From: ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu (pinkerton floyd)
Subject: Re: reality?
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Date: Wed, 7 Oct 92 22:24:55 GMT

In article <1992Oct7.045036.15570@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>
jmilhoan@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (JT) writes: 
|In article <guest.2@fcit-c1.fcit.monash.edu.au>
|guest@fcit-c1.fcit.monash.edu.au writes: 
|>Don't know if this is getting to you all, but ah'll give it a shot anyway.
|>
|>Cyberpunk is just a fantasy that we ain't going to achieve. Or if we do it
|>ain't going to be too close to what they think it is. (Like people could
|>argue we had reached something like cyberpunk). 

We have reached something 'like cyberpunk' already....Some may argue
it's been around since the industrial revolution....The spirit of
cyberpunk (the cyber and the punk) is all that's necessary, not
necessarily the specific factors you describe below which basically
reflect little more than Gibson-esque world....Not every cyberpunk
work features a 2-class system like the one you describe below...Not
every work features "cyberlimbs", etc....

On a very basic, non-specific level, those aspects that are crucial in
defining cyberpunk (punks with cyber-techs) exist in our world today...

|>	Firstly, anarchy and corporations rule?
|
|Dunno about anarchy, but corporations do.  Business, economy, trade,
|blah, blah, blah... 

I think he's proposing that it is unlikely that the two would coexist
together in a 2-class system as seen in Gibson works, etc....

I agree...Anarchy for one is practically impossible, let alone anarchy
combined with it's polar opposite - oppressive industrialized
mega-zaibatsus... 

|>Watching America and Australia, governments are always going to be the 
|>front of what is going on. 
|
|Yeah, but the corporations are behind the government... vice versa.

Yeah....It is my opinion that in America, the economy is as
central the functioning of our society as the government....To the
point we've developed, it wuld be impossible to have one without the
other...And, considering that rise in the importance of commodities as
equal to that of laws and such, I don't think it would be difficult to
foresee a future in which the corporations eventually have complete
control over the government....

|>Corporations may have people in the government, 
|>and they may bribe the government like anything, but if they want to do
|>anything, requisition anything, they will have to go through the government.
|
|And vice versa again... wouldn't you say that a government isn't one
|big corporation in a way? 

In our society, American government may appear to be like a big
corporation, and this would support the idea of the coming of a
technocracy run by the zaibatsus and such...

|>	Cyberspace, what will it be?
|
|I think of it as a grandiose GUI ;).  Seriously... read on.
|
|>OK, I don't hack. But from all the info. I have collated on it, it seems
|>a 3-D world in electronic space won't be existing for the purpose of storing 
|>information which can be hacked into. It will be purely for educational, 
|>entertainmment and maybe simulations (mainly combat simulations). Real 
|>hackers are going to be dealing with hundreds of characters to do the hacking
|>getting the real stuff. 
|
|OK, you said you don't hack?  That's fine...  why couldn't cyberspace
|be a 3-D GUI of internet?  This is very feasible.  Maybe not now, but
|there was a time when a person had to know all kinds of commands just
|to load and operate an application.  Now we have GUIs that allow us to
|use word processors that require us only to type when we work on our
|documents.  No os commands, other than pointing and clicking.  I work
|in a lab where people know how to use mathematica, word perfect, etc.,
|and come up to me because they dont know how to turn the computer on.
|Hardly hackers...  
|
|my point:  you wouldn't necessarily have to be a hacker in order to
|use "cyberspace".  Hell, it is being developed as VIRTUAL REALITY.
|What can be more cognitive than a representation of walking and
|picking up things, stepping through doors?  Even a mouse cursor in
|Windoze or the Mac OS is far less cognitive.     

If you think about the motivations of hackers, than I think you can
see that virtual reality will be prime territory for hackers...Hackers
seek rebellion, power, knowledge, information, "safe thrills" - all of
which will be possible (likely) in a 3d real-esque vr
environment....Also, consider the fact that 3d vr-worlds of the future
are likely to be a hell of a lot more hands-on than the 486 or LC II
at your desktop, and they will be much more appeasable to a segment of
the population that is *likely to *become* hackers*!  Ie, the number
of hackers is oing to rise, not fall with vr....The more realistic
cyberspace comes, the more people are going to wish to satisfy their
innate curiosities to explore the forbidden, especially considering
that computers and vr *always* will seem "unreal" to an extent....Even
using ancient cyberspaces like the telephone, when hackers do social
engineering, they see the people as pawns in the game, not as
individuals who are really going to feel it if they give out a cc # or
something similarly worthy...This dehumanization seems to be inherant
for this new frontier...Holds true for the telephone, the television
(look at the new wave of reality shows - is "Faces of Death:  TV" far
away?), current hacking, and it will hold true for hacking of the future...

|>	Cybertech.
|>	Electronic limbs, eyes and all are an interesting idea. The millitary
|>must be onto it by now (at least in America), 
|
|They are...
|
|>but the feasibility of it for 
|>private sector mercenaries and all is somewhat limited. Optics and audio, 
|>maybe, but who needs a cyberlimb that can crush someone's head in when you 
|>can just get a good gun and take them out? All that metal in an arm would 
|>kinda set off a metal detector like. 
|
|like what? ;)  Seriously though, there is research being done where
|people who have lost arms, legs, and hands, can have the nerves
|connected to circuits to drive artificial limbs.  Of course they dont
|regain full usage through this, but they are getting closer and
|closer.    
|
|There is one man who has an eye implant which gives him 50X vision,
|and would like to have zoom, but he says it is still being developed.
|I heard this from a paranoid, tech-head instructor of mine.  I'll try
|to find out where he heard this.   

Stelarc as another example...Look in Mondo #7 for a picture of
'im...There was also an interesting dicussion about him on the FC list
awhile back...

|No comment on the skull-crushing cyber arm, other than I wouldn't be
|surprised if they would take a functioning prosthesis and beef it up,
|if not just for the heck of it.  

Other than cyberlimbs, I think we may also develop nanotechnology and
molecular genetically-engineered biology to the point where we can
cure paralysis (little amoeba-like electrically-charged creatures that
seek out messed up neurons and such)... In fact, I've always thought
that if nanotechnology increases in prominence and coincides with
biological sciene, than we could perfect the human body (as it is now)
to the point where disease would be killed instantly , injuries
healed immediately,  regeneration, more evolved and adaptable body
parts, etc...Can't wait...!

|>Anyway, just interested here to see what people think.
|
|Im not flaming in any way, just my opinions, and you have yours.  Fine by me. 
|:)
|
|JT

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