Woebot

Well-known member
ok i combed through all the old technology threads and couldn't see anything on this (quite surprisingly)

doing the research on retreat i came across those (well-known) ideas about how the computer industry emerged from the lsd scene

there's this classic book:


i also remember, by extension, how the idea of the psychic web was wrapped up in the whole Mondo 2000 cyberculture:


lots of the same players - tim leary especially - who was always fond of comparing the mind to a computer. all that rampant optimism about how the net would transform society in positive ways.


i was going through my old the black dog records


remembering how ed handley used to be a computer programmer and he and ken and andy ran black dog towers a message board


No, we fell into the inverse image where people had this esoteric kind of knowledge, and we tried to project a mysterious kind of image. But when we were Black Dog, we used to host a lot of websites and things to do with those kind of Egyptian cults and things like that. So, there was just an association, but the music didn’t have anything to do with it. We weren’t using formulas or special kinds of equations in our music. It was just the association, and it was sort of the early days of the internet where it was bulletin board systems. And we used to host the Pagan Federation site as well.

so turning over the idea of how:

a) the old internet contained implicitly within it this idea of the psyche
b) web 2.0 bleached it away
c) a certain nostalgia for that tempered by the realisation that it certainly still exists in some forms (and trying to figure out what they are)
 

Woebot

Well-known member
erik davis' book a landmark in this too

 

william_kent

Well-known member
Stewart Brand and "The Whole Earth Catalog" ( like a doomsday prepper survival manual for hippies ) were really big on "cybernetics". Amongst the advice on composting toilets, geodesic domes, etc there were bits of future optimism about how computers would change the world for the better. Brand was one of the founders of "The Well", an early bulletin board / online community, home to hackers, free software advocates, and techno-utopians..
 

william_kent

Well-known member
Internet as psyche - TIAMAT - “Testing the Internet As Magickal/Aethyric Tool” was an experiment by some Chaos magicians - unfortunately searching for TIAMAT nowadays results in pages and pages of Dungeons and Dragons lore... another lost future...
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
This is one of Adam Curtis's recurring themes, isn't it? Or two closely related themes: the overlap between the psychedelic counterculture and Silicon Valley, and the idea(l) of the early Internet as an anarchistic utopia free from the influence of both governments and big business (*hollow laugh*).
 
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william_kent

Well-known member
This is one of Adam Curtis's recurring themes, isn't it? Or two closely related themes: the overlap between the psychedelic counterculture and Silicon Valley, and the idea of the early Internet as an anarchistic utopia free from the influence of both governments and big business (*hollow laugh*).

And look what it ended up as - tech bros doing "molly" at Burning Man.. ffs
 
Bitcoin has a mystic quality and higher motives. It's the blazing torch of the old dream. This article is pertinent https://fee.org/articles/decentralization-why-dumb-networks-are-better/
Smart networks Vs dumb networks

There's gallimore's alien information theory and DMT titration technology

The return of UFOs, which now indisputably exist, at least according to the US Navy. It seems there's a cache of recovered material that is periodically shared with scientists to see if they can work out what it is and how it's made. https://www.theblackvault.com/docum...ification-program-aatip-dird-report-research/
 
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chava

Well-known member
This is one of Adam Curtis's recurring themes, isn't it? Or two closely related themes: the overlap between the psychedelic counterculture and Silicon Valley, and the idea(l) of the early Internet as an anarchistic utopia free from the influence of both governments and big business (*hollow laugh*).
These ideas possibly rejuvenated with the advent of the whole Blockchain thing.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Literally anyone with a few dollars and a phone
I'm well aware that each of us could, in principle, but the whole thing is predicated on the assumption that most of us won't. If everyone in the world had a million bitcoins, none of us would actually be any richer, would we?

And, you know, some people might have an idea of "utopia" beyond just personally being very rich.
 
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