In times that are changing so fast, people have to learn to keep themselves from being attached to any one reality too solidly. Things are going fast. If you don't think computers are changing just about everything on our planet, then you have not kept up with the times. Instead, you are lagging. But, for those of us who understand computers, and understand the implication of computers, know that computers are speeding processes up. Everything is starting to speed up. Companies Executives no longer have to wait for those contracts coming in the mail in two days, instead, they have to respond to faxes "before the end of the day". Culture just spreads further and faster. You can have daily e-mails with someone in another country, just dropping each other a little line each day to let them know what is going on... on another continent!
Computer speed pushed other technologies. Here is an example: My first Physics professor here at USC works on particle accelerator in which particles actually "surfed" on a plasma wave, unlike current accelerators which power is limited because sparks are to be avoided. His research could be reduced to a few pages of mathematical formulas, that are iterated trillions of times to compute the behavior of his device. He simulated 2 centimeters of length, and that took about 20 hours on USC's computers. For a more realistic system, he would need to simulate to the length of 10 meters. This would take 8 of the most powerful supercomputers available, working for 24 months straight. All eight doing nothing but resolving this physics problem. But of course, those resources are virtually impossible to come by. Science is limited by computer power. As computers get faster science will come faster and faster. The mysteries of the physical and sub-atomic world unfold science beyond the imagination.
But what about the way we interact? What about the way we share information with others? I keep hearing these jokes about computer users having no lives. About how all computer users are, well, geeks. I think these people are scared because they do not the first thing about computers. In the mean time, computers are actually getting cool, especially among young people. The perfect example is the rave scene, the first subculture to be "wired". Mailing lists are popping up all over the country, "sf-raves", "so-cal raves", "ne-raves", "dc-raves", "tx-raves". The sf-raves list is so large, and has so many dedicated people on it, that it does it's own parties, Friends and Family. It is undoubtedly one of the best parties in San Francisco. Usually the one thing that is not totally anarchic about the mailing lists is the weekly calendar. The weekly calendar is the definitive "things to do" list, giving the voice mail numbers for all the coolest, friendliest, highest-vibe parties. The rest of the list is about discussing current issues in the rave scene. It may be about the music: spinning and making it. It may be about scene's mini-celebrities: the DJ's and the promoters. Or, the discussion can go off on weird tangents, talking about the spirituality people are finding through dancing, or how the subculture is just so much more fun than the mass culture. Sometimes it is just weird. On the "rave" mailing lists one will not find much ego, yelling, pointless flames, or all of those other things that clog really effective communication. These mailing lists are communities that reflect the true ideals of the rave scene: peace, love, happiness and respect.
And there are other mailing lists. There are thousands of them, on every subject imaginable. Each one a virtual community. It is where people spend a small part of their day interacting with other people who share a similar interest. These exist for political movements. An oppressive government's worst nightmare: You get a bunch of people together who start talking, and educating each other on the topic. You make friends. You contact people in real life. You plan things out, you coordinate a meeting spot... And you throw big happy parties!! Love and happiness may be the only politics you need to know. Politics is everywhere on the net now. It spans all the corners of the political spectrum, but one thing that they all agree on is "We have got to change the way things are now... We could do so much better than this." If you can gather 300 kids in the desert for a party by using the networks, just think of the political organizational power you could command.
Are all those old Senators into the Net? Of course not, it scares the living hell out of them because 1: they have no idea how computers work, and 2: they are starting to see people talk about very politically polarizing subjects like drug legalization and the growing threat of fascism. People have been talking about this stuff all the time, so why is a big deal now? This discussion can now take place in global forums, and they have absolutely no control over it. Let's face it, the Republicans are in bed with the media industry. At a recent Republican fund- raiser, there were 6 chairmen, people who gave some outrageous amount like a couple hundred grand to the fund. One of them was Rupret Murdock, CEO of FOX television. My dad says that he claws his way all over the business, a classic "heart of coal" personality. And anyone who reads that tabloid rag "Time" knows it's political biases (C'mon, say it with me "Christ-ian Right". That's it... "Christ-ian Right"). But you can't own the Internet. You can't change the fact that it is just as easy for me to click over to the most dangerous revolutionary's information database as it is to read "Time Daily" ("Clinton screws up again, and our statistics prove that the whole country just loves the 'Contract with America'... except they think it should go further"). Probably easier to see the revolutionary's information... that bloated Pathfinder.
It's only a matter of time before these Internet- based groups, good or bad, get a large enough grass- roots support to suddenly become reality. Look at the reality we are facing now: an armed civilian militia, the government stripping away the Bill of Rights (Do we still have a forth amendment?), domestic terrorism, the "media virus of the century" consuming thought like a giant intellectual vacuum.. Our reality is getting stranger and stranger each day. Something at the grass-roots level has GOT to happen... and it will be much easier and faster thanks to computers.
Or, maybe not. Let's extrapolate a bit and see what our world will de-evolve into if nothing changes. Television will control politics so completely that only one party will be in power, the media party... and it sure does look like that is going to be the Republicans. They will continue to serve whoever has the money... and whoever has the MOST money. The government will do less and less for the masses, more and more for the concentrations of wealth. The government will remained handcuffed to the banks and industries with a growing debt. Eventually, the industry will control the government (hey, they already control our minds through television), and it will just kind of disappear, to be replaced by one system of total tyranny. The corporations. The banks. All run by elite groups of white men who sit in giant towers and direct the resources of the planet. They invest billions of dollars around the globe, creating cities, building civilizations, civilizations carefully designed to maximize cooperate profits. Civilizations that control the minds and actions of people with the same mathematical efficiency as a microprocessor controlling the flow of electrons through silicon junctions. Civilizations of endless track homes, with a civic centers of brightly colored hamburger joints and stores that sell flashy junk. All the industry will be re-located to developing areas of the world, so the rest of the population can be enslaved just so we can continue to live on our suburban fantasy of Wal-Marts and Dairy Queens. What will the Earth be like when industry starts really affecting the environment? To the point where it is really getting bothersome to human life? I have no idea... but it probably won't pleasant. What if everyone started dying of cancer when they were in their 40's? Take those anti-oxidants, kids, you are going to need them.
Things have got to change. And computers will make it possible. But, if you really want to speed things up. If you really want to push the process evolution, what do you do? You keep you mind malleable, flexible. You have too know how to reprogram things in your head. You have to re-define the your reality once in awhile. Revolution and Evolution is not out there, it is in there....
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Troy Sheets
tsheets@scf.usc.edu
http://www-scf.usc.edu/~tsheets