The prediction, in brief:

The Net is one source of the mutuality, feedback, and accountability that we need to counteract the rigidity and isolation of modern life. We will need that feedback and mutuality even more as our planet continues to evolve. Our galaxy contains countless civilizations that will one day make the racial diversity on Earth look like bland homogeneity. The Net is a step in the right direction; it’s one way to learn how to live in relationship to the unthinkable complexity and diversity that will characterize future communities.

Predictor: Thieme, Richard

Prediction, in context:

In a 1995 essay for Wired magazine, Richard Thieme, a professional speaker and business consultant, writes:”Our transition from a print culture to a digital one is as profound a shift in human consciousness as that created by the move from oral culture to written, or written to printed. Our interaction with computers has given birth to new forms of religious community … Marianne Moore wrote that poems are imaginary gardens with real toads in them. The Net is an imaginary web providing real connection with real people, in a remarkably new way. On the Net, the absence of visual cues for race, gender, disability, and age enables us to create personae that simultaneously hide and disclose who we are, making community on the Net remarkably inclusive. By disarming the usual cues that trigger exclusion, the Net becomes a come-as-you-are party, a cultural feast to which everyone is invited. The Net is one source of the mutuality, feedback, and accountability that we need to counteract the rigidity and isolation of modern life. We will need that feedback and mutuality even more as our planet continues to evolve. Our galaxy contains countless civilizations that will one day make the racial diversity on Earth look like bland homogeneity. The Net is a step in the right direction; it’s one way to learn how to live in relationship to the unthinkable complexity and diversity that will characterize future communities.”

Date of prediction: January 1, 1995

Topic of prediction: Community/Culture

Subtopic: Relationships

Name of publication: Wired

Title, headline, chapter name: In Search of the Grail

Quote Type: Direct quote

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.11/thieme.if_pr.html

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney