This may sound far off, but there are wider analogies that may hint to
solutions.
(some) drugs are sanctioned (illegal, regulated) because they have
significant effect on human behavior. Air pollution is regulated because
it adversely affects people. Sex is (more or less) regulated, because it
has huge influence on human behavior.
There is little difference between bypassing cognition by deluge of
information piped through mechanized hoses, and displaying porn on
screens in packed public transport. The latter is regulated, the former
is not. It's time to ask the question: why?
I know the answer - it's because the former is the most brilliant
brainwashing technique ever invented.
There is good reason to view humans and technology in context of other
networks I think, networks overall, rather than just focus on "cyber" or
computer/digital/virtual phenomena. Networks are very boring in this
sense, like networks of cells, networks of roads, networks of bowling
leagues, soil bacteria, protein networks, squirrel communication
networks, networks of printing presses. Maybe this is the "primordial"
something that ought to be hearkened back to somewhat. Certainly we are
facing some harsh limit-points of various reality networks (pollution,
temperature, brain chemistry, other resources) where "cyber" isn't an
instant solution.
# 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: [email protected]
# @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject: