128 lines
6.9 KiB
Plaintext
128 lines
6.9 KiB
Plaintext
Programmed for Life and Death
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by: John Markoff
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This spring a California man symbolically took his life by using a computer
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program to seek out and destroy the contributions he had made over the years
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to a continuing electronic conversation run by a computer group called the
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Well. Several weeks later, he followed this "virtual" suicide by killing
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himself in the real world.
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Blair Newman had been one of the most active members of the Well, a
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five-year-old electronic community that is operated out of the offices of the
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Whole Earth Review, a publisher in Sausalito, Calif., with roots in the
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1960's counterculture. Several thousand people in the Bay Area regularly use
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their computers to call up the Well for an electronic, typewritten chat, and
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they frequently meet face to face in more conventional gatherings.
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Mr. Newman, a 43-year-old veteran of the personal computer industry, was such
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an enthusiastic - some would say obsessive - user of the Well that many of
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his friends knew him only electronically. They describe him as a flamboyant
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insomniac who could be counted on for stimulating and sometimes infuriating
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late-night conversation. But he was also known for bouts of depression.
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After his simulated suicide in May, many members of the community dispatched
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angry messages complaining that they had been wronged. Some believed that
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Mr. Newman's writings, stored on a computer disk, were the property of the
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community and not his to destroy.
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It was after this dispute, which lingered for several weeks, that Mr. Newman
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took his life.
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"For him to be done in the virtual world was to be done - period," said John
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Perry Barlow, a participant in the group who is a lyricist for the Grateful
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Dead.
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some may take Mr. Newman's story as that of a disturbed computer addict who
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used technology to withdraw from the world. But others see the experience in
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a different light, as a glimpse of a future in which computers change the way
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people live and work, and ultimately the way they die.
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In recent years computer networks have been emerging as a new kind of
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community unlimited by geography. While members can be spread across the
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world, the ease of communication can engender an intimacy more akin to a
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small 19th-century village than a 20th-century suburb.
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Some sociologists see a dark side to all this.
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"There is a notion of avoiding the here-and-now society," said Todd Gitlin, a
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sociologist at the University of California at Berkeley. "Part of what's
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scary is that there is a blankness in here-and-now society that leads people
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to prefer these virtual communities."
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But others see the networks as a way to overcome the forced anonymity of
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modern life. While the telephone shrank the world by permitting
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instantaneous one-to-one contact, and while radio and television have served
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as a one-way medium to broadcast information to millions, the computer has
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become a vehicle that allows hundreds of people of like values and interests
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to come together in small groups.
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Much of what has taken place was foreshadowed in a number of science fiction
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novels written in the last 15 years. In his 1981 novel "True Names" - which
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has a small but devoted following among network enthusiasts - Vernor Vinge
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describes a fictional world in which a small computer underground illicitly
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occupies parts of a powerful global network. IN the story, technology has
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become so advanced that it is possible to stimulate highly realistic fantasy
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worlds and move about and interact with people who may be located thousands
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of miles away.
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A computer-science graduate student has recently created a less elaborate
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simulated universe called Tinymud, which exists within a nationwide computer
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network called Internet. A program permits dozens of people connected to the
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network through personal computers or work stations to create simulated
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personas and use them to explore a fantasy world that the players themselves
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constantly recreate.
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Similar to role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons, the game lacks the
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dazzling graphics associated with Mr. Vinge's story. Tinymud's universe
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consists entirely of written descriptions, and wandering through it is like
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reading a novel - or like being a character in one. And in a meta-fictional
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twist, each player can also play author, adding new regions for other players
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to explore.
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IN recent months the game has become a fad on college campuses. By signing
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on to the network, one can travel through an interactive text filled with
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details of the geography of the Boston area, or electronically visit the Yale
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University campus.
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In addition to shrinking distances and stretching imaginations, computer
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networks also provide anonymity. Such an environment can lead to behaviour
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that would not be so readily tolerated in real life. Recently, in a posting
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on a computer network, a Wesleyan University student complained about sexual
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harassment in the Tinymud game.
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"Just because my character is female and has a vaguely attractive
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description, and just because I choose to flirt with some people, some jerk
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thinks my sexuality is public property," the student wrote. (It is not known
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whether the character's creator was male or female.)
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Someday electronic communities could be futuristic, high-tech paradises. But
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for now they function more as primitive societies, still groping for social
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codes.
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Mr. Barlow, the lyricist, said he once believed that computer conferences
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would never become real communities until they could address sex and death in
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ritual terms.
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"Marriages and funerals are the binding ceremonies in real towns," he said,
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"but they have a hard time happening among the disembodied."
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In the case of Mr. Newman, his friends have tried to assuage their grief by
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what may be the first electronic funeral. Shortly after his death, they
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created a new computer file including all of his old writings, which, it
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turns out, had been saved on a backup disk. They have also compiled a
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eulogy, hundreds of pages of testimonials available on the system. Included
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is this observation from Mitchell D. Kapor, the founder of the Lotus
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Development Corporation and now chairman of On Technology:
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"He was a unique character, and perhaps the limitations of space and time
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were just too much for someone with so many ideas and inspirations."
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----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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The above article was found in the New York Times some time in November 1990,
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and brought to my attention by Victoria, of The Pinnacle Club BBS. It seems
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to me to have enough relevance to our situation, using Bulletin Boards in New
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Zealand, to be worth spending a little while typing it in.
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----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Bernadette Mooney - SysOp - The Pinnacle Club BBS - Auckland - New Zealand
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