From: James Still <still@kailua.colorado.edu>
Date: Wed, 02 Mar 94 13:37:00 PST


... . . .  .  .  .   .   .   .     .             .              . 


popE  x  Mass  =  accelerated_j e  s   u      s

... . . .  .  .  .   .   .   .     .             .              .

 --- issue 1, no 2 -----------------------------------------------

#include <stdio.h>
int main()                                       Hmmm...  this is
{                                                the second issue
  printf("Editor: Johannes Kepler \n");          of PxM=a_j.
  printf("Copyright (c) 1993 by James Still");   Got an excellent
}                                                feature piece by
                                                 Patrick Salsbury
                                                 on gettin' every 

                                                 'zine, so please
                                                 one up to speed
I notice that Borland is updating their C++      in cyberspace.
compiler to version 4.0.  Didn't they just       Hopefully with t
put out 3.1, or am I losing track of cyber-      he addition of P
space & time?  It used to be a year or so        at's piece, more
before anyone had the nerve to make a full       of you will begi
update to their software, but now something      n to see the for
is a Jurassic Park fossil after a month or       mat I'm shootin'
two.  What gives?  I myself feel the pinch       for here.   Send
as more and more people ask me to throw out      me your submissi
an update to PGPShell.  (I coulda swore 2.2      ons for the Janu
was just released in August....)                 ary issue now! I
                                                 need 'em right a
After deep consultation with a TI calculator     way.  E-mail me
I've come upon a frightening conspiracy of       at still@kailua.
an exponential scale.  Check this out:           colorado.edu or
                                                 call up the Hier
Longevity (L) of a given piece of software       oglyphic Voodoo
is exponentially denegrated over time (t)        Machine BBS at
at a rate times demand (D).  So,                 +1 303 443 2457.

              L = e^(Dt)

Well, crunch this and you get a cool looking function of x that
looks like a stock market crash as variable (t) gets smaller.
I've got it all figured out:  pretty soon the programmer will be
cranking out code just like those old Walt Disney movies where
all the townfolk pass pails of water to the barn that is on fire.
(Hurry up dammit, my software is ten daze old; where's that next
update!?)  Of course sooner or later, one of us will stop and
realize that we didn't even know how to work the last gizmo let
alone this new bell and whistle just out.  Ah well, tumultuous
times require fast food approaches--we did grow up with Starsky
& Hutch cool car chases after all.  Please excuse me now while
I send in for C++ version 4.0.  I just can't wait to get it.


 ------ f e a t u r e -------------------------------------------

               On the Relationship of Safety
               to the Development of Culture

               Copyleft: Patrick G. Salsbury
                   salsbury@netcom.com
                   -------------------

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...


 ----.sig --------------------------------------------------------

popE  x  Mass  =  accelerated_j e  s   u      s     is published
periodically by the sysop of the Hieroglyphic Voodoo Machine BBS
which boasts and toasts --> V.32bis N81  at --> +1 303 443 2457.

entire  contents of this file is copyrighted  (c) 1993  by James
Still,  aka Johannes  Kepler and may  *not* be  extracted or re-
published  in  part, or in its entirety  without  prior  consent
from James Still.  All Rights Reserved Poncho...

send submissions, gripes, comments to: still@kailua.colorado.edu

REMEMBER:   You *can* make a pig out of push pins and an eraser.

Pave the Earth!

 ----EOF----------------------------------------------------------

