Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id LAA28292 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 18 Jul 2001 11:46:38 +0100 Message-ID: <3B55686E.83587815@bioinf.man.ac.uk> Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 11:43:58 +0100 From: Chris Taylor <Christopher.Taylor@man.ac.uk> Organization: University of Manchester X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.77 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U) X-Accept-Language: en To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Faking It: The Internet Revolution Has Nothing to Do With the Nasdaq References: <20010717122838.AAA29276@camailp.harvard.edu@[128.103.125.215]> <3B5442D6.5A912725@bioinf.man.ac.uk> <20010717170640.B591@ii01.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Robin Faichney wrote:
>
> On Tue, Jul 17, 2001 at 02:51:18PM +0100, Chris Taylor wrote:
> > What really pisses me off about the internet (well admittedly this has
> > been overtaken by events a bit) is that William Gibson et al. more or
> > less decided what we were going to get before it had even happened
> > (because people were happy to grab his hand-packed metaphors and
> > monikers); so now we'll never know what we would've had.
>
> I'm a bit of a Gibson fan -- I've read all his books at least once,
> and the Neuromancer series at least twice. I'd be interested to know
> in what ways you think the present Internet shows his influence.
Just the whole cyber thing. I just named Gibson as the highest
visibility example of what was a big thing in the latter half of the
eighties and inspired all sorts of shite TV drama etc. - people in long
leather coats with round mirror shades (someone else's book I think),
acting as underground resistance to, frankly, not much (usually a
corporation) and that premise is still prevalent amongst idiot hackers
who say that's what they're doing ('Fight the power' etc.) but really
just go around changing password files on academics computers because
that's all the script they downloaded can do. Like I say this died a
little after a while, but I'll bet Dylan and Klebold (for example) would
fit this script kiddy mould. Btw I'm *not* saying that this operates on
the personal level (read book, kill kids or whatever).
Anyway you're looking for me to trip up because I named Gibson, but I
only name him as a placeholder for a lot of stuff. This is not like the
Kerouac crowd and beatniks, but I do think the whole 'the web is dark
and sinister' thing is down to the fiction that immediately preceded it.
But then perhaps that's always how these things happen. I wonder if
H.G.Wells shaped anyone's future?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chris Taylor (chris@bioinf.man.ac.uk)
http://bioinf.man.ac.uk/ »people»chris
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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