NN Friedman V. Pynchon

[Bandwraith at aol.com]

In a message dated 7/2/2003 7:54:11 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
pynchonoid at yahoo.com writes:


> I may be overlooking something but I don't recall
> Pynchon writing anywhere specifically about positive
> aspects of the internet

Well what the hell kind of Luddite are you!!?

Alright, I'll jerk you off a little bit, but only electronically, see here...

       ...Since 1959, we have come to live among flows 
       of data more vast than anything the world has seen. 
       Demystification is the order of our day, all the cats 
       are jumping out of all the bags and even beginning to 
       mingle. We immediately suspect ego insecurity in 
       people who may still try to hide behind the jargon of 
       a specialty or pretend to some data base forever 
       "beyond" the reach of a layman. Anybody with the 
       time, literacy, and access fee can get together with 
       just about any piece of specialized knowledge s/he 
       may need. So, to that extent, the two-cultures quarrel 
       can no longer be sustained...

And if you still haven't cum around:

       ...But we now live, we are told, in the Computer Age. 
       What is the outlook for Luddite sensibility? Will main-
       frames attract the same hostile attention as knitting 
       frames once did? I really doubt it. Writers of all de-
       scriptions are stampeding to buy word processors. 
       Machines have already become so user-friendly that
       even the most unreconstructed of Luddites can be charmed 
       into laying down the old sledgehammer and stroking a 
       few keys instead. Beyond this seems to be a growing 
       consensus that knowledge really is power, that there is 
       a pretty straightforward conversion between money and 
       information, and that somehow, if the logistics can be 
       worked out, miracles may yet be possible. If this is so, 
       Luddites may at last have come to stand on common 
       ground with their Snovian adversaries, the cheerful army 
       of technocrats who were supposed to have the "future in 
       their bones." It may be only a new form of the perennial 
       Luddite ambivalence about machines, or it may be that 
       the deepest Luddite hope of miracle has now come to      
       reside in the computer's ability to get the right data to those 
       whom the data will do the most good. With the proper 
       deployment of budget and computer time, we will cure 
       cancer, save ourselves from nuclear extinction, grow food 
       for everybody, detoxify the results of industrial greed gone 
       berserk -- realize all the wistful pipe dreams of our days.

http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/uncollected/luddite.html

"charmed," "power," "information," "money," not to mention- "stroke
a few keys." You can basically substitute 'the internet' for "O Boy."
The "hive mind" is equivalent to A.I.: It's 'pluripotential,' like embryonic
stem cells- what strangeness will emerge from all this- Tomorrow
Never Knows. But:

       It will be amazing and unpredictable, and even the biggest 
       of brass, let us devoutly hope, are going to be caught flat-footed.   
       it is certainly something for all good Luddites to look forward to 
       if, God willing, we should live so long. 
 

respectfully
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