From owner-technomads@UCSD.EDU Mon Nov 1 09:07:03 1993 Received: from ucsd.edu by eff.org with SMTP id AA12773 (5.65c/IDA-1.5/ident for ); Mon, 1 Nov 1993 21:35:13 -0500 Received: from localhost by ucsd.edu; id RAA06372 sendmail 8.6.3/UCSD-2.2-sun Mon, 1 Nov 1993 17:06:59 -0800 for technomads-dist Received: from netcom4.netcom.com by ucsd.edu; id RAA06366 sendmail 8.6.3/UCSD-2.2-sun via SMTP Mon, 1 Nov 1993 17:06:57 -0800 for Received: by netcom4.netcom.com (5.65/SMI-4.1/Netcom) id AA17193; Mon, 1 Nov 93 17:07:03 -0800 Date: Mon, 1 Nov 93 17:07:03 -0800 From: salsbury@netcom.com (The Butterfly) Message-Id: <9311020107.AA17193@netcom4.netcom.com> To: salsbury@netcom.com Subject: I think I finally have something to contribute... :) Status: RO 11.1.93 On the Relationship of Safety to the Development of Culture Copyleft: Patrick G. Salsbury salsbury@netcom.com ------------------- Permission freely given to distribute to those whom you think would benefit from it. Feel free to archive, pass around, cross-index, and/or hyperlink. Please leave intact & fully credited. Thank you. :) I was just thinking about PGP and privacy and how they relate to the psychological development of individuals, and thence, subcultures. People, in fact, all creatures, seem to have a need for safety. The more comfortable one feels, the more one will be able to relax, and devote energies to the creative portion of one's mind. Doing this, one focuses more "process time" to exploring new regions of thought, rather than on various defense mechanisms. On the Net at Large, people aren't as likely to post all their deep-dark-secrets, at least, not without an anonymous account. But in more private newsgroups, not as populated...rapport and community develop. People feel safer, and open up. On mailing lists, things can be more open, and on *private* mailing lists, great intimacy can develop, with people you've never met, but with whom you share some deep-rooted interest. With PGP and other new technologies, people are availed of an even greater level of privacy/openness, which allows for a great amount of freedom to be and express oneself... One can be assured of talking only to those whom one chooses, and others who get the messages won't get the real message which is hidden inside. With techniques such as these, one can send a message to several groups and have multiple messages contained within it. Sort of like nested levels of privacy. The Net seems to be expanding as people join large groups, or who have small groups which grow to large groups, and then smaller, self-selecting groups splinter off into a new topic, or a refinement of the original one in some new area. This, I think, is the main argument of this essay: That by assuring people of their level of security, they will spontaneously and automatically extend themselves to whatever level they feel comfortable. As people open up more, some individuals may notice further similaries with others, who splinter off into another sub-culture, and the process begins anew. I feel that this blossoming of sub-cultures may well point the way to an ever-growing knowledge pool, hyper-linked by the technology which made it possible in the first place. This pool of knowledge, freely and easily accessible to any person on the planet, would lead to an educational boom on a planetary scale the likes of which have never before been seen. Individuals, when allowed to freely explore, find that which intrigues them the most, and follow along that route until they bore of the topic, or find something new to grab their attention. This, I think, is the basis behind "Net Surfing." People hop from topic to topic, learning new things, integrating them with past experiences, and arriving at new ideas, which they might then contribute to the Net at Large, which spurs new ideas in others, who form new groups, ....and so it continues. Essentially, it seems that the most practical way to increase the standard of living for the citizens of planet Earth, is to increase the mind-power which is working on the various problems of the era. The best way to do that is to educate more people. And it would seem that the Net at Large may well be the most efficient method of info-delivery to the greatest amount of people with the least amount of time or cost. For example: People often talk about the "problems" of population growth in Third World countries, and debate about methods of birth-control or population growth-rate moderation. But an action as simple as running an electrical wire into the center of a village will allow such an improvement in living standards, that population will naturally decrease. This power source would allow for everything from water purifiers, to light, heat, food production, and of course, communications. When people's basic needs have been met, such as food, shelter, and warmth, they are able to focus more energy towards learning. ("Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs") More population means more mind-power on the planet. (That seems to be the one world-resource that never makes it onto the statistics charts as being in demand.) If there all these people out there, and they get access to satellite TV with thousands of world-wide channels, and get access to the Internet, with it's millions of users, and all the Internet browsing tools (such as as Archie, gopher, WWW, WAIS, and Xmosaic), which are becoming ever-easier to use, then I think we'll see such a boom of intellectual and artistic development as to make the Renaissance pale in comparison. How to arrive at this? It seems that as technology continues to advance, it becomes cheaper and easier to stay in touch more of the time, from more places around the globe. And with the advance of technomadics, people can now bring along a small computer, and "jack in" to the Net from almost anywhere on the planet. So suddenly, it doesn't really matter as much WHERE you are, because you can carve out your own private niche in Cyberspace, and take it with you. Go to a foriegn place, hook up to the Network, telnet to your main system, and you're back home, with access to all of your information, addresses, files, and friends, regardless of where you physically are. And since there are no racial, ethnic, age, or even gender-specific indicators over the Net, a person is allowed to be whomever they truly wish to express themselves as. It seems fairly profound, that a person...ANY person...can go into any group, and spend some time learning whatever their heart desires, and become an expert in the field. They don't have to know a whole lot about computers, because there are places along the way in the Net where they can learn computers as they go. They don't have to know how to spell or read very well when they first start, but their language and vocabulary will improve as they go along. There are spell-checkers and dictionaries, and sometimes even grammatical and style-checking programs built into various text processors. They don't have to be any specific age. All that comes across is how well you can express yourself, and _that_, as we've seen, is a function of feeling safe. Imagine some of the development of these vast expanses of knowledge: People can browse through the Internet as they please, learning whatever they need, to accomplish whatever it is that they want to do. And along the way, there will be spinoffs that benefit others. And they will form new groups...and these will produce new ideas...and the Net/human mind-power will probably just keep on growing... *GRIN* Pat ______________________________Think For Yourself_______________________________ Patrick G. Salsbury 1800 Market Street #23, San Francisco, CA 94102 Voicemail: 415/703-7177 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "We've got just over 19 years left... ;^) "