Re: <eyebeam><blast> Cyberpower

[Tim Jordan <tjordan@myriad.its.unimelb.EDU.AU>]

Brian Holmes wrote:
>This is a message we
>can offer through this universal network: that there is a place in the
>world-space for all particular ideals, and not only for the
>collectivized and standardized grasping of possessive individualism.

I agree, though the extent to which the Internet embodies such a hope
still
seems to me to need analysis. You're own argument shifts from 'catching
up
to corporations on the net' to the net's promise, whereas two need to be

discussed together (as Saskia Sassen initiated in her comments about
privatisation of the net). I feel the two need to go together because
the
abilities the net seems to hand to individuals--to communicate, to
share,
all the things already mentioned in the forum--is always bought at the
price of reliance on software and hardware controlled by experts. I can
have email but must rely on this programme that sends, stores and files,

which means relying on the expertise of those who wrote this programme
in a
particular way, for whatever reasons. The more powerful the applications

the more dependent we become. That's why Foucault was important for my
analysis, our liberation produces the conditions of our subjection.

Now 'experts', or the information/Internet elite, range from the writers
of
free software like Linux, to hackers, to Bill Gates. The great corporate

figureheads (Gates, Jobs, McNealy etc.) are 'powerful' because they sit
in
the middle of great webs of experts (software writers mainly) that they
employ. A hacker is 'powerful' by placing themselves within webs of
software and hardware at the very points these webs are manipulable.
While
I agree the net has great liberatory potential, I'm cautious about
shouting
this while we still don't have an adequate map of the power relations of

cyberspace. At present I see not only the abilities we can gain in
cyberspace but also our increasing dependence on a whole panoply of
corporate owned and state subsidised technology.

I love your passion, I'll follow you up to the barricade but my doubts
are
only just being clearly defined.

Tim Jordan




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