[10832] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
FINS
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Public-Access Computer Systems For)
Mon Nov 18 21:58:26 1996
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 12:33:32 -0600 (CST)
From: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <LIBPACS@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU>
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU>
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU>
From: Vigdor Schreibman - FINS <fins@access.digex.net>
Subject: Electric Minds
-------Republication is Authorized Only When Message is Kept Intact-------
FINS: Communicating the Emerging Philosophy of The Information Age
FEDERAL INFORMATION NEWS SYNDICATE
Vol IV, Issue No. 24 (116 lines) November 18, 1996
CLOSING THE "VALUES-GAP":
Electric Minds
By Vigdor Schreibman
Steve Cisler, at Apple Library of the Future, reports that
Howard Rheingold, author of The Virtual Community (1993),
established, "Electric Minds," on the web, Nov 11, 1996 [Fins-
VCL-08]. As previously mentioned, David Bohm, a quantum
physicist, says that human thought is largely a "collective
phenomenon," drawing an analogy between the "collective
properties of particles and the way in which thought works"
[Fins-NC4-23]. So what can one say of thought particles
generated in digital code, by "electric minds" in cyberspace?
The driving principles generated by the thought particles in
Electric Minds are easy to grasp. Computers have made possible
institutions that are far more complex than human beings are
capable of dealing with and in lots of ways computers have
"junked up the intellectual atmosphere." Consumers are
overwhelmingly interested in superficiality and glitz,
quantity over quality, shallowness, which computer glitz
machines, have exacerbated, brewing "an intellectual and
cultural disaster." Scientifically it is just the opposite.
"The science of computation has turned the world of science
upside down ... In technical, engineering, and scientific
contexts, computers have outstripped our wildest dreams, but
socially and culturally they have been a catastrophe."
Now here is the crucial question that divides the winners
from the losers in this game: "Why has science made use of the
power of computers in a methodical and disciplined way to
learn a tremendous amount, and society by and large hasn't? "
The answer to this question is the simple fact, overwhelmingly
confirmed throughout the Net, that "science and engineering
are more disciplined communities than society in general."
The dichotomies emerging from this situation are incredible.
On the one hand, computer programs "mining" information for
computer-age behemoths, with great discipline, have creamed
the field. They are restructuring the workplace for machines,
ending gainful employment opportunities and protection of
privacy, enlarging corrosive propaganda and harmful commercial
exploitation, raking in all the benefits for themselves, and
bringing into serious question, this nation's devotion to the
cause that "government of the people, by the people, for the
people, shall not perish from the earth" [Fins-PaN-15].
On the other hand, those citizens of cyberspace who are
genuinely concerned by such matters have yet to see realized
any program of coherently managed dialogue on the Net, with
regard to controversial matters of importance to the community
or society-at-large. Indeed, while industry groups regularly
pump out highly disciplined public policy statements designed
to advance their narrow self-interests in the emerging Global
Information Infrastructure, there remains no articulation of
a design to support the public interest in that vital utility.
Even when plans are laid, purportedly to serve the public,
what is usually being served are the computer vendors. For
example, when President Clinton announces that his dream is
for every twelve-year-old to have access to the Internet -
what Electric Minds discern is something "utterly bizarre."
Where in the United States would you find one person in
his right mind who'd assert that the problem with our
schools is not enough data. "If only we could give
students access to bigger databases." It is bizarrely
irrelevant to the massive failures of education today. In
that way, the Internet has been a disaster because it is
a distraction. It is blatantly irrelevant, but impossible
to ignore; just by saying the word you get points for
being virtuous.
At the Cyberspace Society list, which I manage, we have been
attempting for a year to articulate a better vision for the
future free from the constraints of capitalist market fictions
[Fins-CS-02]. What seems most shocking about that effort is
the level of sustained silence from the assembled lurkers.
Yet this is an old story. Civic inquiry and actions in
cyberspace, like the real world of antidemocratic business
propaganda systems, are constrained by core beliefs that are
"the product of a rigged, lopsided competition of ideas," as
described by Yale professor of political economy, Charles E.
Lindblom in his classic, Politics and Markets 211-212 (1977).
Thought particles generated in digital code, by "electric
minds" in global cyberspace, are all driven by the same old
pool of value systems, their computer glitz notwithstanding.
Unless the people break free in cyberspace from the new age
business propaganda systems, they remain trapped in an ever
intensifying cycle of failure. Publicly supported channels
for civic thought and communications--freely conveyed by
citizens of democracy--are the most likely antidote for
society's disorders, fast declining out of human control.
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