zippy@gumby.Altos.COM (Tim Mcfadden) (06/08/91)
This is a specific recommendation for the format of cyberconf3.
Its goal is to is to express a concrete suggestion and a vote
from a concerned cyberpunk.
It's based on the ideas from the similar postings of Farmer,
Benedikt, and Bricken. They have already made comments
on the "Two Cultures" we live in and the format of the
conference.
--------------------- Why we need to change --------------------
Timing is everything.
There does not exist a cyberspace yet of the sort we wish to build,
so unless we change our priorities to encourage builders as presenters
we will not attract them. The heavy weights (except for some current
VR people) in the applicable fields (AI, computer networks,
distributed systems, etc.) are not being featured as presenters.
If we are not the forum for the cyberspace engineers, then we can only
talk about what the furniture of cyberspace might be like and won't
be listened to during planning and early implementation
(the next decade or so).
------------------- Recommendation ----------------
Establish two sets of independent standards for presenters, with
roughly equal presentation time or perhaps more presentation time
for category 1 (muli-tracks are a similar proposal):
1 | alpha
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nuts and bolts of cyberspace engi- | Humans *in* cyberspace. The experience
neering, e.g., distributed | of cyberspace, the politics and
systems, VR in cyberspace, etc.; | sociology of cyberspace. Who will
all the usual engineering and | pay for cyberspace and who will
scientific topics as set out in | control who gets into cyberspace?
the syllabus. | The philosophical problems of
"bottom up." | cyberspace; mind/body problem, etc.
| "top down."
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------ Defense ---------------------------
"Timing is everything"
- Musashi Myamoto
Musashi was a humanist (perhaps a homicidal maniac by our standards)
who tried to learn as much as he could from every craft.
The explicit purpose of the recommendation is to gather implementors
around the banner of "cyberspace" in the next few years. This is a
new goal for the conference, but, if it is not met, there may be no
point in having cyberconf4. Benedikt's comment about timing is that
we may have to have biannual cyberconfs, because of the rate of engineering
development - facts are not being created fast enough.
"Cyberspace" may have to be renamed "playing around with data goggles on
several computers at once." and our chance as cyberspace implementors,
designers, pundits, flaneurs, etc., may be lost.
This is not a "humanist bashing" proposal. There are far more forums
for humanist comment in this area than there are forums for
cyberspace. I also can to speak of Eintein, Jung, Pynchon, Minsky,
and Merleau-Ponty in the same sentence. <<<< see ?
For all of us, it is a matter of sailing with the morning tide or
waiting for someone to invent the hovercraft.
The first question I asked at cyberconf1 was, "how do we make room in
cyberspace for those who like to fly like eagles and those who like
to analyze things with diamond sharp tools?"
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Fall on your decks cyberpunks, we jacked in at Austin and you were
not there". All opinions expressed here are mine and not necessarily
those of Acer-Altos. Tim McFadden - Acer-Altos Computer Systems