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The Scriptures of the Church of VirtualityReality 06
\qix\aboutvr
\qix\biblio
\qix\cvrmisc
\qix\plasmate
\qix\nov92\181192
and notes on CafeNet from the folder of Pippin [transcribed by Qix]
\qix\aboutvr
about "the Scriptures":
although portions of the Scriptures may be available in printed form, I
envision them as being primarily an *on-line* phenomenon, an ever-growing pool
of information, stories, perspectives, and strangeness to which people
contribute and add, available through BBSs, ftp sites... a body of text far
larger than can fit within any one book, but which will be available
electronically to all, and which will be the "memory bank" or "knowledge base"
to which GAIA 2000 will refer...
if this definition were to be generally accepted it would mean that
*anything* posted to Usenet (for example) would become part of the Scriptures,
which perhaps demonstrates that this is a silly definition. Even postings
urging people to reject GAIA 2000 would be part of the Scriptures, in the
fashion that people who reject the Discordian revelation are Discordian Popes
(of the House of the Rising Hodge, I think).
about 2000 vs 2012:
Arguelles contrasts the Western/Babylonian/Christian calendar to the Mayan
calendar: the Mayan calendar is allegedly in tune with the "cosmic seasons",
or something like that, whereas the other is an invention of a patriarchal,
business-oriented culture out of tune with the universal cycles. Etc. In this
case, GAIA 2000 could be seen as a *premature* attempt to immanentize the
Eschaton, doomed to failure since the true "singularity" (in W.I.T.'s sense,
of a moment from which a new revelation will emerge) occurs December 2012,
whereas GAIA 2000 sets its deadline according to the first calendrical system.
Maybe the world *did* change fundamentally July 26, 1992, and we just
haven't noticed in what respect it did. I *think* that was the day that V/R
Scriptures first went online somewhere.
about GAIA 2000 as `Earth Summit in cyberspace':
USENET is already in a sense an ongoing metaconference on all possible
topics; if GAIA is somehow `Internet-mediated', what might distinguish it from
the ongoing meeting of minds occurring through Usenet all the time?
An important feature of the Event was to be that anyone could reach anyone
else and interact with them in real-time. If `the Event' is to happen
"properly", this state of affairs ought to be reached some time before
December 31 2000, so that people are able to do whatever it is they wish to do
on that occasion. People have to have access, and they have to know that
*something* is coming up on that date.
One possibility is to make December 31 2000 some sort of `deadline for the
realization of desires' concerning the state of the world, much as Greenpeace
has done. This sets up the challenge for people to imagine what the features
of a better world might be, lets them know that millions of others are seeing
(and perhaps rising to) that same challenge, and provides a date on which to
take a look around and see how they've gone.
\qix\biblio
QIX'S RECOMMENDED READING (as at 12 August 1992)
1. *The Fringes of Reason*. a Whole Earth publication
2. Hakim Bey. "T.A.Z."
3. Avital Ronell. "The Telephone Book".
"Crack Wars".
Also interview in RE/Search #13.
4. Barbara Marx Hubbard. "The Evolutionary Journey".
"The Hunger of Eve".
5. Ayn Rand and Objectivism.
Murray Rothbard.
6. Bob Black. "The Abolition of Work".
7. Celia Green. "The Human Evasion".
"The Decline and Fall of Science".
"Advice for Clever Children".
8. Terence McKenna. "Food of the Gods".
"The Archaic Revival".
(with Dennis McKenna) "The Invisible Landscape".
9. Ivan Stang, editor: "The Book of the SubGenius".
"High Weirdness by Mail".
"Three-Fisted Tales of `Bob'".
10. E.E. Rehmus. "The Magician's Dictionary".
11. ? Ravenscroft. "The Mark of the Beast". see also Rudolf Steiner
12. *Principia Discordia*.
13. Jacques Vallee. "Dimensions".
"Confrontations".
14. William Irwin Thompson. "At the Edge of History".
"Passages About Earth".
"Evil and World Order".
"Darkness and Scattered Light".
? "The Time Falling Bodies Take To Light".
? "Pacific Shift".
"Gaia: A Way of Knowing" (ed.)
"Imaginary Landscape".
? "Gaia 2" (ed.)
? "The American Replacement of Nature".
15. Jose Arguelles. "The Transformative Journey".
"The Mayan Factor".
16. Jeremy Griffith. "Free - The End of the Human Condition".
OR "Beyond the Human Condition".
17. Stanislaw Lem. "Imaginary Magnitude".
"A Perfect Vacuum".
"One Human Minute".
"Solaris".
18. Hans Moravec. "Mind Children".
K Eric Drexler. "Engines of Creation", + new book. Foresight Update.
Grant Fjermedal. "The Tomorrow Makers".
Jerry Pournelle. "A Step Farther Out".
19. William Gibson. "Neuromancer", "Burning Chrome".
Bruce Sterling. "Schismatrix", "Crystal Express", "Islands in the Net".
Vernor Vinge, "Marooned in Real Time".
?, "The Hole in the Zero".
20. Olaf Stapledon. "Star Maker".
"Last and First Men".
21. Greg Bear. "Blood Music".
"Eon".
"Queen of Angels".
22. H P Lovecraft (various).
23. Gene Wolfe, "The Book of the New Sun".
24. ? Stelarc.
25. FM-2030 aka FM Esfandiary. "Optimism One".
"Upwingers".
? "Telespheres".
"Are You a Transhuman?"
26. Robert Anton Wilson. "Cosmic Trigger", vols 1 & 2.
"Prometheus Rising".
"Quantum Psychology".
"The New Inquisition".
"Reality is What You Can Get Away With".
"Masks of the Illuminati", "Illuminatus!" trilogy
"Schroedinger's Cat" trilogy
"Coincidance"
"The Illuminati Papers"
27. Aleister Crowley (various). eg "777", "Book of Lies", "Eight Lectures on
Yoga"
? Kenneth Grant.
? G I Gurdjieff.
U G Krishnamurti.
28. Christopher Hyatt. "Undoing Yourself".
"Undoing Yourself Too".
29. Timothy Leary. "Neuropolitique".
"Info-Psychology" (formerly "Exo-Psychology").
"The Politics of Ecstasy".
"The Intelligence Agents".
"The Game of Life".
30. "In Pursuit of VALIS", concerning Philip K Dick.
31. Postmodernism, poststructuralism.
"An Introduction to Superstructuralism".
Foucault, Baudrillard, ? Deleuze and Guattari.
32. Roger Penrose. "The Emperor's New Mind".
Stephen Hawking. "A Brief History of Time".
Richard Feynman. "QED".
Douglas Hofstadter. "Goedel Escher Bach".
F David Peat, "Superstrings and the Search for the Theory of Everything".
"The Philosopher's Stone".
James Gleick, "Chaos".
Barrow and Tipler. "The Anthropic Cosmological Principle".
James Lovelock, books on "Gaia".
33. ? Stan Deyo. "The Cosmic Conspiracy".
and "similar" books.
34. James Joyce. "Ulysses", "Finnegans Wake".
35. Gerald Edelman's trilogy on neural Darwinism.
books by the Churchlands.
36. Nietzsche, ? Schopenhauer.
37. ? Garry Reith, "Neutron Gun".
38. "Gnosis", "MONDO 2000", ? "Now What" (Waves Forest)
39. "State of the World".
Murray Bookchin, "The Ecology of Freedom".
40. R Buckminster Fuller. "Critical Path"
"Grunch of Giants"
41. Kevin Solway (various; available as shareware).
42. The Travelling Scriptures of the Church of V/R.
\qix\cvrmisc
by end of the century gaia2000 may have metamorphosed into something very
specific eg something like the earth summit but carried live to the world
with its participation via the internet and other media, some sort of meeting
of minds meant to bring together the different virtualities
where would alpha and omega fit into such a scheme? the ultimate ao might be a
sort of performance on my part..
try to explain the *origins* of religious texts, occult traditions etc, in
terms of : w.i.t's idea that moderns are literally misreading old cultures;
plus cognitive theory etc, ought to be able to explain where information might
come from, hwo a voice of god might structure itself etc..
g2000 in mold of nwnm or earth summit: look at bmh's syncon ideas
(...ooo000ooo...)
1 august 92.
at present v/r is a bunch of files on tracey's bbs, and a slightly smaller
selection on an ftp site in w.a., + some vague impressions spreading word-
of-mouth. what might it become..?
i see it as primarily inhabiting the internet. whatever other media it might
spread to, the [inter]net is its true home, and a v/r / cafe-net aim is to
bring the net to the streets, so everyone can see it there.
some version of the scriptures may appear at different locations on the net,
and once there is an ugyldig node people will be able to send us responses,
contributions etc. also may serialize scriptures / write other stuff for mag
[eg thru circle].
gaia2000 and alpha/omega. the development of these ideas is still my
responsibilty. gaia2000 i think is becoming perhaps more concrete - might lead
to an internet-mediated 'earth summit in cyberspace', with popular
participation on a global scale.
at present alpha/omega looks like this:
net outline -> album -> novel -> movie -> ... -> EVENT
( -> 1989-2012 ??? )
how might i explain/justify it? `alpha and omega is an attempt to imagine the
nature of a gaia2000-instigated event, which is everything at once, and the
consequences of it [onto 2012]. the reason for ao's progression through
different media is to help bring the 'thing itself' into being, by making it
progressively more and more imaginable...
so the album/novel/etc becomes a seed or propagator of the idea of the
*possibility* of such an event, and the internet the medium of its
"organization". "this book you hold, if you are reading it before dec 31.2000
is one means whereby the possibility of this event is circulated..."
where does the 24part structure etc of a/o fit in? cf vr1: maybe the event
will just be me doing some sort of performance art, so to speak, for the world
i have two particular 24fold "things" to fit in, one is timothy leary's
3x8 circuit model, the other is my 1989 to 2012 progression - 1989 is already
"agreed upon" as having been a pivotal year, 2012 comes from thompson
arguelles mckenna - most convincing thing for me here is timewave zero, if
i am to think that there really is "something" in this i want to see it
make a prediction - i would also like to see a sort of archaeo- or paleo-
cognitive explanation of why the mayan calendar has the structure it does.
one idea was that 24 hr sequence serves as a global initiation - into what?
initiation must be structured - so leary's model would act as a sequence of
24 [neurological tarot, out of game of life - see also uq book on tarot as
sequence of archetypes..]
also idea that 24 yrs '89 to '12 somehow recapitulate for global society the
24 stages - '89 birth of global consciousness, '92 birth of ??what -next
circuit in any case. this of course is "numerology" just as "bad" as
1998 = 3x666 etc. still it would be funny (if it was "true")...
and if it *doesn't* mean anything, what are the ontological implications
of the possibility of such creativity? [ie the fact that it is possible to
stitch together correlations and "make a meaning" from them - what does that
imply about the universe and our relationship to it?]
panspace - where does that fitin???
problem i have with ao / gaia2000 relationship is that the whole 24part
leary/mckenna stuff may be too esoteric and plain WRONG or so much so that
what definitely appears to be the positive potential of gaia2000 [independent
of ao.o] might be lost as a/o details might detract or distract
HOWEVER - what is the gaia2000 idea *independent of ao*? it is the idea of a
global convergence/conference/event etc mediated via the internet. if its
going to happen, it has to happen *at some time*. so may as well set dec 31
2000 as "the date" /"deadline" what have you. it's certainly more likely than
1995, and it's closer than 2012, and it *is* the start of the new
[christian] millennium - which leads to a point requiring further contemplatin
, how will this idea "plaY" IN CULTUREs with other calendars......
if gaia2000 were to lead to an earth summit in cyberspace WHAT WOULD BE ON THE
AGENDA??????? one thing to make up in advance would be a [planetary] "wish
list"..
ie "no hatred wars or poverty", "sustainable development", "anarchy",
"new world order of democratic capitalism", etc....
so it sort of sets the timer for a moment when there could be a massive
mobilization of the world to "do" something/lots of things, if people can
only decide beforehand what it is they want to do..
(...ooo000ooo...)
2 august 1992.
if late 2012 really is the date of the "singularity", what is going to happen
then? i imagined that the world might be transformed, blood-music-fashion,
into a giant computer a la golem xiv, trying to understand the nature of (its
own) existence and the historical process which brought it into being; or that
some means of destroying the universe [false vacuum bubble etc] was developed
and some final battle took place over its activation; or i imagined while
in trafalgar square that perhaps the universe is collapsing [s dali, quoted in
3fisted tales] and so all of space will be "rolled up in a little ball" by
2012, in which case we may have no choice but to try and escape through the
singularity, or something like that; such a scenario might combine janor's
"universal fuck" + leary's fusion with the metaphysiological circuit at the
last stage, + the apocalyptic notion of "time intersection"...
arguelles, mayan factor, predicts "a projection into realms presently
inconceivable", which seems to have something to do with everyone using their
"light bodies" all at once...
apart from my own pattern building [1989-2000; 2001-2012] *why* does 2012 have
this apocalyptic expectation attached to it? for most people, mayan calendar.
but mckenna says he hit on dec 2012 "independently"... i would like to know
more about the process whereby he arrived at that date...
from "archiac revival":
p162 Terence could you identify Philo for us and tell us who he was?
...made it his business to travel around the hellenistic world discussing all
the major cults and religions and cosmogonic theories of the day..
original wandering jew? also sounds like PHILO drummond..
p22 my notion of the posttransition felt experience is that it is a domain
where appropriate activity is the path of least resistance... in this current
realm tao and ego seem impossibly opposed.. in the posttransition world, it's
possible that there will appear to be only ego, and there will actually be
only tao... the kingdom of heaven...
conceivably this is what gaia2000 is trying to bring about? but idea that
2000 represents a failure, owing to forcing the issue, and that 2012 is the
real date when it has to happen...
also sounds like Age of Slack...
what's the role of everyone who's already died in the cosmic scheme of things?
[assuming there is one..]
there is always the posthumanist/existentialist strain - the emptiness of the
cosmos is absolute. pure freedom. hassan i sabbah.
not sure where fm2030 would place his own outlook.
2012 as start of age of maat - equilibrium.
texts are virtualities through which one can 'see' new or old worlds;
subgenius represents a reality which one might 'enter into' [crossing the
boundary into the new form, r.a.w's schrodinger's cat]; gaia2000 is an attempt
to stitch virtualities together????? community of shattered egos
the vacant horror of existence [see above] - both ronell. full of phrases like
these.
*
what is relationship between imagination, will, reality? eg idea that ufo's
are 'created' by unconscious psychokinetic wish-fulfilment. suppose such a
thing is possible, and a striebertype alien/visitor is created, is the visitor
selfaware? if so where does it think it came from?
each person sees 3d space from a different pointofview in a very mundane
sense - i think i am here, that guy typing off to the left sees *his* screen
in front of himself, etc. how do these 3d virtualities relate to the
[hypothetical] 3d reality? is it possible to have a reality model which
somehow represents all the 3d virtualities & if so is there any need to
postulate a 3d reality as well, independent of observers with 3d virtualities?
*
even though i am not working at a job or at a school/uni, i feel as if i spend
too much time doing things i would rather not be doing, or rather that i am
not doing some things i would like to be. i feel primary restriction on this
second class of things is money, so simplest thing would be to make v/r
partly commercial and say, by buying our journal/whatever you help to pay for
us to do certain things [buy books, interview various individuals, etc]
ok. could make one aim of v/r publication "expansion of all our
virtualities." we at v/r have heard of certain things, individuals etc.. who
we cannot easily reach. money will help us eg to contact terence mckenna and
ask him, *when* did you decide on dec 2012 as date for immanentizing the
eschaton? and will help us get a copy of timewave zero.
interview celia green, etc.
*
it seems to me that global anarchy could be fairly "safe" if everyone knew it
was coming...so to speak. how could the coming of anarchy be negotiated or
eased into play? ao-type strategy [anticipates the antipation of the anticip-
ation of the real thing] + ever larger and more frequent TAZs [culminating in
a PAZ]...permanent autonomous zone...
what does a.o the event have to do with transition from leary's 1st 4 to 2nd 4
circuits? gaia2000 is supposed to mark end of dominator culture end of
hierarchies etc etc all of which rely on existence of domesticated primates
activation of 5th circuit appears to amount to dedomestication, so end of
dec 31 2000 could lead to "hippification" of the planetary population :)...
i have viewed online scriptures of v/r as a place where people might post
crazy thoughts etc and certainly much of it has this interesting but
discordant appearance, but there will have to be some degree of stitching
together also at some point, picking and choosing of parts to develop and
emphasize.. chaotic proliferation followed by weeding...
archaic revival p215
I guess I'm a soft Dark Ager. I think there will be a mild Dark Age. I don't
think it will be anything like the dark ages that lasted a thousand years; I
think it will last more like five years and will be a time of economic
retraction, religious fundamentalism, retreat into closed communities by
certain segments of the society, feudal warfare among minor states, resource
scarcity, and this sort of thing. But I think it will give way in the late
nineties to the global future that we're all yearning for, and then there will
be basically a fifteen-year period where all these things are drawn together
with progressively greater and greater sophistication, much in the way that
modern science and philosophies have grown with greater and greater
sophistication in a single direction since the Renaissance. Sometime around
the end of 2012 all of this will be boiled down into a kind of alchemical
distillation of the historical experience that will be a doorway into the
life of the imagination.
2012-15=1997,date of SubGenius takeover according to "dateline for dominance"
;)
what is the attraction of the "nothing matters" school of thought? it means
you can take all the time you want to, since it's all futile in the long run..
what is the relationship between creation and destruction? stabilities seem
to be destroyed to make way for new complexities?
(...ooo000ooo...)
3 august 1992.
re terence mck's claim that ayahuasca promotes group telepathic experiences:
he says one person can leave off describing the scene being beheld and another
will take it up "Everyone is seeing the same thing!" what might be happening
here is that ayahuasca promotes synaesthesia [the crossing of the senses -
whatever that feels like] - and since everyone is hearing the same thing,
and seeing what they hear [this is the synesthetic effect], then it is as if
telepathy is occurring - but it must be mediated by hearing and then the drug,
presumably.
what's the point of suicidal openness, or doing things "in public" [eg airing
strange thoughts on the net etc]? the point is to try to force the rate of
change by pioneering the expression of certain thoughts or the performance of
certain actions. if someone is *seen* to do something for the first time, it
then becomes more imaginable to others that they themselves could express
their true feelings or act on their true desires. of course, this process of
gradual pioneering may lead in directions that one judges undesirable - eg
war, serial murder have both become "familiar".
\qix\plasmate
13-11-92 qut linklab 2.21am etc. [using qedit for once!]
written only a few hrs after 121192, nickiu and kelly long gone [an hour ago?]
have just been looking at disk b, where i have the relatively small no.
of gavinfiles that i have actually transfered to disk thus far.
3 major groupings: net fiend - rez - scott. [+other stuff like otis, cog,
futfaq] i am thinking in terms of trying to bring together some of the
virtual worlds i have explored so far, or whatever i am to call them.
there's mine - netfiend + a.o - which i presume i will make available in
the form of qixbio, and then a.o itself; there's general leri-dialog &
in particular rez - leri will probably become a supercategory, according
to various threads & leri also includes scotto with whom i haven't talked
as much as rez; and gerold pirl, and mike gourlay.. [& solan@no?]; and then
there's private correspondence with scott. also correspondence with lizi,
although he did make his public domain note so, point is, if at some future
stage i was to try to 'share' notes or resources or something, scott's are
the ones that would require mopst consultation [with him] since they are
email. i need a good name for the different net affinity groups, meme-
clusters etc that exist, and which i am trying to involve in some sort of
symbiotic relationship or other form of communication. take this to
leri-l? mindmelds?? mindfields? maybe memes aren't alive, but we need
some other concept for this idea of a groupmind sort of thing which can be
considered semiautonomous. something with 'net' and or 'cog' in its name.
cf cyborg. netorg? cognet? netmeld? maybe there's a word already in the
lerifaq. metamind. cognitive domain. netamind? i'll call them domains for the
moment. domains i know of, which i want to bring into visible contact:
mitch-scott
jeremy-scott
mitch-lizi
mitch-rez (a subdomain of leri)
and there seems to be something on alt.satanism / alt.destroy.the.earth
involving corleyj/locklin/lizi/perhaps semhaza/and i wonder if tagi is a
part of this? find out this morning maybe. should add alt.horror.cthulhu
to the above list. and judex to the list of names. it's a small world
after all.
of the people i've spoken with a bit, scott definitely seems to have the
biggest agenda, although i'm still not in the full picture. know next to
nothing about tagi and semhaza.
so, as far as 'bringing together in one place' what i've already mentioned
goes: if jeremy & scott were to join leri, that would potentially make
jermey-mitch-scott triangle a subdomain of leri ie it could be conducted
within the 'space of visibility' that leri offers. so leri provides the
advantage of a 'space' of sorts where such things can be discussed, but has
the disadvantage that any discussion there is 'exposed' by the presence of
so many minds and so many other threads.
[domain concept i want to add before i forget to record it: idea that each
person *in RL* is a potential source of 'leaks' in the integrity of a domain
[when considered in its excluding aspect, ie as a place that is not
universally accessible to inspection], eg i show things to fellow elder gods,
blab to flatmates or people like caroline&co about aspects of life on the
net, etc; and regionally each of us is in a similar situation, ie scott in
mass, leri people in iowa, etc. is juxlus ever going to do his leri-map?]
another thing with leri: magick/occult, cthulhoid/thelemite topics are not
high profile at present, although they pop up occasionally, eg daath, "bob",
& scotto in discussing tremendum and terence mckenna mentions tibetan buddhism
& shamanism. contrast here is with the alt.horror.cthulhu/alt.satanism axis,
a lot of the traffic of which i think would be along such lines. these
topics would probably alienate some of the leri people who may have reasonable
drug experience but are relatively ignorant of these conceptual systems. [so
what is under consideration here is the future consequence of an 'importation'
of ?'occult' memes into leri discussion.
* * * * *
back from a toilet trip. it would be germane to now note that i am almost
certainly going to forward this to scott somehow, & perhaps others mentioned;
& it would also be appropriate to recall the june/july posting i made shortly
after returning from my travels overseas, which listed perhaps 12 groups
which were to be brought together... i shall dig around a bit and see if i
have a reough copy of the text anywhere on disk...
ok, in transcribing my 'travel diary' i got as far as iowa, which means i have
the draft text of the usenet posting [though not the actual final text] & not
the groups that i listed, but i can probably remember those. this is what i
wrote while traveling, by way of trying to create the conditions for these
groups to come together [in a joking-serious tone] & as a way of introducing
v/r... [just in my sig, mentioned v/r..]
Planet Earth is only a few months away from two historic events (although they
may turn out to be historic *non*-events). One is the Earth Summit, taking
place in Rio de Janeiro in the first two weeks of June, at which the
"powerbrokers" and would-be powerbrokers of the world shall meet for the UN
Conference on Environment and Development, ostensibly to lay the ground rules
for global governance in the '90s. I read in a newspaper that Maurice Strong,
who I think is a (former?) high-ranking UN bureaucrat whose brainchild the
Summit is, wants it to be "a success or a dramatic failure". So if the outcome
of the Summit is not enough as far as its UN organizers are concerned, they
may somehow appeal to the peoples of the world (eg through CNN), bypassing
governments, saying "Your rulers have failed you..."
The other event is more obscure as yet: the (predicted) `Time Shift' of July
26. Supposed to be the climax of a 5-year period of change initiated by the
Harmonic Convergence of 1987, after the Time Shift `telepathy will be the
norm', and money, drugs and oil will somehow become useless, according to Jose
Arguelles' exposition of the Mayan paradigm he expects to replace
`materialism'. If all of this happens, it will obviously be a momentous event;
if it doesn't happen, it will still be important, since it will be the first
failure of a millennial-style prediction to which are attached the hopes of
people _all_over_ the planet.
So two (non)-events are looming: between them they may spell the end of
politics and religion as we have known them. In such times we need to pool
all our intelligence, in order to work out what the hell is going on. To this
end I nominate the following individuals and groups as Alternative World
Overlords. I say unto you, readers of the groups of the "alt" hierarchy,
between them these people are the brain-trust of our species: they *must* be
brought together in dialogue or conflict or something; or else our world may
descend into the Ugyldig from whence it sprang.
and the groups/people would have been:
avital ronell
barbara marx hubbard
upwingers [fm2030]
foresight institute [k eric drexler]
falcon press [wilson leary hyatt]
stanislaw lem
celia green [institute for psychophysical research]
jeremy griffith [foundation for humanity's adulthood]
lindisfarne [william irwin thompson]
original cyberpunks [gibson sterling etc]
subgenius foundation
terence mckenna
i'm pretty sure there were only 12.
so if i were to stick to this list for the moment ['biblio' is a bigger & much
more complex version of the same thing], how am i going by way of finding
internet links to these RL 'domains'?
avital ronell -> pmc-list, pmc-talk. just starting to explore this one but
she's on the editorial board.
barbara marx hubbard -> ??? haven't seen her mentioned anywhere, haven't
pursued it.
upwingers -> ? i am *sure* fm would be on the net somewhere, but have yet
to find where. extropians is definitely the closest we come to an
'upwingers' group or list
foresight institute -> pretty much as above, except sci.nanotech is a
usenet focus.
wilson/leary/hyatt -> ?? leri-l. wilson mentioned in alt.satanism faq. and
'where' was wilson.on.cis 'recorded'? leary alleged to lead discussions
on the well sometimes. hyatt introduces the whole thelemite / western
tradition meme-complex, so alt.magick.
stanislaw lem -> ??? haven't tried. rec.arts.books? comp.ai? in a sense the
cyberpunks are, finally, the 'movement' exploring some of lem's themes,
but lem has a different approach, & other concerns [including surprisingly
subgenius-like ones at times].
celia green -> ??? no sign of her either and haven't really tried.
philosophy groups? alt.paranormal?? + physics connection.
jeremy griffith -> ??? even more unknown. an up-and-coming influence
compared to all these other people. more an oz task for me - which
suggests interesting future encounters between his memes and kevin
solway's.
lindisfarne -> this one is just getting underway with my recent xposted
inquiry. john mccarthy made a brief reply, one other guy is reading a
w.i.t. book, and guy in email is attending a n.y. 'symposium' _right_now_.
lindisfarne would already appear to be a sort of global intellectual
fellowship, so to a great degree thompson has been trying to bring minds
together in a similar fashion.
original cyberpunks -> well, alt.cyberpunk. bruces@well.sf.ca.us is most
visible net connection. what is mike@highlite.uucp involved with?
andy hawks, future-culture. scream baby seems to have lots of connections.
subgenius foundation -> if this is taken to refer to 'free' or 'weird'
religions in general then these are a dime a dozen on the net - subgenius,
discordian, church of spam, v/r, kibology, etc. [i would be interested to
have a sort of map of the relationships between kibo, mdw, sramming etc,
since they are all in communication thru email as well as on the net, no
doubt. kibology i think hasnt got the intellectual substance of anything
else here, but it is important within usenet as a highly visible cultural
icon of sorts - it is unique in that respect. this is a future factor.] in
terms of network of online subgenii, online operation mindfucks, corleyj
is starting one of the latter, & perhaps subgenius-l is the closest to a
seriously organized subg grouping (and it's just like a smaller
alt.slack). HOWEVER, if we talk actual SubGenius FOUNDATION - ie the real
organization - not sure about their degree of online participation. two
leads: janor h. on mars bbs last year, and phenomicon people - in
particular the guy who seems to know 'swinging love corpses'.
terence mckenna -> LERI-L. no other candidate needed. leri-l encompasses
much more than mckenna, but it is certainly the only mckenna forum on the
net, and a very well-informed one at that.
so if i'm talking bringing domains together OR at least constructing a picture
of their *existing* relationships so that everyone can become aware of what
ALREADY EXISTS, what happens if i have a go at stitching together all the
netstuff listed above? !...
PMC-TALK, Extropians/sci.nanotech, leri-l, alt.magick/alt/satanism,
alt.cyberpunk, scream-baby/future-culture, subgenius-l. that's not
comprehensive, but it's already a pretty wild mix. so what would i be trying
to achieve by bringing these different domains into visible contact? to
facilitate memetic crossover, to assist in the birth of a synthesis. they are
already crossing over in my head and in the heads of others, in a somewhat
chaotic fashion; but i have only finite resources & critical and creative
capacities; by distributing - in a computational sense - the 'load', there is
a better chance of coming up with something productive.
the crossover of domains here is a quantum leap up from what i was discussing
before, as i was mostly thinking of connections between groups of 2 or 3, and
my only 'semipublic' domain was leri-l, whereas in the list that begins this
paragraph there are 7+ such 'very leaky' domains. there is a problem here of
dissipation of purpose. in my original list i was trying to bring together in
one place all the most interesting/provocative thoughts that i had
encountered, to see what was born of their commingling, beyond confusion and
wonder. such comminglings, although not of precisely the same domains, are
already happening on leri, but the unstructured nature of it leads me & i
suspect most or all people to switch off to at least half of it - tune out
from threads which are too far away from their present concerns. as a result
there is a certain amount of dissipation, i think - ie even if something new
comes of a dialogue on a certain topic, it only occasionally has leri-wide
ramifications.
[a parenthetical addition: i have not mentioned theoretical physics or
dynamical systems theory yet, and yet these two bodies of concepts - probably
better-defined than any i have mentioned so far - ought to be part of the
memetic stew i wish to brew as well. support comes from the recent thread on
leri associating the two - it's not just my fondness for these topics which
makes them relative to Whatever It Is i'm working towards here.
further note: jbaez is an interesting person. see him mostly in sci.physics
and sci.math, but he shows up regularly in alt.drugs and posted about voynich
ms. to alt.horror.cthulhu, so his conceptual world is definitely broad...
so someone else to try to involve, in something?]
i think it's time i introduced an element of purpose here. i am hoping not
merely to create a map of existing relationships, but to facilitate the birth
of something new - new ideas and perhaps a new world. to use the language of
memes and meme-complexes for a moment, one way to look at it would be to
conceive of the end-result as a meme-scheme [in hofstadter's sense of paradigm
framework etc] which can encompass and supersede [at the absolute level] those
that exist now. i want to connect this to philip dick's notion of a
"plasmate", a living body of information which can pass from a text into a
mind which will act as its host; the resultant is a "homoplasmate" in dick's
jargon, a human who is a host for the information. dick's plasmate had to do
with his idea of what esoteric christianity is about, i think, whereas it
seems to me that (say) extropian ideas would be a component of a late20thc
plasmate, so i can't say that "my" plasmate and his would be the same, but the
metaphor of a LIVING BODY OF INFORMATION that spreads through different media
[the meme/virus analogy] is a useful one.
ok, so a concise restatement? by bringing about this memetic crossover - which
at present is a mostly chaotic process which at times hints at great things to
come - i hope to give birth to a plasmate which will circulate throughout the
noosphere, transforming human perceptions and thus human actions.
why would i want to transform human actions? because it seems to me that the
world we have now is 'radically unsatisfactory [because]...the human condition
is a dump.' [bruces] this is the primary consideration, we are finite and
ignorant, and it is my impression that people hide from things, choose
frivolous and relatively purposeless pursuits, because they have accepted that
they will always be thus. whereas the whole notion of the SINGULARITY suggests
something quite different: that we are at a unique historical juncture, in
which there is an opportunity, with luck and hard work, to escape the
historical human condition - to be transformed both 'physically' and
'existentially', for want of better terms. but at the same time there are all
sorts of uncertainties and possible dangers, the possibility of error both in
a practical and an intellectual sense - the wrong step might be taken, or we
might have an incorrect worldview - which is why i insist on all these
ingredients.
ok, to take another leap and relate this to 'alpha and omega': if i really
hurry, could the plasmate, or a proto-version of it, be born before the year
is out, or at some point in the very near future? because this could be a new
statement of what i am trying to do with a.o specifically: make it the textual
vehicle of the plasmate [as the book of the subgenius is supposed to be]. the
book would point beyond itself in two ways: to the later a.o forms [movie,
event], but also to the internet itself, and the sea of information therein
which could not be touched upon in a single text. thus a text like this, even
if it were not excerpted and made part of the canonical a.o, could implicitly
be a part of it in the sense that it is a text closely related to the Final
Draft.
this has been a very interesting exercise.
...
ok, have just been scanning this text, and i think it would go well, not in
a.o, since this is all stil inchoate whereas a.o is meant to be the Real
Thing, but in this hypothetical qixbio that i might make available by ftp.
recent ingredients might include:
semper story of my travels
diary of a net fiend [the drug aspect of my life]
conspiracy posting and lizi's response
this file
and other ingredients, no doubt. [chart of time from leri-l]
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
i also want to note that as i was writing out the list before, of internet
correlates to my list of 12 RL 'domains', that i felt a slightly fearful/
fascinating apprehension of the *reality* of this, the irreversible and
unpredictable nature of bringing them together. played out on a global
scale, this of course is a familiar worry to me; in trying to immanentize
the eschaton, what if you fuck up and bring about the Bad version rather
than the Good one? [debates about Good and Bad put aside for the moment.]
---------------------------------------
ok, who do i send this to? at this stage i think only scott [@titan] and
rez, although certainly scotto [@leri] would understand what it was about,
since he's seen all my postings to leri-l - i just think rez because he's the
one i was actually debating the merits of a book with, etc. probably quite a
few leri people know enough to work out what i'm talking about here, so
perhaps this whole thing might get posted to leri at some stage, or a
streamlined version or something. i'll have to send scott l. a copy of the
leri "chart of time" where i expounded a.o so he knows what i'm talking about
re the idea of a book, and maybe chart of time & this document together could
serve to introduce the idea to [certain!] people not on leri.
probably include some form of the lerifaq file as well, just to explain
singularity etc.
-------------------
after another break [now 4am], looking ahead. let us suppose that the a.o
*structure* in time,
book -> movie -> event - 24 hrs at the end of 2000
actually happens, and provides a sort of framework within which whatever
the final memetic mix is, propagates. how prominent will we, as individuals
- myself, scott, rez, etc - be in whatever historical events occur during
2000? might one of us end up being a new leary or mckenna, for example? could
someone involved in this enterprise / the leri enterprise / whatever it turns
into, have some degree of 'secular' power ie political influence or privilege,
lots of money, high managerial position? this is relevant to me even on the
level of writing fiction, because i need to have some idea of how "prominent"
the people who initiate such a process are by the time it is reaching its
culmination.
in terms of people who have a place in existing institutions, when i think
of my previous lists i think extropians and [to a lesser degree] pmc (a lesser
degree because the humanities are simply not as much of a cultural influence
as science and technology). there may well be extropians or
extropian-sympathetic people on advisory councils to the american government,
u.n. etc by 2000, and if extropian memes are a major component of the
plasmate [remember, plasmate denotes the final body of memes that will
propagate together - there is an assumption that there will be a somehow
harmonious hybrid of all this and more] then any such 'high-up' extropian may
well know about & be influenced by the 'weirder' aspects as well.
in terms of people from my list of RL domains, barbara marx hubbard has
thought a lot about running for president, so she may well be a significant
figure by the time the real events roll around. fm also, owing to his history
of involvement with the un.
the others could perhaps become culturally influential - eg mckenna being
sampled by the shamen, william gibson becoming a household name, etc. in a
sense what i'm asking here is, *who will be* the individuals who will embody
some of these ideas as far as pop culture is concerned? it seems to me that
for an idea to circulate there's got to be someone who is its representative
in the world of humanity. since drexler, ronell etc are already public
figures, the question is already answered with respect to *their* ideas; but
assuming that something genuinely novel comes of this crossover process i've
been hyping, who will stand for that? i think that as far as the idea of
'alpha and omega' the book etc. itself, i have to take full credit/blame
there, if i'm going to be the damn author [unless it assumes some
collaborative form which i find presently unimaginable, seeing how
*individual* a vision it still is] ; but as far as reality goes, the most that
a.o would do is set a deadline and a sort of temporal structure for this
hypothetical Event at the end of the century - the content & outcome would NOT
follow any script - i'm not that smart. that's why i have envisioned the
ending of a.o as being a big question mark, so to speak, saying 'you have now
had certain possibilities opened to you, you know how much time remains - what
do you do now....?' but that question mark will not last past dec 31, 2000.
either the whole thing doesnt take off, in which case i'm left looking for
another avenue, or it does and it assumes a definite form and outcome on that
date. possible forms might be, say
a global extropian-type movement
a global green/back-to-nature movement
[or some odd combination of these]
a mystical, new-agey sort of transcendence - cf hopi indian prophecies
a 'cthulhoid apocalypse' [eg the star beings come to devour our souls]
[these are the extremes of the 'occult' scenario, so to speak]
global love peace and harmony [ie only 'social transcendence']
global despair and destruction - intentional self-annihilation
[a 'punk apocalypse' - the extremes of ?social change]
business as usual - muddling through, nothing in particular happens.
everyone goes back to work the next day.
mass enlightenment - the Truth is communicated to everyone - global
enlightenment [distinguishable from global happiness] {but would this
Truth be more like green or griffith?}
in all of those different events the 'key players' would be different sorts of
people - in some politicians would be pivotal, in others gurus, in others
technicians of different sorts, etc.
i have gone a bit off track from my intent, which was to ask, 'which of
"us", now - people "we" know personally on the net - could end up a cultural
icon, world politician etc?' but i have no particular answers.
but the point is, that if something resembling this course of events does
happen, we, or some of 'us', may find ourselves in crucial positions.
----------------------------
a final thought: written half an hour later, after going for a walk thinking
& eating - one of my goals is the elimination of all fear between people,
especially fear of divulgence of information. i have written elsewhere about
the idea that when one person performs an action, it makes it more thinkable
for others to do the same, and that this is how (eg) openness about sex,
drugs, politics, religion etc has progressed, in steps taken by pioneers
that were then popularized by others. it was to this end that i have wanted
to be open on the internet in particular - thus i have imagined making
diaries available via ftp, & the like. it occurs to me that perhaps kibo was
the first person to be completely free in this sense - the first not to
"hide his shining star" - in which case kibology really may be the way of
life in the 21st century! ie kibo was the first to take a step which the mass
of humanity will later follow, in the global information culture of the
future. (and in what fashion could the first person to take such a step, do
such a thing, other than as an enormous joke? to do it with earnest intentions
- "i'm going to tell the world all about myself because i want to set an
example of openness etc" - i don't think would work; the negative reaction
would be too much.) kibo may be just as important as he makes himself out to
be.
\qix\nov92\181192
18-11-92 wednesday morning 4 am link lab.raining outside & i'm stuck here.
what are major recent events? on sunday went to TISEA in afternoon, was
fairly interesting; then in evening got amilings from loompanics and
waves forest,which i thought was better still.
yesterday and today i havebeen at uq rather than griffith..heard from lupo
again after thinking he'd disappeared. leri-l fairly quiet lately ,it's as
if everyone has withdrawn from the frenzy of trying to follow everything a
few weeks back.
i have been wondering lately,whether i'm still learning, because at times it
felt as if everything purposeful i was doing on the net was in order to
spread memes i already know about,rather than learn of new ones. but then i
look at a.o - the draft miniversion saved 9 ?oct i think - and i think, gee
thatwas a long time ago. what has happened, basically since the compilation
of high weirdness by email, is that i am linked into the internet in a
really new way, to a degree that hasnt happened before, even when i was
regularly bbs'ing. the internet [the "CyberVoid"] is now the ...thing...
into which i am pouring most of my efforts,and out of which various
responses return to me.
with most of my communicating being espeak,my use of the language is
changing very swiftly. also the change in my thoughts that i had noticed,
that so many ofmy thoughts had to do with online activities and people.
this is a whole universe i am entering here. or i am entering into a new
intellectualrelationship with the same universe,by becoming part of a
domain in which all action involves interaction. my intelligence and
knowledge is potentially augmented by the net,both as a form of
accelerated experience and as a superresource made upof millions of other
networked humans.
it is interesting: eventually i will cut back on net use, introduce some
sort of regularity and discipline to what i do on the net, whereas at the
moment it is all chaos interspersed with spurts of purpose which leadto
the completion of tasks at hand. by formulating a precise relationship
between myself&the net- "i will readthese groups, answer this mail, complete
this projectetc" - i make it easier to act purposively with regards to the
net but i fallbehind in the growth of myimplicit knowledge of what's going on
on the fringes.[although it is questionable that a lotof that info is really
worth knowing anyway. eg is it important to be in on every injoke from
talk.bizarre to alt.peeves?]
high weirdness by email could be seen as my portrait of the net,or the net
as i encounter it given the choices i make. eg the emphasis on alt topics.
the 'plasmate' diary entry was a start of a step in the next direction...
yes, ok,i am starting to conceive of phases to my recent intensive times
on the net, which started with getting email and newsposting privileges.
[how was it that i first heardof nyx?] the progressive development (of
important new steps) was something like nyx, future-culture, leri-l,
then lots and lots ofmailing lists,and all this culminated in high weirdness
by email,which is the work of amind going in a dozen different directions.
phase two is one of 'rconvergence' and will involve re-relating things and
if necessary PRIORITIZING [rez'sfavourite word].
<just made a quick toilet trip, during which it occurred to me that phase ?3
- getting aheadof myself here -must involve linking up my FleshAcquaintances
with the net in general.i havetalked about bringing the net to ;'the masses'
etc but to the extent to which i am trying to bring computers to non-CS
people, it is specific people,my friends who i want to have access to the
net world.. so this i hope will come of cafenet,and perhaps l's house of
the happy hobbit. thus also might my net circles encounter my brisbane ones.>
the culmination of phase 3 will most likely be alpha.omega the ?usenet post/
net-trip; and in terms of the development of a.o the new step will be the
full integration of ...??? the reality of internet intothe picture.ie i am
linking it [the novel] up with a vastly complex entity whose specificities
i havetrulybeen learning only in the past month.
i'm now going to have a go at constructing a net chronology for my
activities of the past month and a bit, so i can get a clearer perspective on
what'sbeen going on.
...DONE! an overview from september to mid-november:
10 Sep - 1 Jan deadline
18 Sep - ftp'd hacker mags - idea that ao.post not wholly 'live'
23 Sep - spending time on BBS's from QUT
27 Sep - 4-disk series
1 Oct - 'checking' Samba
2 Oct - 'try to get on to FutureCulture'
3 Oct - regularly copying items from QUTNews - compiling ao.post
8 Oct - NEW HOME
9 Oct - Samba working - 4 brief newsposts
12 Oct - V/R letterhead
14 Oct - Posted re High W b E - using Macs (at commerce,i presume)
15 Oct - FUTFAQ, OTIS
[somewhere in here,T16]
21 Oct (NOW ON NYX) - ANTHLAL correspondence - on extropians, leri-l
24 Oct - UQcom, samba wiped everything
1 Nov - have done H W b E, Diary of a N F, alt.necromicon FAQ, ScottL corr
lists: obj, extr, leri, anarchy, subg, fut
thinking of qix-l; scott, rez, maybe mike wiik and lizi as 'future partners'
6 Nov - busted at UQcom -> G.U.. Con to DestEarth,singularity threads.
'my heartis with leri'. would have posted CFDalt.qixnews soon after
12 Nov - K&N first look at News - W I T mail, jeremy meets GOO
13 Nov - PLASMATE, qixbio
17/18 Nov - this very moment NOW
so i have been on nyx for maybe one month. and nyx has been the truly *crucial*
factor in being able to do anything at all on the broader net eg contribute to
leri,assemble hwbe. [it's funny how similar this is to the end of last year,
with a rush of change, only there the ?facilitator was acid rather than the
net.] i am now at a point where it really is appropriate to focus consciously
on some specific tasks. my main tangent at present would appear to be the
singularity essay for extropians/leri - making that point; watching for a
while for thompson/green feedback;and getting waves forest out on the net.
a little further down the track i might want to have as much of my other
'essential reading' online as possible. thus finding a scanner becoming more
and more urgent.once it'sthere online it can be referred to and cannibalized
by future etexts. also realistically i think within a month the leri-l
institute shouldhave a report on timewave zero,so that will start to come
into place. so 3 items: singularity, getting more texts 'out there', and
TWZ.oh! and knot theory/interiority etc as well. and a newsgroup with
richard raby - it would be much easier for me,at least to keep track of
my usenet traffic thatway,i think that was the ultimate motive for
alt.qixnews, so all my different threadswould be visibly together in at
least _one_place.
also start assembling canonical texts for qixbio. i guess this will be one
of them.
OK,rain is lighter and so is sky and i may go soon [5.45 am]. a final note:
i think the most appropiate place for all this stuff would be volume 2
[volume 3?] of the travelling scriptures. so it would naturally encompass
semper
netfiend
lizicon
131192 [plasmate]
181192 [thisfile]
(after all, "semper" is already there). plus qix92.not and qixatuq.not for
additional background info. i am a bit concerned at taking over the church
of v/r entirely for my own purposes, or flooding the scriptures with what
i've written, but i don'tthink lara will mind since she wants them to grow,
etc. if this proposed addition happens, though.. it is interesting to think
what the next one will bring, since from here my main projects are completing
the next version of high weirdness by email,and then the usenet version of
alpha and omega.. both of which are *related* to scripture, but neither of
which can actually be incorporated directly intom scripture, i think.
which means thatthe *next* volume will most likely be the work of abulafia
pippin & co, a few months from now when they've read all this & all sorts of
things may have happened.who knows what it will be by then?
******* EARLY CAFENET MATERIAL *********
Note: what follows are for the most part Pippin's notes, drafts of various
documents related to the CafeNet enterprise, etc. As of this writing I have
been busy with my activity on the net (see above) & have not at all been
involved with the progress of CafeNet; but Pippin has graciously lent me her
notes, & I hereby transcribe them in the hope that they may assist and inspire
someone in some other part of the world who wishes to `bring the Internet to
the street'. -Qix
ORIGINAL NOTES
\pippin\cafe1
Mitchell's dream is to bring the Internet to the people in the street.
We, the Church of V\R and Gaia 2000, propose CafeNet, a network of computers
in coffee shops across Brisbane, and eventually, across Australia. In its
final stage, CafeNet will provide full Internet access comparable to
Compuserve or Aarnet for people not associated with an institution and who do
not have lots of money.
We propose stages of development for CafeNet.
Stage 1.
This will involve one stand-alone computer, in a popular cofee shop. The
computer will be a 386 or a 486. A 386 can be purchased for $1000. The 386
will be the file server, and it will have about 5 terminals attached to it.
This will give users the first taste of real-time contact over the computer
medium.
Users can leave messages for each other or contribute to an electronic
forum.
A modem would give outside computer owners an opportunity to ring up the
coffee shop and contribute or talk to the coffee shop users.
Stage 2.
We will then introduce FidoNet to the coffee shop. FidoNet will give Cafe
users the opportunity to participate in international conferences and to send
and receive international mail. Users would probably have to pay for this,
about $35 per year.
or UUCP could be used for a Newsfeed and International Mail. This will cost
$1000 per year from UQ. I *think( FidoNet will be easier to organize.
if FidoNet is used, another modem, 144K, should be purchased. These canbe
purchased from Netcomm for $6-- if Netcomm know that it is for a BBS.
E-mail can be sued to "sell" the Cafe to business. Overnight mail. Faster
than airmali, but not faster than fax.
Stage 3.
This stage could be interchanged with Stage 2.
Virtual Cafes will be set up in other coffee shops. 5 terminals, preferably,
another modem for outside users and a file server for each. The file servers
will be connected via 2 multiplexers, $1000 for a good one, or over ISDN (?)
cabling. This can be connected for $600.
This will enable users in different cafes to talk to each other in real
time.
This is when CafeNet will be a proper Network.
Cafe Fileservers can be converted to UNIX or a UNIX Clone to make them more
compatible for the Internet.
A MUD would make things more interesting.
Stage 4.
Virtual cafes will spread to otehr cities.
But how would they be connected?
Stage 5.
Connect CafeNet to the Internet.
We don't know how we will do this either. Possibly via FalNet who connect
Cmopuserve, but we would charge users a yearly rate and ont an hourly rate.
Welcome to CafeNet Press F1 for help.
SOME NOTES
write letters to hardware companies to grovel for stuff in exchange for
advertising "your hardware will be seen by a large range of people..."
CPU manufacturers, modem makers, hard disk makers, LCD manuf's.
Digital, Sun, Western, Apple, HP, Motorola, Silicon Graphics, NeXT,
Commodore 3 or 4000, Compaq, IBM
* Picture terminal in a coffee shop
* lo-tech definition of CafeNet (subscribers)
* Physical Liabilities ie computers, who owns them; electricity arrangement;
extra phones
* Benefits. Why you should allow these things in your shop. Disadvantages.
Getting rid of people.
Leave client alone.
It is going to become a martyr.
Have a bean.
* Questionnaire
* Flyer
- explaining CafeNet
* Bound Booklet
- explaining CafeNet
- mechanics
* letters for hardware firms
DRAFT INTRODUCTION TO CAFENET
Your lunch break arrives. After briefly tidying up, you head for the door.
Your favourite coffee shop beckons so you enter looking for a strong cup of
fresh coffee, a sandwich and a chance to relax with all thoughts of work far
behind. The waiter chats with you briefly when you order and then you sit
down, savouring the rich aroma of the coffee. Your attention starts wandering
around the room until you notice a computer placed discreetly against a wall
with a banner:
"Welcome to CafeNet"
displayed over an intriguing animated background.
Perhaps at this point your interest is pricked. Pull it toward you. Connect
to CafeNet. Connect to a network of people around Brisbane, around Australia
and around the world. From here you can find information and poinions of any
topic under the sun. You can join in and air your views in an electronic forum
where your voice matters no less than anyone else's. Meet people who share
your opinions. Discover the people who disagree and why. Continue discussions
privately with electronic mail. Leave messages for others. "Talk" to friends
who are connected to CafeNet simultaneously. Join in interactive games with
possibly dozens of other people at once. There are many possibilities, but the
bottom line is it can be a lot of fun if you get involved.
Find out how it feels to be connected to a dynamic and diverse network of
people, information and imagination. The larger network of CafeNet is but a
small part beckons you from the farthest corners of the world. In the New Year
you will be able to broaden your horizons and join this chaotic mass of
humanity.
DRAFT CAFENET QUESTIONNAIRE (for the purposes of market research)
CafeNet is a proposed small business intending to provide communications
services using electronic data links. These services are electronic mail
around the world (overnight), local and worldwide discussion forums,
information services, multiple player games and electronic "chatting".
This questionnaire is to determine whether the people of Brisbane would sue
these services.
1) Would you be interested in these services?
2) If so, would you pay 10, 25, 50 or ___ dollars as a yearly subscription
fee (with no additional costs) for these services?
3) Where would you find it conventient to use these services? eg a library,
coffee shop, nite club, pinball parlour
4) Would you sue these services in a coffee shop?
5) If you are not interested in these services is it because:
a) these services are already provided by someone else
If they are, who are they and what services do they provide?
b) they simply hold no interest for you
c) computers make you uncomfortable
d) none of the above
Thank you for your time.
DRAFT CAFENET BLURB FOR AROMAS (Brisbane coffee shop)
Imagine a man walking into Aromas. He sits down and looks across the table,
and sees a computer staring back. He thikns that a coffee shop is a strange
plave to find a cmoputer. He is intrigued though, and slides over the seat to
investigate.
What is CafeNet?
CafeNet is a proposed network of computers in coffee shops across Brisbane.
CafeNet will provide an electronic mail service, discussion groups, and "chat"
system, an information service, and multiple player games. CafeNet will be
part of the greater global network of cmoputers called the Internet.
Aromas would not have to buy any cmoputers. Aromas would only have to allow
CafeNet computers to live in its space. CafeNet would use Aromas' electricity
if an agreement about reimbursement could be arranged. CafeNet will have to
connect more telephone lines to the shop, but this will be at CafeNet's
expense.
What CafeNet will do for you.
CafeNet will create its own culture of progressive, intelligent people, and
Aromas will be seen to be a part of this culture. This could be a disadvantage
if this culture is perceived to be undesirable. Another benefit is the
association with easy-to-use computer technology and the other businesses with
which CafeNet will be in contact. CafeNet will attract people to Aromas, and
they will drink coffee.
Another disadvantage could be in people coming in to Aromas and wearing out
their welcome. That is cmoing in, buying one cup of coffee and then sitting
there for hours playing on the computer. There are a number of ways around
this. One is to limit the amount of connect time for each day. Most people
will out of courtesy buy coffee because it is a coffee shop. Then there are
those people who like to socialise in Aromas whether there are cmoputers in
there or not.
Please think about this as being a way to expand the clientele of Armoas and
provide a useful service. Feel free to discuss this with myself and my
partner, or even to ask for a guided tour of the Internet. That is the least
that we can do.
PIPPIN'S FLOWCHART [transcribed by Qix from her note
s]
2
1 write .......................................interviews...........
vision . . .
. 5 buy PC .
write . and modem . 4
3 initial . . software
business... 6 subscribe development
plan . . . 8
. . .
4 demo . 7 market research .
model...... . .
. 8 finalize business plan .
. . .
4 buy 386 . .
$ $ . .
. .
scrub up.................................apply for bank loan......
. 9
.
.
B E F O R E L O A N
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A F T E R L O A N
10 submit loan application........NO..........find a real job
. write scriptures and novels
.YES GRADUATE !!
.
receive loan
.
11 buy $$$ hardware..
. .................[sketch of a rocket launching]
12 ADVERTISE $ $ $...
