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Pit Stop Manifesto

1. Internet culture will bring the US, Western Europe, and the UK closer in to mental alignment,

2. HOWEVER, Internet users account for a small percentage of the population, generally the better informed and more upscale segment. This base of people will watch less television as a result. Therefore, the audience for television programming will become "dumbed down", OR, certain programs will have to become "smarted up"... we're definitely seeing this occur in the United States... one programming style for the computer/net literate, and one for those who are not... the gap between them is increasing...

3. net driven culture will not be limited to the net...it will become its own worldview, with its own polities, its own mindset, its own consumer patterns, its own ways of relating across generations...

4. Eastern Europe, Former Soviet Union, Africa, Southeast Asia, China, South America will have significant political reasons from The Top to resist internet access... people with secrets to keep DON"T like the implications... just like the aftershock of Romania when Nicole and Ilena Ceausescu were shot... the Old Guard got VERY paranoid...

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. therefore, watch for "offshore" dissidence, and the coordination of information about internal struggles/realities with Amnesty International, and other freedom service organizations...

6. watch for other outgrowths of information freedom, such as small, low powered radio stations defying central authority, and novel forms of tax evasion and pleasure seeking... (like Sex Zones in Thailand linking to Japanese businessmen desiring Fucking Vacations or Get High Zones linking to drug consumers or Enlightenment Zones when people can go for spiritual stuff...)

7. following on #6, the world becoming Zones of Permission and Zones Of Denial... for instance, one goes to Singapore Zone to get incredible microelectronic engineering done at a good price then goes to Buddha Zone then goes to Party Zone... international government becomes Zoning Board Politics...

8. "art" as we understand it becomes replace with integrated multi-media experiences. Art Museums become Artifact Museums...

9. political candidates and "cause activists" start mailing out CD ROMS, and the people that used to be artists are employed to design these things...

10. new technology rich religions appear, but people will be very cautious because of the experience with the Church of Scientology. The Church of Scientology will get in a LOT more trouble than anyone expected, and it will turn out that they have major dirt n big players, and that is why they have gotten away with it for so long.

11, a new personality structure will appear, or, we should say, a new pathology/neurosis of Passive Agressive Neo-Idiot, the residue of old bureaucratic forms that cannot/will not adapt. There will also be evolving standards of criminal sophistication, causing Neo-Crime. Neo-Idiots and Neo Criminals will lead to deep social reaction. In the United States Neo-Idiots and Neo-Criminals will become more allied with the Laywer/Judge class in figuring out ways to "work the system". The system will respond by become high-surveillance, data-base intensive, replacing potential trouble causing people with automation and robotics wherever possible.