Rants & Raves
I hope you're right about the Long Boom (Wired 5.07, page 115). But doesn't it strike you that the assumption that openness, multiculturalism, and hybridity are good- an assumption critical to the success of your Long Boom- is itself an ethnocentric product of a Western liberal-democratic worldview? Would such ideas ever arise independently in a Confucian culture or a fundamentalist Islamic society? Not that I think those values are bad- just the opposite, in fact. They're great values. Moreover, they're my values. But I do think that Peter Schwartz and Peter Leyden's boom might be perceived by many people as the triumph of values belonging to a given culture rather than an idyllic conversation among civilizations.
The challenge is to give people from Albania to Zimbabwe a stake in the creation of such a civilization, despite the real and irreducible differences in their own beliefs and values, rather than leaving them with the feeling that the Long Boom has been shoved down their collective throat. But, hey, as for me - where do I sign up?
Adam Greenfield
carbon@holonet.net
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I read "The Long Boom" with great interest and appreciate its Tofflerian worldview. Few utopian perspectives, however, address the mental strain of accessing, filtering, processing, and retaining the onslaught of knowledge-information overload. As we approach critical mass in our ability to cope with the related info-stress, it is easy to feel that we are each alone and treading water in a tsunami of must-know-to-be-current-and-hip data. Acknowledging, reconnecting, and living with the oneness honored in most spiritual paths allows us to flow with the tide- to truly be data surfers. To paraphrase many a sage, the digital era is, to date, largely an exercise in "doing." Our psychological survival in these frenzied advances- and the other issues of the new millennium- rests instead in our way of being with it all. In technology, as in all walks of life, this distinction makes the difference between a stressful, obligatory challenge and a joyous, empowered journey.
Jeff Burger
jeff@sedona.net
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I must take serious exception to Peter Schwartz and Peter Leyden's claim that Alan Greenspan's retirement will be a good thing. Greenspan's retirement should be viewed as a serious risk factor, not as an opportunity for unbridled prosperity. During his tenure as chair of the Federal Reserve, the US economy has experienced a remarkable period of monetary and price stability that has made possible the boom of the '90s. This "Goldilocks economy"- not too hot, not too cold- is engineered to enable sustained economic growth without the wild ups and downs that characterized the American business cycle in the '70s and '80s (and still persist in economies around the world, including many in Asia). The benefits of this stable platform for growth are often underestimated, but to the business planner it is as important as reliable communications, power, and transport. It is particularly important in the US because of the dollar's special status as the de facto global currency. Ordinary citizens benefit most of all: we don't have to worry about losing our savings to inflation. In today's economy, there are jobs available for even the least skilled, with real wages rising again. We can only hope that Greenspan's successor will be as effective as he has been.
Andrew Sullivan
celebes@well.com
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What a wonderful world it's going to be- provided, of course, that all of it comes true. Although the article touched on important aspects of global transition, it skimmed over agriculture. Urban sectors of society will continually compete for water, since irrigated agriculture consumes 80 percent of water resources in an average agricultural/metropolitan region. An expanding industry is drip irrigation, or microirrigation. This process saves water, reduces fertilizer consumption, and assists farmers during drought periods. Microirrigation will become a bigger player in states such as California where urban sprawl will gobble up prime farmland, no matter how rosy the scenario. It has helped transform countries like India from food importers just a generation ago to food exporters today. While I was a soil scientist at the US Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service, I initiated an Internet discussion list focusing on microirrigation. Today, that list has grown to 600 subscribers in 32 nations. Individuals in developing countries with Internet access are tapping in to this list of experts and industry reps and discovering that online answers are quick and the information is deep. I can only imagine what things will be like in agricultural technology in 20 years.
Richard Mead
rmead@lightspeed.net
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Wired's time line of the future predicted that early hydrogen cars would appear around 2007. Ballard Power Systems in Burnaby, British Columbia, has already developed a completely hydrogen-powered bus, though it is not yet commercially available. No gas, no emissions, just clear drinkable water coming from this rig's tailpipe. Hydrogen can be a clean, cheap, alternative energy source. As of late, Ballard also has been working with companies like Ford and Daimler-Benz to produce a methanol-powered car. There is a very good chance that we will be able to drive home in one before the century is out.
James Strocel
rogue1@rogers.wave.ca
See "Dawn of the Hydrogen Age" in this issue.
The neat thing about seeing complexity theory in action ("Bordering on Chaos," Wired 5.07, page 98) is that Cemex uses the common law (which permits what it doesn't prohibit) to create great new operating procedures in a country that uses the Roman law (which prohibits what it doesn't permit). Of course, applying free-market management in firms typically produces the kind of results that can grow a tiny business to the world's third-largest cement company in a decade. Cemex's top execs and engineers use the conversation to make commitments. This style is more than just the right way to implement technology; it's the right way to run a business or a society. You create an architecture of human behaviors when employees can make commitments that satisfy their clients. To succeed, companies must empower employees, since each worker knows his own client's needs and wants best. That's a big change from Mexican tradition. Cemex operates in a country that empowered the politicians and the bosses, but never the clients and the employees- until Lorenzo Zambrano came along and turned the world upside down.
Dr. Mark White
white@profmexis.sar.net
Brock N. Meeks's article on antispam legislation ("Stomping Out Spam," Wired 5.08, page 82) fails to address the most critical issue for many people: cost-shifting. Traditionally, the cost of advertising is paid by the advertiser, and in many media subsidizes the cost to the consumer. Advertising, for example, keeps television free and newspapers cheap. This economic model does not apply to spam. Instead, the advertiser pays a fraction of what it would pay for a traditional marketing campaign, and the recipient pays to pick up the pieces. Spam clogs networks, delays mail, takes down servers, and dominates administrator time. All that raises your ISP's operating costs- costs that ultimately trickle down to the consumer in the form of increased fees. This is important, because no scheme that involves recipient-level mail filtering really addresses the cost-shifting issue. Any solution that permits spammers to send out advertisements, requiring them merely to adopt a content-tagging system and honor unsubscribe requests, won't have a significant effect on the amount of spam received by a service provider, and therefore will not reduce the ISP's costs or yours. Neither Senator Robert Torricelli's nor Senator Frank Murkowski's bill will have much effect on the additional costs borne by consumers.
Tim Pierce
twpierce@midway.uchicago.edu
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Brock N. Meeks selects Senator Torricelli's Electronic Mailbox Protection Act of 1997 as the most "Internet-friendly" of the three pieces of upcoming antispam legislation. I disagree. Torricelli's bill prohibits spammers from using false From addresses, creating new domain names, or moving operations overseas. Speaking in terms of the Constitution, it is difficult to justify imposing these restrictions on spammers and not on any other Internet user (let alone preventing private business from moving overseas). Or does Torricelli plan to restrict everyone? It doesn't sound very Internet-friendly to me. Representative Chris Smith's amendment to the Consumer Protection Act of 1991 is much more respectful of cyber rights. It would merely treat junk email as junk faxes are treated. The ban on junk faxes was upheld in court because, although the advertising is a form of speech, the recipient must pay for an unwanted message. Email isn't free, either- even if an Internet user doesn't pay for his spam with an hourly rate, his ISP spends money to make the connections happen. And although the courts have ruled that the Internet differs from the phone system, junk email is just as unwanted as junk faxes. Smith's bill will be more effective than Torricelli's, simpler, and- more important- less intrusive, in a domain where intrusion is death.
Jonathan R. Schwanbeck
ack@tiac.net
I enjoyed "Morphing the Librarians" (Wired 5.08, page 64). As a librarian, I am thrilled at the changes my profession is going through. Indeed, far from swapping public service for money and power or even becoming extinct, many of us in public libraries find ourselves busier than ever. In Augusta, Maine,the staff at Lithgow Public Library serves its clientele with an online public catalog and an interlibrary loan system dependent on email and listservs. We answer many reference questions using the Internet and CD-ROM sources. We train library users to answer their information and entertainment needs using technology. Public libraries are in the unique position of being able to offer high tech services and training to everyone, even those who cannot afford a computer at home or have never touched a computer before. It is extremely gratifying to see the light and excitement in someone's face when they grasp the wealth of free information at their fingertips. Technology is a happy extension of the public service we have been providing all along.
Jodi Johnson
lpl@biddeford.com
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Don't buy the extinction myth. Educated and trained librarians will be needed to help users sift through and locate appropriate information regardless of format. A number of students come to the library to find specific information and haven't the foggiest idea how to do it. This profession has changed rapidly over the last decade. The profession isn't ruled by the Dewey decimal system (ever hear of the Library of Congress?), it is ruled by a desire to meet users' needs, whether by modern or traditional methods. We will survive!
Tracey Cuellar
tcuellar@campus.mainland.cc.tx.us
How delightful that the wired world is so fabulous and that Larry Summers is leading the charge to a bold new land of prosperity and retro-smiling faces ("The Integrationist vs. the Separatists," Wired 5.07, page 53). Why, with my Pentium Pro 200 MHz surfing the Club Med homepage while downloading my soon-to-be-decimalized-8,000-Dow-make-me-snappy-happy fund closing price, I, too, can close the door on reality and drive into Wired's perfect future. Needless to say, we must not slow down to note that the United Nations Development Program just reported that 19 percent of Americans live in poverty. Nor should we consider that Summers and his ilk don't give a hoot about the distribution of wealth, only the abundance of it for some. The editors of Wired and Summers should take a look at the living conditions of the 1 billion people who have access to just a fraction of the wealth they describe before judging the planet's future so rosy. There is a lot we can do to bridge the gap between rich and poor. Technology can play a vital role in the struggle for justice, while arrogance has no role in our quest for survival.
Nick Morgan
nmorgan@igc.org
The article on ImageCensor ("The Unpeep Show," Wired 5.06, page 48) dredged up memories of high school. The art history teacher at my school was often quite pissed off when the librarian took it upon herself to censor expensive and lavishly illustrated art books. Like Zorro making his mark, she would hide the naughty bits behind indelible black ink, leaving us prepubescent lads to fantasize over what we were missing. The reproduction of Titian's Venus of Urbino happened to be one of the great nude victims that suffered at the hands of our illustrious librarian. With ImageCensor, we've rubbed out the middleman or -woman, and many will never know what's been blocked.
E. Killinger
Hogansville, Georgia
PICS is designed such that its code must be embedded into the actual HTML file- a part of the page's guts ("Tyranny in the Infrastructure," Wired 5.07, page 96). It would be impossible to enforce its insertion into each of the 80 million or so existing Web pages, rendering PICS just another sparsely used ratings system- not the "devil" of content blockers, as Lawrence Lessig fears it to be.
Nathaniel Swinburne
nates1@ix.netcom.com
In "Digital Obesity" (Wired 5.07, page 188), Nicholas Negroponte slams Microsoft and others for issuing increasingly complex software and upgrades. He's right, but he fails to offer the obvious reason the behemoths should care what we think: more- and happier- customers. If Redmond and Silicon Valley weren't so esoteric and arrogant, they might just develop an easy-to-use computer for the uninitiated. And that's quite a market.
Chris Avery
c-avery@nwu.edu
The killer app Oliver Morton alludes to in "Private Spy" (Wired 5.08, page 114) requires one crucial component not mentioned in the article- elevation post data over which the 2-D images can be draped. Combining elevation information with satellite imagery for real-time visualization on a PC with inexpensive graphics accelerators will open up vast markets. Gamers can choose to play in real virtual worlds, while builders and real estate agents can walk through housing developments anywhere in the world. The killer app will be free, and the imagery and elevation data will be accessible over the Web for nominal charges.
W. Garth Smith
wgsmith@metavr.com
I found Wired's map of Net access to be arbitrary, at best ("Freedom to Connect," Wired 5.08, page 106). While I agree that there are immoral restrictions on free speech in countries that usually claim to be more enlightened- like the US, the UK, and Germany - I find your ignoring of privacy (encryption) rights violations in France, Spain, et cetera, to be highly myopic. A privacy battle is being fought worldwide at the moment. It is extremely important that these human rights violations not be ignored.
Don Heinz
ldheinz@cyberdude.com
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Despite her work in compiling a large number of sources, Leila Conners made several mistakes in "Freedom to Connect." The geographical borders of the new Yugoslavia were shown incorrectly, dividing the nation into four regions according to the local county lines. (Why didn't you divide Switzerland into cantons or the UK into counties?) The legend indicated that Internet access is not available in Serbia. That is definitely not true, and it has not been true for the last two years. I am surprised that Wired ran this piece, when a long article about Yugoslavia and cyberspace was published in April ("The Internet Revolution," Wired 5.04, page 122).
Tadija Janjic
tadija@flash.net
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The Yugoslavia that existed before the civil war is no longer. It has been broken into other sovereign entities. Croatia and Bosnia are not equivalents to Swiss cantons or counties in the UK; Wired did not make a mistake in the map's boundaries. At the time the survey was conducted, because of disruption caused by the war, Serbian embassy sources did not guarantee connectivity. Things change rapidly, and the next map will reflect those changes, including the Serbian experience.
- Leila Conners
James Ogilvy's "The Power to Consume" (Wired 5.07, page 110) was so fallacious, it is difficult to know where to begin. By focusing on the global system, which must balance consumption and production, he ignores the fact that there is competition within that system. The winning companies, nations, and individuals will be those that consume less, produce more, win the battle for limited markets, and invest the difference (never mind the fact that it's not possible for everyone to do so). He complains about limits in purchasing desire. And yet, if everyone were to reach a point where they have everything they want, we would finally have achieved true wealth as a society. Economics would be more rational if it measured contentment as well as dollars. Ogilvy shouldn't feel bad. The myth that consumption produces wealth for the consumers is a pervasive one in modern economics. It is a myth that keeps the majority of our population on an endless treadmill of consumption and dissatisfaction, while the wise minority save their money, wake up millionaires one day, and retire in Maui.
Dennis Peterson
dennis@uncc.campus.mci.net
Perhaps the title of Lynn Ginsburg's interview of Carl Malamud ("The Contrarian Libertarian," Wired 5.07, page 130) should have been "Contrarian to Logic and Good Sense." According to Malamud, cyberspace should not be considered any differently from the real world with respect to the law and government. To which law and government is he referring? Maybe China's or Iraq's? Is he confusing the cyber age with the Dark Ages? Malamud trips over his own logic and proves himself to be a poor advocate of free speech online (or anywhere) with his statement that "spamming and emailing ought to be crimes" and that one "ought to be able to call the police and have (perpetrators) arrested." In the physical world, spammers are the folks who clutter our mailboxes with sometimes unwanted solicitations. Should we be able to march down to the magistrate's office and file charges against them, too?
Victor Cuco
cvs@prodigy.net
In Electric Word (Wired 5.08, page 42), Tang Liang Hong is described as a "People's Action Party member." Tang ran on the Workers' Party slate in the 1997 general election. The People's Action Party (PAP) has been the ruling party in Singapore since 1959 and is the party of Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong. I presume that Tang would resent being associated with the PAP, rather than the Workers' Party, which is the primary opposition party in Singapore.
Kent Mulliner
mulliner@eurekanet.com
School of Hard Knoxville: Bill Gates's worst nightmare, Gary Reback ("The Robin Hood of the Rich," Wired 5.08, page 108), was born in Knoxville, Tennessee. n Photographic Memory: The photograph accompanying the review of the SideWinder 3D Pro joystick ("Straight up, with a Twist," Wired 5.07, page 161) was actually Microsoft's SideWinder Force Feedback Pro. n Special Thanks: Jess Bragg contributed to "101 Ways to Save Apple" (Wired 5.06, page 114).
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