PTM_kin

[John Young <jya@pipeline.com>]

   8-8-95. NYPaper:


   "War of the Worlds: Cyberspace and the High-Tech Assault on
   Reality." [Book review]

      Ominous signs already exist, says the scholar Mark
      Slouka that virtual reality has begun to replace real
      life -- or "R.L.," as it is dismissively referred to by
      computer freaks. Even those poor benighted folks who
      have yet to enter the computer age appear to have
      started down "the road to unreality," says Mr. Slouka:
      PONA's (or "persons of no account," as they're known on
      line) can be found in front of their television sets,
      watching fictionalized accounts of real-life events, or
      at ballgames, listening to radio broadcasts of the very
      game being played before their eyes. As Mr. Slouka puts
      it, more and more of us "accept the copy as the
      original," a development that is sure to accelerate in
      coming years with lasting social, cultural and political
      effects. Mr. Slouka foresees a sinister new world in
      which telecommunications replaces physial contact and
      meaningless abstractions replace a sense of community
      and place: a solipsistic world turned in on itself and
      easily subject to manipulation by politicians.


   PTM_kin


   [Mark Slouka, John Perry Barlow, Kevin Kelly and Sven
   Birkerts beavis-butt and wayne-garth about cyber-duh in the
   August Harper's.]