| podinski on Tue, 5 Mar 2019 15:45:53 +0100 (CET) |
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| Re: <nettime> Cyberpunks who were right about everything, but so what |
Dear cyberpunks and to the next gen(s), An update + analysis from one of the cities... not mentioned in Bruce's list... Btropolis. Not sure if any orig cpunks are here in town on any regular basis... but there certainly is an active scene that may have drunk a bit too much of it ! I think the last time we had an interesting visit with useful inputs was Bruce at Transmediale, when the Snowden topic was very hot ( and perhaps a little too revered; its spy-hacker-leaker thriller was a bit like giving the newer scriptkidz a life-size - net-libertarian? - action-hero-doll to play with... online. Virtual-only, even better for the screen-addicts and twitter-feeders. ) So, i feel it will be useful to weigh in for a few reasons... All is not well in the land of ongoing cyberpunkdom + Dystopia Inc. + the survelliance krapitalism shitstorms ... obviously. To begin... Did all that cool hollywood-ready techno-hype-dystopia really do much to cultivate real resistance cultures ?! Don't have time to fully analyze that, but i can drop a little evidence that might show a wide-range of negative outcomes, and see how the veteran cpunks on nettime might respond ... 1. In Nov18, i went to the first hacker event that i know of that put the ecological questions up front... combining hacker culture and environmental groups. It only took THIRTY-FIVE F******* years for CCC to start asking serious questions and begin looking for solutions to the horrorshow of what conflict minerals + and labor exploitation are in every single gadget, hard drive + microchip on the planet ! Not only were these environmental struggles then handled with rather soft institutional-funded + NGO-ish gloves, 2 months later Chaos Congress ( which has grown to 15,000+ event ) didn't even have a main stage event to report back on what happened at BitsundBaüme ( bits and trees ) at the TU... guess it wasn't cool enough ! The keynote this year at CCC was about UBI... not climate breakdown... Guess those hackers in the EU countries have their priorities... to keep the oppressive cybernetic regime systems stable, and keep the game(s) rolling! 2. Those who knew alot about tech, and who were warning us... did so with immense fetishist fandom for the hightech plunderwelt ! ... and all the money flowing out of the Valley vulture krapitalism... and from the likes of Conde Nast-Wired and other publishers, mass media 2.0, ol' hollywood, etc... was probably pretty hard to pass up... And thus the "mainstream" counter-culture was all about high tech, alt tech, tech uberalles, good and bad techtechtech, tic toc tic toc tic toc ! Boom ! 3. Arts + Tech. This year's Transmediale 2019... a unique and interesting player in the game, but consistently problematic... You can read a sketched glimpse of this year's XLterrestrials rants here: "Incarcerating Technologies" ( Warning : Digital Culture Expansionism ! ) http://xlterrestrials.org/plog/?p=18778 In brief: the big story in almost every major metropolis is about the predatory neoliberalism-fueled HOUSING CRISIS ( aka the class+race+property wars ), but tech festivals are gonna keep babbling about the tech worlds ! 4. ... i could go on, but the ol' school nettimers rarely ever listen to those outside the ol techie-evangelists club much anyway... ... Greetings from Btropolis! FYI: cynical, but not without deep respects for this community + forum... Podinski 0~~~~O-----o www.xlterrestrials.org/plog arts + praxis organisms o-----O~~~~~0 On 3/4/19 7:01 PM, nettime-l-request@mail.kein.org wrote: > Send nettime-l mailing list submissions to > nettime-l@mail.kein.org > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > nettime-l-request@mail.kein.org > > You can reach the person managing the list at > nettime-l-owner@mail.kein.org > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of nettime-l digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Re: Facebook?s ?toxic? global lobbying (Brian Holmes) > 2. Cyberpunks who were right about everything, but so what > (Bruce Sterling) > 3. Re: Cyberpunks who were right about everything, but so what > (Jon Lebkowsky) > 4. Re: Cyberpunks who were right about everything, but so what > (Keith Hart) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2019 09:58:38 -0300 > From: Brian Holmes <bhcontinentaldrift@gmail.com> > To: John Jordan <artactivism@gn.apc.org> > Cc: nettime <nettime-l@kein.org> > Subject: Re: <nettime> Facebook?s ?toxic? global lobbying > Message-ID: > <CANuiTgyJDyPPuc1U=Lh5zPGmyUDspyLCCpttZvfOEC40MeiusQ@mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > Hello John, so good to hear from you! > > It's fantastic what the ZAD has achieved - not just stopping the airport, > not just staying on the site, but inventing lives in the present that can > imagine a viable future. I guess everyone knows that's not so easy to do. > > and meanwhile on the zad we are busy thinking how a new cosmology might >> feel, one whose compass points towards a future where nature and culture is >> never separate ? check out our latest ritual, here in our monthly journal - >> https://zadibao.net/2019/03/01/17-janvier-sera-jour-ferie/ >> >> What I have found so encouraging is the way you are able to open your > struggles and inventions to others, not just in the space of a moment but > also in a longer time. This kind of ritual could be practiced anywhere. > It's different from the norm, yet it's also familar (feast days, carnival, > vague cultural memories of paganism). It looks backward in time, but also > forward, with a language of regenerative cells that includes and transforms > modern biology. The norm today is a cosmology of space travel and nuclear > power. This has been overarching all politics since WWII. It's time to > change. If life on earth feels fundamentally different, then different > decisions can be taken. I went through such a change in the way that I feel > existence in the world. It matters. > > love, Brian > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: <http://mx.kein.org/pipermail/nettime-l/attachments/20190304/5e3b2e9a/attachment-0001.html> > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2019 17:50:24 +0100 > From: Bruce Sterling <bruces@well.com> > To: nettime-l@kein.org > Subject: <nettime> Cyberpunks who were right about everything, but so > what > Message-ID: <C0B23894-7018-4225-98EC-399BD79AFEA1@well.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 > > > > Keith Hart <keith@thememorybank.co.uk> > Re: <nettime> Facebook?s ?toxic? global lobbying > > (?) > > Since 1914-18, there has only been one political question. Which form will rule the world. By analogy, do you think the Roman empire would allow a civil war in Italy? Americans are so parochial. It suits their rulers for them to be so. > > It is pointless to predict the forms of violence, but the prize is to rule the world with minimal opposition. It is true that the cyberpunk writers were right long ago. But timing is everything in life and where are they now? > > ******************************************************* > > *As a cyberpunk ideologue, I?m touched that this subject would come up on nettime. As it happens, I know where all the cyberpunks are. At the moment, they?re in London, San Francisco, Vancouver, Providence, Austin, Raleigh, Los Gatos, Seattle, and the village of Nottingham, New Hampshire. > > *Now, I don?t want to boast about the revolutionary political insights of us subgeneric science fiction writers. Far be that from me. However, I would point out that not a single one of us cyberpunks is dead. ?Gone,? sort of, yes, but dead, not even. Not one single homicide, suicide, drug overdose, extralegal police execution ? and you?ll have to admit that, for a group of creative writers, that?s pretty amazing. > > *Compare that to other gangs of writers that we cyberpunks are so frequently compared to: Beatniks and Situationists. The body count among them? Unbelievable. Us cyberpunk futurists? Still here! All of us! In the future! The worst we suffer is guys on nettime imagining that we disappeared culturally, just because we?re old. > > *Because we ARE old. It?s 2019 and us cyberpunks are white-haired people in our sixties and seventies. It?s entirely proper that we should be petting fireside cats and tending garden roses instead of pitching bricks in the tear gas. If you want to read some with-it contemporary science fiction writer with a cyber tinge, you might try to read, say, Annalee Newitz. Good luck with that. > > *Or read some CHINESE science fiction writers, who are of severe tactical-media interest because they?ve got blockbuster Chinese sci-fi novels and blockbuster Chinese FX movie spectacles, not to mention Huawei, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent. I?m waiting for the day when nettime catches on that computation is happening outside the aged, wrinkled California-ideology. I?m sure that will happen one of these days. I have faith, because I was the VERY FIRST AMERICAN GUY EVER ON NETTIME, that?s how long I?ve been around here. If you don?t know where I am on 2019, it?s because I don?t WANT you to know. > > BruceS > > > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 3 > Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2019 11:24:46 -0600 > From: Jon Lebkowsky <jon.lebkowsky@gmail.com> > To: Bruce Sterling <bruces@well.com> > Cc: nettime-l@kein.org > Subject: Re: <nettime> Cyberpunks who were right about everything, but > so what > Message-ID: > <CALT2rfgLsmj9rLVBKPKCUPknxN9cnv4czngtU2C67Gw4DmLKUQ@mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > I've been here for a long time, too, and oddly silent because my attention > span fell to ~0, infected by Internet worms. FringeWare is less than a > shadow of a memory for those who were ever aware of it, and the new kids on > the blockchain don't know it existed. boing boing is no longer the most > popular blog on the Internet; the whole concept of blog was colonized by > big media/big publishing as the Internet mainstreamed over the years. The > Internet Revolution had no Zapata, no consistent ideology, no real > idealism. It wasn't a revolution at all, just a bunch of over-privileged > white guys with idealistic streaks that were quick to evaporate when there > was Real Money to be made. > > On Mon, Mar 4, 2019 at 10:51 AM Bruce Sterling <bruces@well.com> wrote: > >> >> Keith Hart <keith@thememorybank.co.uk> >> Re: <nettime> Facebook?s ?toxic? global lobbying >> >> (?) >> >> Since 1914-18, there has only been one political question. Which form will >> rule the world. By analogy, do you think the Roman empire would allow a >> civil war in Italy? Americans are so parochial. It suits their rulers for >> them to be so. >> >> It is pointless to predict the forms of violence, but the prize is to rule >> the world with minimal opposition. It is true that the cyberpunk writers >> were right long ago. But timing is everything in life and where are they >> now? >> >> ******************************************************* >> >> *As a cyberpunk ideologue, I?m touched that this subject would come up on >> nettime. As it happens, I know where all the cyberpunks are. At the >> moment, they?re in London, San Francisco, Vancouver, Providence, Austin, >> Raleigh, Los Gatos, Seattle, and the village of Nottingham, New Hampshire. >> >> *Now, I don?t want to boast about the revolutionary political insights of >> us subgeneric science fiction writers. Far be that from me. However, I >> would point out that not a single one of us cyberpunks is dead. ?Gone,? >> sort of, yes, but dead, not even. Not one single homicide, suicide, drug >> overdose, extralegal police execution ? and you?ll have to admit that, for >> a group of creative writers, that?s pretty amazing. >> >> *Compare that to other gangs of writers that we cyberpunks are so >> frequently compared to: Beatniks and Situationists. The body count among >> them? Unbelievable. Us cyberpunk futurists? Still here! All of us! In >> the future! The worst we suffer is guys on nettime imagining that we >> disappeared culturally, just because we?re old. >> >> *Because we ARE old. It?s 2019 and us cyberpunks are white-haired people >> in our sixties and seventies. It?s entirely proper that we should be >> petting fireside cats and tending garden roses instead of pitching bricks >> in the tear gas. If you want to read some with-it contemporary science >> fiction writer with a cyber tinge, you might try to read, say, Annalee >> Newitz. Good luck with that. >> >> *Or read some CHINESE science fiction writers, who are of severe >> tactical-media interest because they?ve got blockbuster Chinese sci-fi >> novels and blockbuster Chinese FX movie spectacles, not to mention Huawei, >> Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent. I?m waiting for the day when nettime catches >> on that computation is happening outside the aged, wrinkled >> California-ideology. I?m sure that will happen one of these days. I have >> faith, because I was the VERY FIRST AMERICAN GUY EVER ON NETTIME, that?s >> how long I?ve been around here. If you don?t know where I am on 2019, it?s >> because I don?t WANT you to know. >> >> BruceS >> >> >> >> # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission >> # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, >> # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets >> # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l >> # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org >> # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject: > > # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject: