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Douglas Rushkoff

Cyberia

Life in the Trenches of Hyperspace

Preface to the 1994 paperback edition

A lot has happened in the year or so since I wrote this book. More
than usually
happens in a year. Thanks to technologies like the computer, the modem,
interactive media,
and the Internet, we no longer depend on printed matter or word of mouth to
explore the
latest rages, innovations, or discoveries. By the time a story hits the
newstands, most insiders
consider it old news" and are already hard at work on the next flurry of
culture-bending
inventions and activities.
Cyberia is about a very special moment in our recent history -- a
moment when
anything seemed possible. When an entire subculture -- like a kid at a rave
trying virtual
reality for the first time -- saw the wild potentials of marrying the latest
computer
technologies with the most intimately held dreams and the most ancient
spiritual truths. It is a
moment that predates America Online, twenty million Internet subscribers,
Wired magazine,
Bill Clinton, and the Information Superhighway. But it is a moment that
foresaw a whole lot
more.
This book is not a survey of everything and everyone cyber" but
rather a tour through
some of the regions of this new, fledgling culture to which I was lucky
enough to gain
access. Looking back, it is surprising to see how many of these then-absurd
notions have
become accepted truths, and disheartening to see how many of the most
optimistic appraisals
of our future are still very far from being realized.
Cyberia follows the lives and translates the experiences of the
first few people who
realized that our culture was about to take a leap into the unknown. Some of
them have
succeeded beyond their wildest expectations and are now practically
household names. Others
have met with catastrophe. Still others have simply faded from view, their
own contributions
to the cyberian renaissance already completed.