BOOKS
History has been more than kind to thriller writer Caleb Carr, but apparently the Alienist author is scared as hell of what's ahead. A cautionary tale about leaving the Internet unregulated, Carr's new book, Killing Time: A Novel of the Future (published by Random House, hitting shelves in November), is set in 2024 - 17 years after the US government has been bailed out by a tycoon in return for its promise not to regulate ecommerce. Now the planet is rife with war and disease, and much of the chaos is blamed on the technopolists who developed the Internet. These sinister forces conspire, for example, to alter video footage of the president's assassination. Wired asked Carr why he's sure the network is the enemy of the future.
Wired: In the book, you really give the Internet a hard time.
Carr: Here you go. Now you guys are going to kick my ass.
But the Net is blamed for almost everything.
Every other medium is somewhat responsibly regulated. The Internet is the only one that is being left alone in the name of informational freedom. People say that they want the Internet to be free and they want to make sure that no one controls it. The idea that no one controls the Internet is laughable. Whoever controls the delivery systems controls the Internet. And these people aren't doing it out of philosophical enlightenment or out of charity; their intention is to have control over the market. They're really sucking people in with this thing. They're making intelligent people believe that the Internet is a force for freedom and democracy. But it can be used for anything.
So who's going to regulate the Net?
Right now, no one would sit still for it. The people who run the Internet are paying the bills in Washington. You didn't have any kind of regulation in this country until Theodore Roosevelt, who was a member of the moneyed class. That's the kind of person who will get regulation through.
Isn't TV as easy to fake as the Net?
At least TV tries to check stuff out. Look, the Internet is basically a tool for buying things and for pornography. When it becomes more than that, it will become extremely dangerous.
MUST READ
Armageddon, the Sequel
The Cosmic Connection
Fight the Future!
Power Munch
Cat Hack Fever
The Online Gene Pool
Interface2face
People
Jargon Watch
Big Mac Attack
The First PC
Memory Hog
Insecurities Exchange
Quantum's Leap
Raw Data
