This essay is nearly as old as I am.
I would love to hear this person's perspective now, nearly 30 years later now that the Internet has completely taken the world over in so many different aspects of life.
So the past few weeks I have had multiple conversations with people about early-in-life experiences of the internet and how it shaped their relationships with it. It got me thinking of an essay I first read in a class I took about the history of the internet, but find myself coming back to about once every few months to a year or so. It's not directly relayed to the discussions I mentioned, but it does reflect a perspective when everybody was experiencing the internet for the first time (at any age).
Jack In, Young Pioneer! John Perry BarlowIt turns out I was not quite right about that. Today another frontier yawns before us, far more fog-obscured and inscrutable in its opportunities than the Yukon. It consists not of unmapped physical space in which to assert one's ambitious body, but unmappable, infinitely expansible cerebral space. Cyberspace. And we are all going there whether we want to or not.
At the risk of turning this into a homework assignment I'm not gonna like...give you discussion questions or come in with something to share with the class. Just wanted to share the essay and welcome y'all to shoot the shit on it.
(you need an account to see links)
This essay is nearly as old as I am.
I would love to hear this person's perspective now, nearly 30 years later now that the Internet has completely taken the world over in so many different aspects of life.
kittyray (03-10-2022)
He actually only died a few years ago, but I'm actually not sure if he has any writings on the internet from later than the 00s. I'm fairly certain EFF has all of them collected, but it's possible I'm mistaken.
I feel like (you need an account to see links) has an interesting perspective considering some of the landscape of the internet today, though it's definitely a more political discussion.