extremes are the balances of nature (orde v. chaos, heaven v. hell, infinite v. void, black v. white, summer v. winter, macintosh v. ibm, life v. death, objectivity v. subjectivity, reality v. fiction, noise v. silence, etc.), and as we travel along it is natural to tend to move towards one of the extremes, not to sit in the middle. This is what keeps society going, IMHO, these infinite amount of sine waves that travel along in perpindiculars and parallels and that can be zoomed in and zoomed out on, and everything becomes relative to some other point somewhere on the same or different line. [please excuse me a second while I turn on The Shamen's Re: Evolution] =) |>If you're not out there, changing your |>reality, working for success in your future reality, and if you're not |>making any contribution to society, then why live? It seems to me |>that a passivity towards the future is only anxiety rationalized. | |And someone like Baba Ram Dass, or the gang over on BUDDHA-L, might disagree |with you. And they might be right, within their own internal paradigms. That's true. i should've filled that part with tons of IMHO's. Ultimately we don't know what's right and wrong, since we don't have a reference point (ie, Origin) on those sine waves I ranted about. But, ultimately all we can do is find something that works for us as an individual, offer it to society, and respond and react to society's consensus feedback of our offering and then we may want to change our viewpoints if we encounter something from society's feedback that we didn't acknowledge before and then apply that to our lives. That's how I've come to my opinions about legalization of LSD, there were some things I overlooked in my initial opinions when I tripped of "fuck, let's just put it in the water supply". As I zoom in closer on this sine wive, I'm sure I'll refine my opinions and adjust. Scotto has helped greatly with this - I'm thinking maybe I should be less anal about my opinions - Scotto's been my zoom (woah-ho, double meaning, if you know stuff about Leri =) in this case, and the more I offer up my opinions, the more I can refine them and tune into a point that works for me as an individual and also other aspects of society. I hope Scotto does the same, I hope everyone on the net does the same - just put your opinions out there ven if you feel they're for shit. My mind just reached a gridpoint that's a tangent to another meme, and that is the old "Bury Usenet" thread that appeared on the net and in a recent issue of Intertek. Bruce Sterling, who I admire greatly, said he didn't read Usenet cuz he thought it was a waste of time. I feel that no form of communication can be a waste of time, and the above paragraph explains why I feel this way. I'm putting my opinions out there for people to consider, and the best part of all is I'm getting feedback on my opinions and can adjust them if I feel I should. PS: Tom Maddox wrote a column for Locus in which he basically said the opposite and talked about the benefits of net.communication (in which he mentioned FutureCulture, BTW!), so look out for that one. |>Again I'd like to say that some people who feel they're happy and in a |>good state of mind have had bad experiences with LSD that have the |>potential of forever altering their realiy in a way which they are |>apparently inable or unprepared to cope with. Because it's the answer |>for you doesn't mean it's the answer for everybody. | |But if it IS the answer for me, I WANT IT. End of story. End of story is ok with me...I'm subjectively poooped!! This goes back to my last couple paragraphs about putting opinions out there and shit...If it works for you, that's cool. It works for me as well, and my story is along the same lines of the alcoholic on 48 Hrs who credited LSD with saving his life - honestly, I don't know if I'd be here if I hadn't "found" acid - pre-acid I found no meaning to life, now I find every meaning in life. But again if it works for you and the people you've encountered, that doesn't necessarily imply it'll work for everybody - more research is needed, IMHO. |>BTW, is it just more or does it seem that just about everyone who |>trips frequently loses some sense of objectivity in their relation |>with their world? It's subtle in this post, it's evident on the net, |>and it's clearly visible in Timothy Leary. | |The philosophy of subjectivism clearly predates LSD use in this country, Andy. |:) Seriously, at the heart of "Thus Spake Zarathustra" is the same sort of |subjective nihilism you've been discussing in this thread. It's not at all Nihilism? If I offered up complete nihilism I must've been playing devil's advocate. |subtle in this post; I know Paul rather well (comparatively speaking), and he |has certainly displayed subjective tendencies. As far as "evident on the net, |so what? The opposite is also evident; I'm certainly no more a hard core |subjectivist than I am an objectivist -- either way, I only have x amount of |time to get off while I'm here. And as for Timothy Leary, let's not forget th |fact that he is also approaching *senility*, as he himself has admitted on mor |than one occasion. He's over seventy years old, and *some* humans at that age |are past their intellectual prime. On the objective/subjective thing, you also could've said that Usenet at its essence is a subjective forum, void of clear emotion other than smileys and obvious stuff, so that my saying that people on the net are mostly subjective is just my own interpretation of what I read, which is of course subjective, which means I would be included in the group I was referring to in the first place! |>Personally and with my |>friends I've found it to not only increase the area of subjective |>reality but objective as well, but when you come to the net and talk |>about it, most people seem to lose a sense of the dimensions of |>society and sometimes even the fact that everyone is ultiamtely |>intertwined, and everyone affects everyone, and that people function |>on an infinite specrtum of sensabilities and relations. | |And you're telling me that science can *predict* what this infinity will be? |I am *not* responsible for the infinity; if I were, the infinity would go to |fucking rot. I am responsible for those things which I *choose* to be |responsible for, and primarily among those is myself. This is a great statement, I agree completely 100%. Yiu're only responsible for yourself, and even then only what you're aware of within yourself. I think that if infinity exists, then everything is intertwined so "I am yours, you are mine, you are what you are." fits well. We're all each other, someplace, somespace, sometime, somehow. |True altruism is impossible. I agree. see above. |It so happens that one of the things that makes *me* happy is |seeing *others* happy; the synergy, I've found, is wonderful and expressive. |go months at a time without touching any sort of drug whatsoever, and there ar |periods within those months where I am a subjectivist, and periods where I am |an objectivist. I refuse to be classified in such general terms. I think the majority of people are always at least a little of both. I know I am, or at least I think I know I am. My friends tell me I am, or my friends tell me they think....oh, forget it....=) My use of drugs seems comparable to yours, sometimes it dwindles greatly (once a year or less), and there's other times it might increase. And I to ogo between times of being really subjective or objectively oriented. Right now I'm in a real objective space, but that's decreasing since I've been spending more time on the net. (Mostly in this conversation!). I find myself struggling to be objective and be in an objective/concrete-reality space when I'm on the net, but it's easy when you're sitting with some friends at Village Inn at 3am - I love both, and all spaces in between. |To say "mos |people seem to lose..." makes me want to ask, "Which people in particular? |Where can I go to read them? Or is this just what Andy has seen in his corner |of the net?" That's true. Obviously I don't surf the whole net, and the forums/lists I hang around now usually tend to be fairly self-oriented, opinionated and subjectively-orientated. Particularly rave lists and newsgroup, and alt.cyberpunk, both of which deal with self-oriented people trying to get together to build some sort of community yet each individual has their own clear designs on what the community is all about. |You used to be on Leri, Andy -- how many of those folks do you |suppose would admit to being a true subjectivist? I'm still there, and I can I don't know if there's such a thing as a *true* subjectivist. |count two, perhaps three, and Paul is one of them (so if he *isn't* actually, |there ya go...) No butt-kissing intended, but Leri is the best community within the net, IMHO. It has a wide spectrum of people from varying backgrounds, with different perspectives and opinions, and who can get together and explode creatively (which further propels the community), philosophically, and can communicate on an incredibly large variety of levels. Within one post from one person you might find a poem, a political rant, a new philosophical diatribe, an acid revelation, and a summary of how that eprson is feeling about their day. It's great. I only wish I had the time which is necessary to devote to be part of the community. But I've commited myself to other parts of the net which I feel somewhat responsible for (like this list and shit). It sounds wank, but when I read Leri "I laughed, I cried." - it's light-hearted, it's serious, and it's reality. it's cool. Leri is probably a prototype of electro-commun[iti]es to be established in the future. And it's a great one. |Good topic here. The Culture of the Future will *certainly* involve |psychedelics and other mind-altering practices, and it's good to explore the |ramifications of that well in advance.... We haven't even mentioned the growing popularity of other drugs, like ecstacy, and we haven't talked about if ketamine will play a substantial role in drug culture. And smart drugs, and buddha's wearing walkman's, and mind machines, and Lilly tanks, and......... PS: I'm watching eMpTV and I just saw one of their self-promos where they put the familiar logo at the end, and it was called "the collective unconscious"....A must see for anyone with an interest in this type of stuff.....Wow, eMpTV gets hip..whoda thunk.... -- ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu FutureCulture: In/f0rmation ahawks@mindvox.phantom.com future-request@nyx.cs.du.edu ______________________________ Subject: univeral truths answered. CHEAP! From: paulk@mindvox.phantom.com (Paul Kerrios) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 11:26:54 EST > I am very confused I wrote Lord Digital and asked him a question about my > brand new 14.4 HST megA_WArEZ modem and he replied with something about > his dog and sexual feelings. I'm not sure but I think he broke my mind > can I sue my psychiatrist? In a word yes, don't forget to tag on at least 6 figures for my added personal consultation fee. > What is Wired and where can I contact them and who do they think they are > anyway??????? Never fear, I have gotten the secret inside scoop on Wired. I wrote them a long letter asking just these questions and not being able to stand up to my scrutiny, they buckled under and admitted that if I gave them my credit card they would sell me their magazine. Good Deal, I'm excited! > I am unique no one will ever have me present in their group, no matter that > no one has ever asked me they couldn't have me join if they begged, I laugh > at them all AH HAH HAHAHAHAHAHHA and shake with sheer boredom! Uh that's great, keep up the good work uh... hmmmm never heard of you, I'm still listening though, now where did I leave that 3 foot tall LOD media clipping pile and Timothy Leary encounter group listing........ > I have taken acid and called Mindvox and read the works of Jim Morrison and > james dean while hanging upside down from the rafters in my batman outfit, > but for some reason all I could do was visualize a pile of mud and then me > becoming the mud and I'm soooooooo bored. Hmmmm.... your distress stems from being a very boring person. Smoke three vials of angel dust and call me in the morning. that's all for today ______________________________ From: Andrew S Hall Subject: WIRED online? Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 12:07:22 EST I may have missed it, but can someone tell me the number or (esp) internet number for WIRED online? If it has been on the list, just E-mail it to me. Thanks, Andrew Hall ashall@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu ______________________________ Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 13:12:07 -0500 From: ah185@yfn.ysu.edu (Christopher L. Tumber) Subject: 7-11's Andy bemoans lengthy unemployment lines... >I need to get a new job next week. >There's alwwas 7-11. Hey! I worked in a 7-11! It was a cool, psychotic kinda thing. The perfect place for a young man to enter into the bizness world. 'Course the free subs were the best part! Well, next to the whoors... _________________________________________________________________________ | | | 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. | |_________________________________________________________________________|