Bruce Sterling's Manifesto for January 3, 2000

StefanJ writes "SF writer and techno journalist Bruce Sterling has released the definitive version of "The Manifesto of January 3, 2000." Unlike the version released last year, this one isn't directly tied to the Viridian ecodesign movement; rather, it is a passionate and bold call for a new movement in technology and art. One that promotes something like the Open Source movement, and hints at the coming of a posthuman age and an abundance of wonderful and terrible things. "

Comments

Re:No new Intelligentsia?

[legoboy]

Intelligentsia...

I don't really consider computer hackers as the intelligentsia, and I don't know that many would. That is not to say that a fair number would be out of place among them, but lumping the whole group together like that can only get you in trouble. (This hobbit guy, say)

Remembering that software developers really are overglorified engineers (unpopular opinion around here, no doubt), we must notice that the definition of intelligentsia actually makes reference to its members being well educated. A provost at some university is without doubt a member of the intelligentsia, while the people who authored say, ICQ, are not. Again, they may be very intelligent people or they may not. I really don't know. However, a member of the intellectual elite would generally not spend their free time writing software. They would spend every last minute of it learning newer things.

Programming is a new thing. It's fairly handy to learn. Looking at it as anything more than a tool though, is IMNSHO foolish.

As I find myself too short of time to write a long diatribe on this, I'll finish by mentioning that Voltaire was probably the greatest (known) mind of the millennium, and that I doubt you could find a better example than he of the intelligentsia, please put the name forward.

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It's easy.

[Venomous Louse]

What, then, is the Slashdot community?

It's a handful of funny trolls and a handful of informative coders, sitting atop a vast shitheap of yammering idiots.


Are the various forums and communities that exist all over the Internet totally devoid of intelligentsia?

Well . . . yes. They are. I spent some time subscribed to the Thomas Pynchon listserv this Fall. What a waste of bandwidth. And the net goes downhill from there, the only exceptions being Suck and McSweeney's. Feed has its moments too, I guess. But none of those is a "community" in any sense at all. Hey, wait, there's Neal Stephenson, too; IMHO he's ahead even of the Sucksters in the "internet intellectual" game. He's a thoughtful, intelligent person who groks the damn subject well enough to illuminate it. Jon Katz is endlessly amusing and I think he's a perfect fit for Slashdot, but he's not thoughtful, he's not intelligent, and he sure as hell doesn't grok anything, least of all technology.


I was under the impression that before this 'new economy' came a whole new brand of intelligentsia - the self-teaching, self-enhancing swag of techno-brutes that have been lifting themselves out of the muck of obscurity with the tools of the Internet and creating whole new social spheres, which subsequently resulted in entirely different modes of online economy.

They teach themselves Perl and enhance their t-shirt collections. This has nothing to do with an "intelligentsia". I'm hoping that you're using "economy" in some figurative sense, 'cause if you're not, you've missed the point more thoroughly than I care to contemplate. It's really not about making a quick buck at all. Crack dealers do that. BFD. If you're coming from a hard-core libertarian perspective, that would explain a lot: That viewpoint is fundamentally hostile to intellectualism, and answers all questions with the word "money". Hey, it's a free country, YMMV, it takes all kinds, etc. No problem. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, just a very profoundly different thing.


am I missing something here or is Bruce waxing poetic and I'm just being too literal?

Yer waxin' a bit poetic there yourself, my friend :) You're not being literal, he is. He's talking about a phenomenon that hasn't existed in the US for the last few decades, that's all. It's nothing most Americans have ever encountered, at least not since the lad in my .sig shuffled off.

Bruces' Y2K-ism Manifesto

[Money__]

. .The twentieth century featured any number of -isms. . .
. . this new Belle Epoque, this delightful era . .
. . .a different cultural reality. .
. .We have a new economy, but we have no new intelligentsia. . .
. . .technology made a new era obvious. . . .
. .Our time calls for intelligent fads . .
. .The Internet is the natural test-bed for this fast-moving, fast-vanishing, start-up society.. .
. .the user in a vast unfolding nexus of interlinked experience. . .
. . .and seems lacking in moral seriousness -- but only only by the rigid standards of the past century, . . .
. . Technology can no longer bind us in a vast tonnage of iron, barbed wire and brick. . .
. .Waves will be arriving with the somnolent regularity of Waikiki breakers. This "revolution" . .
. .Its a golden opportunity for techno-dandyism. . . .
. .The channels exist now to give creativity away, at no cost, to millions. . .
. . .Today, sitting quietly and thinking is the worlds greatest generator of wealth and prosperity. . .
. . and the Internet has made a new intelligentsia possible. . .
. . the human race will begin to obtain what it really wants. . .
. . .and ability that have previously existed only in myth. . .
. .That fate is written on the forehead of the 21st century in letters of fire. . .
. .The pace of change is melting former physical restraints into a maelstrom of reformattable virtualities. .

and last but not least...we have yet another y2kism:
The mushroom clouds of the twentieth century have parted. We find ourselves on a beach, with wave after frothy wave of transformation. We have means, motive, and opportunity. Spread the light.

It reads like a Captan Kirk log on crack!

Now bruce, you know everyone loves ya, and it's with that shining love that I point out that you've gotten a little to excited about a new millenium. Time and tehnology move forward, and we are too.

Let's not reformat now. We've come to far.

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