From: vagans@eanna.net
Consider not whacking all the attributions; at least add an identifier
for who posted what.
On 5 Nov 2003, FixinDixon wrote:
>
> > Did you expect anything different?
>
> Yes. I expected humanity to wake up and stop killing itself.
>
> > > I'm sure that everyone reading this is pissed off that the world has
> > > gone to hell in a handbasket.
> >
> > I'm not. We've been like this for 3000 years (and probably before but
> > we haven't written things down yet).
> >
>
> You're accepting that humanity is basically flawed? And you're not
> looking to change it?
>
If its basically flawed, there's nothing that can change it, it being
'basic'. If you think it is not, then you need to be convincing on that
first, before moving on to 'change'.
The flaw you want changed is for 'humanity to stop killing itself', or
less emotively: behave in constructive rather than destructive ways.
> > > And I'm sure that the 'cyberpunks' who
> > > ahve gone before us were once pissed off too. But they faded away,
> > > joined the system. And what's to stop any of us doing the same? "I
> > > can't beat the system, I may as well join it. I might be able to do
> > > some good there"...
> >
> > Again, did you expect anything different?
>
> Yes.
>
Then there's expectations that don't pan out. "The system", we
eventually learn, is big and powerful, so much so that individuals or
even large groups cannot affect it. From Agincourt to Vietnam that was
not true. The common folk had the same scale of weaponry (not just arms,
but media, such as printing presses etc) as "the system" had, an
equalizer, which could be wielded effectively to change things.
One thing cyberpunk can do is keep up with the technology and look for
flaws in "the system" that might lead to the creation of equalizers, I
don't think such equalizers will be arms when they arrive on the scene
(and they will arrive because "the system" is full of contradictions and
paradoxes and we are a species of inquisitive monkeys. My interest is in
delineating those contradictions).
> > So this was a philosophical exercise on the success of characters in
> > cyberpunk literature? You should've said so in the first place.
>
> This is an exercise on everybody who posts here. Assuming that the CP
> subculture is based on characters and acts from CP books,
This is seriously wrong. Cyberpunk culture derives from the Cyberpunk
Movement in sf -- from the authors, who were radical and revolutionary
within the context of sf, not the characters in the stories they wrote,
and they were either part of, or at least very interested in, the
phreaking culture that developed in the Yippies, as well as the hi tech
variant of hippies (the EFF embodies a lot of that). We are also
descended from some explosive developments in 70s punk. This newsgroup
has been around for 16 years.
> it stands to
> reason that anyone who posts here should base their outlook on the
> common views of the CP books.
But that would mean taking on the outlook of WG or NS or BS, as
expressed in the products they produce to earn their livings, as a
philosophy of life or something.
> Thinking back to any CP book I've read,
> the characters are all sickened by the world in which they live, even
> if only at a basic level. Yes they work within the world, but even
> then they are looking to change it. Why else would they agree to go
> on these daft adventures?
>
> So, assuming that we are all sickened by the world we live in...
>
We should all get fried by ICE?
There are too many Bobbies and Hiros and not enough Mollies and Juanitas
in real life (I am myself, a Laney).
--
(__) Sourcerer
/(<>)\ O|O|O|O||O||O The world hadn't ever had so many
\../ |OO|||O|||O|O moving parts or so few labels.
|| OO|||OO||O||O -- mlo
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
|
