Virtual communities offer the possibility that we can construct utopian collectivities – communities of interest, education, tastes, beliefs, and skills. Indeed, the prospect of carving new, better virtual communities out of new territories taps into western mythologies of settling frontiers … What the hypemeisters don’t say or don’t realize is that this frontier metaphor deceives us. It conjures up Americana images of the individual lighting out for the territories, independent and hopeful, to make a life. But what is hidden by the metaphor is the cybernaut immersed in virtual worlds, neither self-reliant nor liberated, but utterly dependent for existence on technology created, provided, and sustained by others, living the isolated life of the placeless domesticate.
Predictor: Doheny-Farina, Stephen
Prediction, in context:In a 1994 article for Computer-Mediated Communication magazine, Stephen Doheny-Farina writes: ”Regardless of the virtual violence of flaming and the ‘go where no one has gone before’ hype of cyber-adventuring, the Net, I think, is not a frontier wilderness at all. In fact, the Net represents the pinnacle of domestication. The electronic frontier metaphor fools us into thinking that as natural frontiers become ever more remote from our lives, there is another kind of nature, another kind of wild place where we can develop and express our human potential. As daily life becomes ever more virtualized and simultaneously ever more removed from the natural world, the domesticates of the Net become like the domesticates [Canadian naturalist John] Livingston sees in nature: placeless. ‘Nowhere may the human presence be seen as fully integrated and “natural” because wherever we may be, or however long we may have been there, we are still domesticates. Domesticates have no ecologic place, and they show it consistently and universally.’ [from Livingston’s book ‘Rogue Primate’] Furthermore, in achieving our domestication, we strike a bargain. We get protection from natural enemies while giving up our place in nature. In physical-space communities we are forced to live with people we may differ with in many ways. Virtual communities offer the possibility that we can construct utopian collectivities – communities of interest, education, tastes, beliefs, and skills. Indeed, the prospect of carving new, better virtual communities out of new territories taps into western mythologies of settling frontiers. The natural frontier has been long since settled, say the cybernetic hypemeisters. Leave it behind and settle the new electronic hinterlands. Surrender to the virtual. (Give in to what Kroker and Weinstein deride as the ‘will to virtuality’ promoted by ‘the virtual class.’) What the hypemeisters don’t say or don’t realize is that this frontier metaphor deceives us. It conjures up Americana images of the individual lighting out for the territories, independent and hopeful, to make a life. But what is hidden by the metaphor is the cybernaut immersed in virtual worlds, neither self-reliant nor liberated, but utterly dependent for existence on technology created, provided, and sustained by others, living the isolated life of the placeless domesticate.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Community/Culture
Subtopic: Virtual Communities
Name of publication: Computer-Mediated Communication Magazine
Title, headline, chapter name: The Last Link: Cybernauts in the Electronic Frontier: Pets on a Leash
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.december.com/cmc/mag/1994/nov/last.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Walsh, Meghan