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

loops, it points toward this era--the turn of the century--as man's leap out of history altogether
and into some sort of timeless dimension.
Inklings of what this dimension may be like come to us through the experience of
computer hackers and psychedelic tripsters, who think of themselves not as opposite ends of
the spectrum of human activity but as a synergistic congregation of creative thinkers bringing
the tools of high technology and advanced spirituality into the living rooms of the general
public. Psychedelics can provide a shamanic experience for any adventurous consumer. This
experience leads users to treat the accepted reality as an arbitrary one, and to envision the
possibilities of a world unfettered by obsolete thought systems, institutions, and neuroses.
Meanwhile, the cybernetic experience empowers people of all ages to explore a new, digital
landscape. Using only a personal computer and a modem, anyone can now access the
datasphere. New computer interface technologies such as virtual reality promise to make the
datasphere a place where we can take not only our minds but our bodies along for the ride.
The people you are about to meet interpret the development of the datasphere as the
hardwiring of a global brain. This is to be the final stage in the development of Gaia,'' the
living being that is the Earth, for which humans serve as the neurons. As computer
programmers and psychedelic warriors together realize that "all is one,'' a common belief
emerges that the evolution of humanity has been a willful progression toward the construction
of the next dimensional home for consciousness.
We need a new word to express this boundless territory. The kids in this book call it
Cyberia.
Cyberia is the place a businessperson goes when involved in a phone conversation, the
place a shamanic warrior goes when traveling out of body, the place an acid house'' dancer
goes when experiencing the bliss of a techno-acid trance. Cyberia is the place alluded to by
the mystical teachings of every religion, the theoretical tangents of every science, and the
wildest speculations of every imagination. Now, however, unlike any other time in history,
Cyberia is thought to be within our reach. The technological strides of our postmodern
culture, coupled with the rebirth of ancient spiritual ideas, have convinced a growing number
of people that Cyberia is the dimensional plane in which humanity will soon find itself.
But even those of us who have never ventured into a house club, physics lab or
computer bulletin board are being increasingly exposed to words, images and ideas that shake
the foundations of our most deeply held beliefs. The cyberian paradigm finds its way to our
unsuspecting minds through new kinds of arts and entertainment that rely less on structure
and linear progression than on textural experience and moment-to-moment awareness.
Role-playing games, for example, have no beginning or end, but instead celebrate the
inventiveness of their players, who wind their way through complex fantasies together, testing
strategies that they may later use in their own lives, which have in turn begun to resemble the
wild adventures of their game characters. Similarly, the art and literature of Cyberia have
abandoned the clean lines and smooth surfaces of Star Trek and 2001: A Space Odyssey in
favor of the grimy, posturban realism of Batman, Neuromancer, and Bladerunner, in which
computers do not simplify human issues but expose and even amplify the obvious faults in
our systems of logic and social engineering.
Not surprisingly, the reaction of traditionalists to this expression has been harsh and
marked by panic. Cyberians question the very reality on which the ideas of control and
manipulation are based; and as computer-networking technology gets into the hands of more
cyberians, historical power centers are challenged. A bright young hacker with enough time
on his hands can break in to almost any computer system in the world. Meanwhile,
do-it-yourself technology and a huge, hungry media empire sews the seeds of its own
destruction by inviting private citizens to participate through 'zines, cable shows, and
interactive television. The hypnotic spell of years of television and its intense public relations