"Rushkoff, Douglas - Cyberia" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rushkoff Douglas)

discussions rage on everything from sexual kinks to depreciation schedules.''
The discussions on the WELL are organized into conferences. These conferences are
broken down into topics, which themselves are made up of individual responses. For example,
there's a conference called EFF, which is dedicated to discussing issues related to Electronic
Frontiers Foundation, a group that is attempting to develop legal frameworks for
cyberactivities. If you browse the topics on the EFF conference, you will see a list of the
conversations now going on. (Now is a tricky word. It's not that users are continuously
plugged in to the conference and having a real-time discussion. Conversations occur over a
period of days, weeks, or months.) They might be about Copyright and Electronic Mail,'' or
"Sentencing of Hackers,'' or even Virtual Sex!''
Once you pick a topic in which to participate, you read an opening statement that
describes the topic or issues being discussed. It may be as simple as, I just read The
Turbulent Mirror by Briggs and Peat. Is anyone interested in discussing the implications of
chaos math on Western philosophy?'' or, "I'm thinking of buying a hydroponic system for
growing sensemilla. Any advice?'' Other interested participants then enter their responses, one
after the other, which are numbered in the order entered. Conversations can drift into related
or unrelated areas or even lead to the creation of new topics. All participants are required to
list themselves by name and user identification (userid) so that someone may E-mail a
response directly to them rather than post it on the topic for everyone to see. The only rule on
the WELL is, you own your own words,'' which means that anything someone posts onto the
WELL remains his own property, so to speak, and that no one may exploit another user's
words without permission.
But the WELL is not a dry, computery place. Once on the WELL, there's a tangible
feeling of being plugged in'' to a cyber community. One develops a cyber personality
unencumbered by his looks and background and defined entirely by his entries to topics. The
references he makes to literature, the media, religion, his friends, his lifestyle, and his
priorities create who he is in cyberspace. One can remain on the sidelines watching others
make comments, or one can dive in and participate.

Cyberspace as Chaos
The danger of participation is that there are hundreds or even thousands of potentially
critical eyes watching every entry. A faulty fact will be challenged, a lie will be uncovered,
plagiarism will be discovered. Cyberspace is a truth serum. Violations of cyber morality or
village ethics are immediately brought to light and passed through the circuits of the entire
datasphere at lightning speed. A store with a bad returns policy that cheats a WELL user has
its indiscretions broadcast globally within minutes. Information about crooked politicians,
drug conspiracies, or other news stories that might be censored from sponsored media outlets
finds an audience in cyberspace.
The cyber community has been made possible by the advent of the personal computer
and the telecommunications network. Other major contributors include television and the
satellite system as well as the appearance of consumer-grade video equipment, which has
made it more than likely for police indiscretions to occur within shooting range of a
camcorder. The cyber revolution has made the world a smaller place. Just as a company
called TRW can expose anyone's economic history, links like the WELL, UseNet, or even
CNN can expose TRW, too. Access to cyberspace--formerly reserved for the military or
advanced scientific research--now alters the context in which many individuals relate to the
world.
Members of the Global Village see themselves as part of a fractal event. The virtual
community even incorporates and promotes many of the principles of chaos mathematics on
social and political levels. A tiny, remote voice criticizing the ethics of a police action or the