Internet and social control WAS Re: still no other topic but Doug?

[pynchonoid]

The topic is, and has been, Pynchon's statement about
the Internet and social control:

[...] What has steadily, insidiously improved since
then, of course, making humanist arguments almost
irrelevant, is the technology. We must not be too
distracted by the clunkiness of the means of
surveillance current in Winston Smith's era. In "our"
1984, after all, the integrated circuit chip was less
than a decade old, and almost embarrassingly primitive
next to the wonders of computer technology circa 2003,
most notably the internet, a development that promises
social control on a scale those quaint old
20th-century tyrants with their goofy moustaches could
only dream about. [...] 
-Thomas Pynchon, Foreword to _1984_

Unable to offer any credible reasons to accept his
statement that Pynchon is a crank,  in the face of a
discussion that ably demonstrated that there are good
reasons to believe that Pynchon's insight is a good
one,  Mackin chooses ad hominem attack instead.  It's
too bad, really, but understandable:   Given the fact
that the US and other governments in fact are using
the Internet in ways that would make an old-time
dictator jealous -- if only because of the convenience
factor of electronic communications and digital
archives, goodness knows those old mustachioed
monsters managed to create a climate of fear just fine
without the Internet -- and that corporations are
using the Internet to control people in ways they
don't often consciously recognze, it's difficult to
know what sort of plausible argument could be offered
to prove Pynchon wrong.  Hence Mackin's need for
personal insult, I guess.  Pynchon's point remains
valid nonetheless.

Please continue to write about me, Paul, don't let me
cramp your style; I think it's pretty clear you don't
have much else to say here.


> On Fri, 2003-06-27 at 15:00, pynchonoid wrote:
> > You can take responsibility for what you write
> here,
> > can't you?
> > 
> > --- Paul Mackin <paul.mackin at verizon.net> wrote:
> > > It would be as easy as one, two, three . . .
> > 
> > Make that "one" . . . 
> > 
> > 1.  Mackin stops writing posts about Doug



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