Some Critical Thoughts About The Rise Of The
Net Culture
- Internet culture will bring the US, Western Europe, and the UK closer in
tomental alignment,
- 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 arenot... the gap between them is increasing...
- 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...
- Eastern Europe, Former Soviet Union, Africa, Southeast Asia, China,
SouthAmerica will have significant political reasons from The Top to resist
internetaccess... people with secrets to keep DON"T like the implications... just
likethe aftershock of Romania when Nicole and Ilena Ceausescu were shot... the
OldGuard got VERY paranoid...
- therefore, watch for 'offshore' dissidence, and the coordination ofinformation
about internal struggles/realities with Amnesty International, andother freedom
service organizations...
- watch for other outgrowths of information freedom, such as small, lowpowered
radio stations defying central authority, and novel forms of taxevasion and
pleasure seeking... (like Sex Zones in Thailand linking to Japanese businessmen
desiring Fucking Vacations or Get High Zones linking to drugconsumers or
Enlightenment Zones when people can go for spiritual stuff...)
- 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 thengoes to Party
Zone... international government becomes Zoning Board Politics...
- 'art' as we understand it becomes replace with integrated
multi-mediaexperiences. Art Museums become Artifact Museums...
- political candidates and "cause activists" start mailing out CD ROMS, and the
people that used to be artists are employed to design these things...
- 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 willt urn
out that they have major dirt and big players, and that is why they have gotten
away with it for so long.
- 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/ willnot adapt. There will also be evolving
standards of criminal sophistication, causing Neo-Crime. Neo-Idiots and
NeoCriminals will lead to deep social reaction. In the United States
Neo-Idiotsand Neo-Criminals will become more allied with the Laywer/Judge class
infiguring out ways to "work the system". The system will respond by
becomehigh-surveillance, data-base intensive, replacing potential trouble
causingpeople with automation and robotics wherever possible.
Morgan Garwood (morgan.garwood@thing.nyx.ny.us)
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