> "we"

we (wé) pron. 1. Used to refer to the speaker and another or others.

- The American Heritage Dictionary

i need to qualify my use of "we" in this thesis; who is the others?

"we", "us" in this case often means the US - the us, the United States. I was born and raised here, and though i have been fortunate enough to see other parts of the world, i am inevitably american.

something fortunately left out of this thesis, one of the few things, is consideration of the use of media technology to disseminate dominant (american) views about technology around the world. in my personal experience, when i travelled to honduras, people there were excited to purchase "ab sculptors" and install cable tv. so what may be sad for the ultimate condition of life on the planet is fortunate for me - this thesis could be said to apply to the technology ideal of the world, since it is defined by american purchases, and implemented by geeks in san francisco, entertainers in los angeles, and business people in new york. i am fortunate to occasionally evesdrop on all three.

and those folks to whom i listen, and from whom i was born and with whom i share blood, the students with whom i study and the geeks with whom i wander through the web - these folks are the we. and their relatives and friends, and their stories i hear and apartments i visit.

this thesis is really a moment, a pile of words in a place in history. whose history, who owns it, and what is to happen with it - i have tried to open up these questions by making the pile available online. besides coming of age creating in this space, i like the notion of adding my scholarship to the early bit heap of academia located online. the framing of these technology questions in a technological space gives them an extra burst of context. what will become of web pages, however, is rather in doubt, and so putting together these ideas in web format, in braver moments, is excitedly invested in a temporariness that happens to be current at the time of writing, perhaps even a little post-current, but could soon be as current as cuneiform.

so besides what is evidenced by the locus and structure of this creation, and the constituent arguements, i take note from the recent thesis work by kylian robinson:

"i felt rather strongly that if i were to claim that these ideas had any validity to anyone other than myself, that is, that they were to contain any communicative value, then i must attach and relate them firmly to contemporary post indusrial experience in such a way that these active methods of relating to the world could be seen as assimilated passively. By post industrial experience i refer to both space and time; i would't attempt to claim that 'America' is post industrial, but that my experience of American life has been one of access to commodities and monies, largely without direct experience of their source."

- Kylian Robinson, In Case of Fire, Do Not Use Elevators Use Stairways, page vi

and it is that sourcelessness, that missing location of responsibility and lineage that i am examining, as people deconstruct the everything things offered and surrounding them, here, in post-industrial 'America.'

i have been repeatedly forced to abondon the notion of truth, or the idea that i would hit upon any idea too incredibly portable aross subcultures let alone across technologies. perhaps my (over)use of the word "responsibility" stems from my high school training, that the teachers and administrators at the francis parker school constantly took to the stage to charge the students with the import of the word, this word responsibility, which was the underlying word of our school, the structure of our "progressive" education. i didn't understand entirely then, though i played around it, and on it, and within it, but over time it has come to mean increasingly more to me.

"... since human experience shows itself to be constantly regenerating, notions which refer to unchanging ideals are stained with the fingerprints they try to erase from everyday life."

- Kylian Robinson, In Case of Fire, Do Not Use Elevators Use Stairways, page iii

from "manifold manifest," composed in the fall of 1996, i listed my biases and bases before attempting a book:

- here's my context so you can hold it against me.

...

san francisco; I suffer from bay area orientation, which I enjoy, but tilts my perspective overmuch from overdwell
- there is a collision of culture, so many languages are spoken, and the quality of the vegetables, and the hovering on the verge of seismic death
it creates a collective condition of near millennial all-hang-out that can be a bit much
compared to the midwest's solidity
I certainly enjoy this san franciscan (like saint francis) spirit-uality, versus the pure speed of the high east coast
the drugs and indulgence can weary
either way, you might understand these perspective better with a city in mind

I must as well confess my western bent, it is the history with which I am most familiar and the world in which I've grown up and continue to exist. I do think the convergence of world-halves continues, for the most part, the trappings of that world, the physical reality, often seems to be most western
at least the media addled reality of which I am a participant

...

because anything becoming possible, especially with expanding of the globe and the according increase in the numbers of human examples - you can find anyone to prove anything, or even make a whole demographic of it.
witness the media made importance of "soccer moms" in the US 1996 election - what planet did they land from and when? and how did they get quotes around themselves?

moreover my particular lifestyle of travel and electronic exposure might have enlarged my example pool beyond the ordinary.

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