 
Message-ID: <4drpN9G00awYRV92UY@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: Sun,  5 Apr 1992 15:34:33 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Jon C. Slenk" 
Content-Type: X-BE2; 12
If-Type-Unsupported: alter
To: +dist+/afs/andrew/usr10/js9b/Public/camc.dl@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: Fwd: ditto...
References: <9E44067640006432@YANG.EARLHAM.EDU>

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Hi folks.  Back from spring break, rejuvenated and so on. :-)

 

   Much to respond to!

 

Bill's letters: #1

 

 First, he and Mike Wiik have a little chat...

 

>From:  IN%"wce%hogbbs.scol.pa.us@CARNEGIE.BITNET" 22-MAR-1992 19:25:57.73

>To:    +dist+~js9b/Public/camc.dl@ANDREW.CMU.EDU

>CC:

>Subj:  Mailist Trial Entry

>

>To: +dist+~js9b/Public/camc.dl@andrew.cmu.edu

>

>From: mike@highlite.gotham.com (Mike Wiik)

>

>>To explain I'll use Dr Tim's SMI2LE formula (don't laff :-)

>>( naturally, everything below is IMHO and not everything is

>>  claimed to be original.):

>>*Space Migration (or Space Travel in general)*:

>>*Intelligence Increase*

>>*Life Extension*

>>*Time Travel* (ok, not in SMI2LE but that would make it SMI2TTLE)

>>*Universe Creation*

>>CUTE SMI2LE

>

>In a sense, I see all the far-future scenarios you describe as being the

>Stock-in-trade of these cybercommunities once we get them started, and

>have the computers and graphics art studios and comix art studios and

>writing hermitages for novelists and production facilities for

>filmamkers and musicians and all the rest of the crafts we'll be

>concentrating on.

 

   I like that idea!  In fact, I like it a hell of a lot more than I do

the future-images of spherical nanowaves and such.  What can I say; it

appeals to me more.  I can picture myself in that kind of community.  To

answer my own question from last time-- that's one thing that *I* would

personally want from a community: a lot of free time to dream in.

 

>>SO WHAT'S THE MEANING OF LIFE, MIKE?

>>    The meaning of life is: *to play with electronic equipment!*

>>    In this way we not only Increase our Intelligence but push

>>    our global capitalist system to create even newer and better

>>    toys. It's what all the Aliens are doing. Once we get better

>>    toys we'll be able to talk to them.

>

>Well-- to play with _all_ our technology, I would want to add. Yes, one of

>the primary benefits I'm hoping will come from these communities is that

>they'll give us the collective resources to buy and share state-of-the

>-art equipment in all fields.

 

   I'm not sure if you're taking Mike more seriously than he meant, but

what the heck.

 

>I'll agree that free playing, and not the contained education and

>application of the industrial and corporate society, is the way for us

>to expand our intellegence and thus enhance our survival and our

>contribution to the evolving life-systems.

 

   Hmm, now there's a topic no one's taken on directly yet!  I wonder what

this thread might look like now if we'd begun with speculation about a

better educational system instead of a better political system...

   Hint: I'd love to see someone throw out some ideas!

 

>>Re: High-Tech Utopias. An easy way to begin might be to have

>>an electronic equipment cooperative. I've got some electronic

>>toys, and am looking for metro dc area residents to share rent

>>on a studio and establish some sort of cooperative use system.

>

>A good idea-- but be sure to work at keeping overhead down, and clearly

>defining the responsibilities and rights of the partners in the co-op.

>

>Entrepreneurs-- that's what we need to become, to adapt to this new

>future, wether or not we make the communities work. Entrepreneurs have

>the flexibility and the self-determination to succeed in this new

>planetary environment where so many millions of more ordinary workers

>will fail miserably.

 

   The entrepeneur model is one way to go, but is it the only way? Have to

think about that.

 

   Bill answers Jon Slenk:

 

>**********************

>>From: "Jon C. Slenk" 

>

>>Before we get into the more far flung reaches of possible futures :) I

>>would like to concentrate on the immediate future. The discussion of CAMC

>>was, I believe, originally about creating new communities that take into

>>consideration both Man's abilties and his place in the environment. This

>>means using technology while making sure we aren't screwing up the world

>>in which we live.

 

   (Jon: thanks for helping to redirect the discussion.  --No dis intended

to Mike.)

 

>This was a big part of my original idea, in which I imagined that

>millions might choose to live this way for maximum energy efficiency and

>technological/information access with minimal ecological

>destructiveness. I imagined the communities as a type of ecological

>stewardship, in which people would tend, rather like a garden, the 1000

>or so acres they were responsible for, and everyone would share the

>wealth from automated factories and a world-wide computer web and

>universal library/college.

>

>I've pretty much given up on that. I think people are too stupid, and

>that they will consume untill they burst, and that the corporate masters

>will do anything and kill anyone to preserve their power, and therefore

>I'm now working on community designs that are not intended to "save the

>world", but to survive it's self-destruction and/or it's transformation

>into corporate hive-states, or whatever scenarios ecomonic chaos brings

>us in the future. The cynicism of old age, perhaps.

 

   I suppose I think somewhere between Jon's hopeful optimism and Bill's

apocalyptic outlook.  Hope for the best and avoid the worst.

 

>>So. Do you think all this concern for the environment is just politicing?

>

>The concern is not politicking, but the solutions the politicians and

>many activists propose, and the ways these solutions are administered,

>definitely tends to be.

 

   Let me see if I'm hearing you right: our line of thought, in terms of

alternative-society-modeling, is a split from efforts to make change

"within the system(s)"-- i.e., social democrats, Green parties, etc? This

reminds me of the evolution of feminist political groups-- first the

liberal feminists, working for equality in the system, came along.  Then

the radical feminists said, hey, the entire system is rotten; let's work

on building an alternative.  And then separatist feminism, women-of-color,

Marxist feminism, and so on.  Maybe it's a natural progression... is it?

And is it healthy? Does it imply a "giving up" on making progressive

change from within?

 

>>What would you like your friends to do? What do you think a

>>community should do?

>

>Well, despite it's impracticality, i still like the idea of the network

>of ecological stewardship type of community.

 

   So do I.  And I think in the long run it can come about.  What has to

come in between is a whole 'nother question.  But it seems to me we'd be

doing the environment a massive favor by dismantling the need for

centralized production of food, power, etc...

 

   Bill lastly talked to me a bit.

 

>***************************

>From: BLUECANARYINNAOUTLET 

>

>>   First of all, let me say that I am most amazed, amused, and perplexed

>>at the way this mailing list has come about.  And to think that it all

>

>It is pretty wild, isn't it? Kudos to Jon Slenk!

 

   Indeed!

 

>>of government.  On one hand, I'm thrilled and delighted to see such an

>>un-technological discussion going on in that unlikeliest of environs, the

>>alt.cyberetcetera groups.  On the other hand, I wonder if it isn't

>

>I just wanted to say that I see much of life as a set of choices about

>technology--- for me, this whole community idea is a

>technology-for-living, a vast improvement over past techs. And, once

>were in the nitty-gritty of living it, everything, from the new designs

>in housing to setting up co-op factories to produce state of the art

>computer systems from parts (in effect our own computer manufacturing

>company) will be endlessly and tediously tech....

 

   Hmm.  Not sure what you mean by that... I just meant that it was neat

to see people on those groups talking about larger things than this or

that tech toy.

 

>Lets hope we're clever enough to make this work and keep plenty of time

>available for lovemaking, watching sunrises, and hard sweaty play.

 

   *Yes*!  Again, that image really resonates for me.  And if it does (or

doesn't) for anyone else in here, please speak up!

 

>>authority to govern themselves as they please.  The society of the latter

>>stage is most reminiscent of the type of communities that we are

>>discussing.  Their technosphere is based on small-scale, self-sufficient

>>food and energy production and so on.  Politically, they are organized

>>(essentially) however they damn well please, a possibility I don't know

>>that we've considered directly as of yet.

>

>Yes, in response to what you are presenting of Wager's ideas, I would

>suggest that we try to bypass both of the first two stages, and leap

>directly to a lifestyle that is something like what we can predict

>diminishing resources and political turmoil will eventually lead to

>naturally.

 

   Right.

 

>Leap three hundred years, and create microenvironments of advanced

>culture lifestyles now, where we have a chance of waiting out the wars

>and the crisis and continuing with our study and exploration and

>scientific/technological crafts.

 

   Now here's where I think we diverge in our thinking.  You want to

create tiny, protected cultures (analogizing with culture in the sense of

bacteria), which will wait out the storm, and come out when the thing is

over (whatever it is) and wax and multiply and flourish forever after,

etc.

   I guess I can see the point of that, and I wouldn't stop you.  But I

was interested in distributing the tools of *basic* forms of

self-sufficiency as widely as possible, and as quickly as possible (within

reason), to those who need it most.

   I'm not thinking about a highly planned cybercommunity.  I'm thinking

of lots of free villages, spontaneously formed out of need and capability...

 

>One of the foundations of successful business is getting in on a

>moneymaker at the beginning, and thus letting the pryamid effect of

>money carry wealth to you as the idea works, and cathces on. If we

>design these corporate tribes correctly, they'll work something like

>that-- giving us training and experience that nobody else has. (Just to

>be a little Randian in my discussion.)

 

   The image of a "corporate tribe" does *not* resonate for me.  I suppose

it sounds cute in the abstract.  But I can't picture myself in one... it

sounds too much like a microcosmic version of what already exists.  I

understand that you're not suggesting it as the *only* solution: when I

said that Wagar proposed

 

>> [giving] everyone the tools of self-sufficiency,

>>and try[ing] out a dozen possibilities for living

 

you then said

 

>This is pretty much exactly what I'm proposing-- help groups pioneer

>these communities into every imaginable econiche, every possible form.

>What works, works, and we'll learn from the best examples in a memetic

>struggle for survival.

 

   So we're at least thinking in parallel.  But let's try to draw out some

of the differences and divergences in our thinking.

 

>>   I'll try... although I think that Timothy Leary and comrades are,

>>sadly, mostly brain-dead from too many chemical joyrides.

>

>What aspects of their theorizing would you criticize?

 

   Um.  Lots.  It's pretty tangential to the discussion underway, though.

I just kind of think that Tim's full of it. :-)

 

   I'm out of time for right now, but there is much to come.  I'll try to

make a real, sustained critique of Bill's corporate-tribe concept at some

point.  Don't let the mailing list die!  Interact Or Perish!

   Later folks--

 

 

         --Jesse.

 

 

 

----------------

 

----------------


-----------------------------------------------------

Jon Slenk        js9b+@andrew.cmu.edu   EVERYTHING is

Carnegie Mellon  Pittsburgh PA          Disclaimed

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