[Nettime-bold] Re:<nettime> Have We Not Learned Anything From the 90s? OR,

["Etaoin Shrdlu" <grogg@rsub.com>]

"Now, the internet is no more interesting than TV,
actually it differentiates itself by actually being
MORE annoying than TV. "

Only boring people get bored. You are clearly not looking in the right places. Stop slagging the Internet. It may not really be as much of a tool for social change as we thought it would be, but its hella more interesting than TV.







On Wed, 11 Jul 2001 22:09:01 -0700 (PDT) josh zeidner <jjzeidner@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> hello all,
>
>   It surprises me to see so many still cleaving to
>the idea that the internet will somehow democratize
>society and lead us to some kind of mythic utopia in
>the near future.  It seems to me that this experiment
>has been carried out to its fullest extent in the past
>10+ years, resulting in a resounding "NO DICE"( to use
>the endemic NY expression ).
>   I find it dissapointing to the point of absurdity
>that people are still getting jazzed about things such
>as faster bandwidth( why should i spend thousands of
>dollars so I can watch TV on my computer?! ).  As if I
>wanted to spend 30$/month for a high speed connection
>so I can recieve 20X the number of ad banners I
>normally recieve( or i could revel in pornographic
>gluttony ).  Does anyone out there besides me find
>themselves spend frustrating hours in front of the net
>desperately searching for something interesting?
>   The idealism of the net has completely
>disintegrated in the wake of its commercialization. 
>Now, the internet is no more interesting than TV,
>actually it differentiates itself by actually being
>MORE annoying than TV.  And any attempts to make it
>interesting inevitably fail in much the same way as
>our Public Access TV does( dont get me wrong I like
>The Thing, as much as I like PBS, much respect to WS
>and RM ).  This dream, that we can craft a tool for
>communication that cannot be corrupted, was the naive
>and futile dream of the young generation who had
>literally nothing to hope for.
>   Now we are in a phase that is involving the
>re-phrasing of the original ideas, with the hopes that
>they may take hold THIS time.  Terms like
>"Peer-To-Peer" leave me thinking: wasnt that the idea
>in the first place?  Exactly how is that different
>from what we have been trying for all along?
>   Virtual reality was another great one( which is
>inevitably complementary to increasing bandwidth ). 
>This idea that we can immerse ourselves in
>informational worlds of our own creation, and tickle
>each others nerve endings without concern for
>geographical boundaries.  What is wrong with this?  To
>mistake the images of our own dreams for reality is
>the most fatal kind of narcissism that we can effect. 
>Praying to the idol of Virtual Reality will only lead
>to a complete mental poverty.  Virtual Reality is
>nothing more than a system to shield us from REALITY,
>the reality where people live and die and sometimes
>effect these events through thier own actions.
>   I think it is important that we( everyone, the
>world, ect ) move on.  There is no technology that we
>can create that will make a better world for us( some
>still think otherwise, and are decending into a highly
>technical and complex theoretical territory ).  This
>doesnt mean that technology is bad.  and "the internet
>is not going away".  What we should know however, is
>that technology should be subordinate to humankind,
>and the technologies alone should never dictate our
>lifestyles or governments.  I imagine that this would(
>or could ) be part of our accepted ideals in the 21st
>century.
>
>   well ive had my say...
>
>   josh zeidner
>
>
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