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28 Years Later, Pioneering Tech Magazine 'Mondo 2000' Relaunches Online (mondo2000.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the back-to-the-future dept.

In 1989 Mondo 2000 magazine ran an editorial promising they'd cover "the leading edge in hyperculture...the latest in human/technological interactive mutational forms as they happen." 28 years later, they're now heckling that editorial as they relaunch into a web site. Slashdot reader DevNull127 quotes Motherboard's interview with R.U. Sirius, the founder of Mondo 2000 (as well as its predecessors High Frontiers and Reality Hackers): "It was my idea to merge psychedelics and emerging technologies, and the culture around technology," Sirius said, citing Timothy Leary, writer Robert Anton Wilson and counterculture magazine The Whole Earth Catalog among his inspirations... "I kind of found my way into that particular stream of bohemian culture. It was probably a minority, but there had always been that idea of letting robots replace human work." Soon High Frontiers evolved into a glossy magazine, Reality Hackers ("Some distributors at the time thought it was about hacking people up, and put it on the shelf next to murder mystery magazines"), and later Mondo 2000, which ran from 1989 till 1998...

"We really had to work to convince people that technology was defining the future. Nobody really got it. Doug Rushkoff wrote his book Cyberia, and his first book company cancelled its publication because they said the internet was a fad and that it would be over by the time the book came out"... While he uses Facebook and Twitter, Sirius is critical of their role in colonising what was once a more democratic and open space. "People are being herded into little buildings -- or huge ones -- in what was supposed to be a wide open space in which everybody created their own sites. It's a complete corporate takeover of the net, Facebook in particular... It's definitely not what we were expecting."
Mondo 2000's new online relaunch includes audio of a conversation between William Gibson and Timothy Leary about a Neuromancer game to accompany a proposed film back in 1989. (Gibson complained "That was no interview! That was a drunken business meeting!" when first informed of the magazine's plans to publish it, though he eventually "became friendly.") There's also a 1987 discussion about mind technologies with 73-year-old William S. Burroughs (who was also "an advocate of high technology, and the 'brain machine'"), plus an unpublished John Shirley essay titled "The Next Fifty Years: Why I'm Optimistic Because Everything Will Be Terrible" and new pieces by Paul Krassner ("Alternative Facts") and M.Christian ("La Petite Mort: The Death Of Sex").

35 comments

  1. Still have my copies by that+this+is+not+und · · Score: 2

    Mondo 2000 was the magazine that Wired was a bad sold-out imitation of.

    1. Re: Still have my copies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I lost mine years ago. I recall there was a piece where the proposal was made to replace lab rats with smokers. I swear it was written by Robert Anton Wilson. Am I off or do you know of such a piece?

    2. Re: Still have my copies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It was a piece about exposing rats to smoke written by Wilson Robert Anton.

    3. Re:Still have my copies by CodeArtisan · · Score: 1

      Mondo 2000 was the magazine that Wired was a bad sold-out imitation of.

      I preferred Omni, which published some of Gibson's classic pieces such as "Burning Chrome."

    4. Re:Still have my copies by invid · · Score: 1

      Omni magazine helped me survive the 80s.

      --
      The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
    5. Re:Still have my copies by Pseudonym · · Score: 1

      Turn on, tune in, sell out.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
  2. No Cultural Home by rtb61 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Problem with that kind of magazine is it needs a cultural home, a place where readers interact directly with each other and digital technology. It's a cafe culture with the cafe. To work it needs to create the real world space where it would actually exist, different, yet inclusive. So a franchise within existing independent large cafe, where people stay, chat and share technological interaction, rather than drink and leave, a lan cafe and lounge, to share a culture expressed in the magazine.

    --
    Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    1. Re:No Cultural Home by lucm · · Score: 1, Troll

      Here's a quote from one of the articles in this "magazine that needs a cultural home".

      If Trump and Pence were both to be kicked out of the White House, the next in line would be the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan. Steve Bannon described him as “a limp-dick motherfucker who was born in a petri dish at the Heritage Foundation.” In turn, professional communicator Anthony Scaramucci boasted, “I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own cock.” Ah, but Bannon said he wanted to destroy Ryan.

      I don't see the digital technology element, and I also don't see the cultural element. All I see is unfiltered liberal vomit. Maybe it's because I'm not in that cultural home you mention.

      --
      lucm, indeed.
    2. Re:No Cultural Home by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 0

      All I see is unfiltered liberal vomit.

      As a moderate conservative, this looks like entertainment. The Republican Party is long overdue for a circular firing squad. Praise the Lord and pass the popcorn.

    3. Re: No Cultural Home by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree that the Republican Party has become awful. For a long time, it was the home for people intelligent enough to see how America is being destroyed by niiggers, kikes, towelheads, chinks, wetbacks, and all the other types of darkies. However, the Republican Party has caved to pressure and these intelligent views are becoming extremely rare. I am no longer welcome in the Republican Party because I do hate niiggers, kikes, towelheads, wetbacks, chinks, and all the other various types of darkies. My hate is strong and I'm dammed proud of it. In fact, my hate is getting stronger as I talk to you people. However, I'm not racist, and there's nothing racist about my post. I'm sure Republicans will label me a racist to try to discredit me, but I'm definitely correct in my assessment. Labeling someone a racist is simply an indication that you can't refute their points. However, the Republican Party has mostly become the party of ad hominem nonsense like that, which is why there dying. Many people such as myself instead voted for Hillary Clinton because she was better prepared to defend America from the threats posed by darkies. If the Republican Party is to be successful, they must embrace the logic that darkies are evil and must be removed if America is to prosper again.

      Note to moderators: This post is insightful, informative, and interesting. Please ensure it is moderated accordingly and reaches +5 insightful.

    4. Re:No Cultural Home by lucm · · Score: 2

      a circular firing squad

      Unless they're using supersonic ammunition or standing shoulder to shoulder and shooting at point-blank range, a circular firing squad is unlikely to cause the kind of damage you're implying because of the combined effects of yaw of repose and the torque vector caused by the inward shooting angle.

      If you wish them harm, maybe you should find something else, such as having them ride naked on a sadleless bike or read the huffington post without an ad-blocker.

      --
      lucm, indeed.
    5. Re: No Cultural Home by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The ammunition would be much better spent repelling refugee boats, anyway. I recommend shooting holes in the boats so they fill with water.

    6. Re: No Cultural Home by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Reading your post made me want to suck cocks.

      Clearly that and the fact that you don't mention the perverted gay menace is proof that you are pushing a Queer agenda under the guise of White Supremacy.

    7. Re:No Cultural Home by Eunuchswear · · Score: 2

      All I see is unfiltered liberal vomit.

      Bannon and Scaramucci are liberals now?

      --
      Watch this Heartland Institute video
    8. Re:No Cultural Home by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      It's a modern era cafe culture, just like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/..., out of similar style as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.... It's about having a good time share intellectual fun, I would assume, politics like all other topics would be discussed and played with for fun. Mainly about creative and challenging intellectual exchange and probably very much places conservatives would avoid, just not their nature. The high school jock strap douche thing of picking on the smart people, yeah, if you have left high, you sort of should have left that immature reasoning behind, rather than try to hide your IQ envy behind politics.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  3. Mondo 2000 Ain't Shit by sexconker · · Score: 1

    Mondo 2000 ain't shit.
    http://www.zombo.com/ is where it's at.

    1. Re:Mondo 2000 Ain't Shit by Megane · · Score: 1

      That's nothing, I remember when orbitz.com was a site about a meme soft drink with little gelatin balls in it. Also, Kibology will never die.

      --
      #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
    2. Re:Mondo 2000 Ain't Shit by Pseudonym · · Score: 1

      UN-altered REPRODUCTION and DISSEMINATION of this IMPORTANT Information is ENCOURAGED, ESPECIALLY to COMPUTER BULLETIN BOARDS.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
  4. Scans by ArchieBunker · · Score: 1

    I wish people would scan those old copies already. I'm not paying $30 an issue on ePay.

    --
    Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
    1. Re: Scans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Glad to see your dad is still around.

    2. Re: Scans by Megane · · Score: 1

      Well that's quite a time tunnel to the past.

      --
      #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
    3. Re: Scans by that+this+is+not+und · · Score: 1

      Mondo is the kind of 'big glossy mag' that scanning can't do justice for, though. Unless the scans are at such high resolution that the digital files are immense.

  5. too late by sheramil · · Score: 1

    "Dangerous Minds" meets "Boing Boing".

    1. Re:too late by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      sheramil observed:

      "Dangerous Minds" meets "Boing Boing".

      Posting as AC so as not to undo moderation on this topic:

      As it turns out, those two sites are favorites of Ken "R. U. Sirius" Goffman, the founder, editor-in-chief, and sparkplug of the original Mondo 2000. He posts links to articles from them all the time on his FB groups Steal This Singularity and R. U. Sirius for Big Dada.

      I sometimes post counter-links to the original soures of those articles, mostly because both websites are lousy with dataminer scripts. He got angry with me about that a few months ago and read me the riot act about how these two sites were run by friends of his, and how dare I take ad revenue out of their mouths, anyway?

      I like the guy, but he has no freakin' clue about how evil dataminers are - and I *am* Sirius about that ...

      --

      Check out my novel.

    2. Re: too late by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ohhh for fuck sakes. You see what you started Creimer? Now slashdot is going to be filled with assholes posting affiliate links.

      Curse your Creimer.

  6. He meant line THEM up in a circle. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Then have your single unit firing squad take them all out.

    Remember that dollar per shot laser the US is placing on a ship?

    Use that on politicians starting from most prominent to least prominent and promise to do the same to all future politicians, their benefactors, and their cronies, and see how long it takes to 'drain that swamp'.

    It's bipartisan fun the whole family can enjoy! Just make sure you wear your laser filtering glasses! We wouldn't want anyone going blind, other than those filthy liberals(*cough*Bannon*cough*) who masturbate, after all! :)

    'teletype' - ahh so Brazil!

  7. I Remember Them by Greyfox · · Score: 4, Interesting
    You see, back in the day we didn't really have the internet yet, so all human knowledge was printed on paper and bound into "books." If you wanted a local cache of knowledge or reading entertainment, you would go to a "book store," which I know is a rather antiquated idea. There you would "buy" these "books", and they had no way to prevent you from doing whatever you wanted with them! It all seems terribly quaint now! Anyway if the "book store" were particularly "hip," as the kids said at the time, they might have on hand several choice publications, including Magical Blend, Heavy Metal Magazine, 2600 and Mondo 2000. Mondo 2000 was rather glitzy, but Magical Blend was grittier. There, you might find Timothy Leary speculating about the cleanliness of W Bush's asshole, or Robert Anton Wilson going on about... the federal reserve... or whatever it was he was usually going on about. I was always rather vague on the subject.

    It was a more innocent time, back when W seemed like a pretty bad president, and we didn't have to worry about getting measles or whooping cough. Back then you didn't have people hooking up with pokemon in the streets, and if you wanted to call someone you actually had to go find a telephone. But that's why people call them the good ol' days. What's that? Mondo 2000 is coming back? Why, I shall have to fire up the old gyrocopter and find my way to the nearest book store, then, I suppose. I believe there's one in the antique store.

    --

    I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

    1. Re:I Remember Them by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 2

      Back in those days we called the analog hole a "library."

    2. Re:I Remember Them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And there weren't tech web sites. We would have to wait once a month for a magazine like BYTE to be delivered to our office or home. Sometimes we would find a copy in the supermarket or newsagent shop. Newsagent shops sold all the different newspapers (or tabloids as some were called because of their size). But they sold more than just newspapers. They also sold magazines as well as tobacco, bingo scratch cards, snacks like crisps, confectionary and sandwiches as well as soft drinks.

  8. Shoulda seen them 28 weeks later by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    faster than greased shit on a shoe!

    Went out of style REAL FAST. Today, not much of the genre happening.

  9. RSS feed URL by rcharbon · · Score: 2

    http://www.mondo2000.com/feed/

  10. OMNI Magazine by TheRealHocusLocus · · Score: 1

    miss it so

    --
    <blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>