The prophetic genius of BLEEDING EDGE

[John Bailey]

Here's a really intriguing interview with Tim Berners-Lee, the man who
invented the World Wide Web and who has spent the last few decades
watching it go terribly wrong. He's currently working on Solid, a new
something-or-other that he hopes will repair the Internet by
're-decentralising' it.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/07/the-man-who-created-the-world-wide-web-has-some-regrets?utm_source=nextdraft&utm_medium=email

And this recent TED talk by Jaron Lanier (another person who shaped
the early web and who thinks it is broken now) is equally optimistic.
Referring to email and Facebook etc he says "We cannot have a society
in which, if two people wish to communicate, the only way that can
happen is if it's financed by a third person who wishes to manipulate
them." And then puts forward credible proposals for fixing things.
(caveat: it's TED so as always take the optimism and we-can-do-this
talk with a heaped spoonful of sodium)
https://en.tiny.ted.com/talks/jaron_lanier_how_we_need_to_remake_the_internet

On Thu, Jul 5, 2018 at 4:39 AM, Chris v <traditionalgb at gmail.com> wrote:
> Didn't it have Russian hackers at the end too?
>
> On Wed, 4 Jul 2018, 12:26 David Morris, <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I hate art that is propaganda. So I agree with your complaint against
>> "usefulness."
>>
>> But I also hate smug, no heart, punditry-prophesy , especially by fiction
>> writers in novels.
>>
>> Like pornography, you only know it if it gets wet.
>>
>> On Wed, Jul 4, 2018 at 10:55 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > This dramatic prophecy which is BLEEDING EDGE
>> > has that survival theme beautifully embodied (as his other works have. He
>> > knows how to end a work of art, all of them, some more than others.
>> >
>> > I do not believe in more, --whatever "strategies for survival" and
>> > "usefulness" mean--for most Art.
>> >
>> > I especially believe TRP does not proscribe some course of action(s). His
>> > ambiguities allow lots of human responses.
>> >
>> > Sent from my iPhone
>> >
>> > On Jul 4, 2018, at 11:43 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > Dramatic prophesies, however sharp, require strategies for survival, not
>> > "I told you so's" afterwards, to be useful.  Be useful.
>> >
>> > And strategies also require personal commitment to action to be credible.
>> >
>> > David Morris
>> >
>> > On Wed, Jul 4, 2018 at 10:25 AM gary webb <gwebb8686 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >> Yes, I remember revisiting this conversation sometime in March back when
>> >> we
>> >> discussing Ernie's soliloquy, and Thomas sent me a link to discussions
>> >> past
>> >> about this subject. This late capitalist world we inhabit, the
>> >> digitization
>> >> of our lives, which is a long arc TP has been chronicling, but to
>> >> furiously
>> >> raid a cliche, but an apt cliche (I Promise...) the bacchanalia of the
>> >> digital world presented in Bleeding Edge is contrasted with brutal
>> reality
>> >> of life on the streets of NYC (Think of Nick Windust's pad) ... Once the
>> >> checks stop clearing, or whomever calls in the tab, the party's over,
>> and
>> >> it's back to the streets or worse... In the cold hard light of dawn the
>> >> fraud becomes clear, the nascent fraud that underpins reality, it
>> hearkens
>> >> back to Lang's Metropolis... at least the social stratification...
>> >>
>> >> On Wed, Jul 4, 2018 at 9:08 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> > One aspect.
>> >> >
>> >> > All over the mid-world of intellectual chatter which I surf ( your
>> >> mileage
>> >> > may vary), highlighted by an oft-cited cover story Harper's piece on
>> how
>> >> > late capitalism money has driven all but the rich out of NY CITY,
>> >> >
>> >> > I remember the Plister who said, when we were reading it, Where are
>> the
>> >> > Preterites?
>> >> >
>> >> > I think our group consensus was that P showed they were going, gone,
>> >> from
>> >> > NYC. (Maxine working for $500 -- if I remember right--was sorta the
>> >> last,
>> >> > so to suggest. )
>> >> >
>> >> > Sent from my iPhone
>> >> > --
>> >> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>> >> >
>> >
>> >
>> >> --
>> >> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>> >>
>> >
>> --
>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>
> --
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