More Thoughts On Time Travel...

"During Wednesday's presidential debate, George Bush connected the Net and youth violence -- demonstrating a deep misunderstanding of the reality of techno-culture. It was also a profound political blunder: there are more Americans turning 18 than ever before, and they now know that at least one presidential candidate is an idiot. There are real issues involving kids and technology which will never be raised in this kind of exhausted and irrational political system..." [1]

It is no surprise to me that even political elitists and so-called 'knowledgable majority representatives' do not have even a general understanding as to what is truly effecting so much of the world today. While there is no excuse for ignorance, I think that so many of us -- youth and adults alike -- are finding themselves at a crossroads that is completely unfamiliar and not prepared for in old history books or psychology lessons. The adults, motivated by experience, attempt to reach out to the youth with their hands, hearts, and lesson plans. The children respond by asking for it to be said in zeros and ones -- that is, through a real-time-chat-based-email-efficient program of some sort. The heart is open, the arms are outstretched, and the will to understand is still implanted firmly as it was even only ten or twenty years ago. The difference is the silence that is met when the two worlds finally collide.

My sister, age thirteen, has had a computer in her possession since she was very young. Many of the programs that she learned to read, write, and do mathematics from came from CD-R programs that were designed to take the pressure away from the parents at home or the teachers at school. As an eighth grader, she spends plenty of her time on written homework and classwork in school, but there is also mandatory computer classes that she takes, and it is unheard of if a student does not own a computer of their own.

Upstairs from her, I sit and punch out columns like these and other web work that I have. I have made my career, at least for now, revolve around my laptop and an internet connection. A curious bystander may find it somewhat humorous that our instant message accounts are on constantly, enabling us to chat with whomever is also online with us at the time. That same bystander may also find it humorous that she and I use that messenger to relay important messages to one another while we're doing our work or talking to our respective friends. She will message me to tell me when she's going out. I'll message her to inform her of when we're eating dinner. Sometimes we'll argue endlessly on it. Usually, it's how we say goodnight to each other.

While our parents have personally at least tried to get in on the internet-savvy train, it is almost as if they cannot get there all the way, even if they try. They shake their heads in disbelief when the only noise within the confines of the house is annoying little tap-tap-taps, and when human contact is kept to such a strange minimum. What a sure change from just a few decades ago, when even the onset of computers were wonderful and helpful, but not overpowering. Indeed, this is a culture, a culture that has crowned the youth as king and the rest as simply bystanders.

The internet and our music scene is noticeably interchangable. We rush out to shows we hear about through a network of fans almost always being brought together through email lists, web groups, and other such 'geek stuff'. We do not just listen to the shows. We tape them, we stream them, we tree them, we trade them, we show them to the world with our big bad DAT players. We email our friends the setlists song-by-song. We put 'em on the net. We have a database to see when the songs were played before, how long it's been since it was last played, and when it may be played again. We write a review and post it wherever we think people may want to read it. We do it all and then some. It's second nature to us. Not once do we sit down and think to ourselves that if this were the seventies, we'd be a lot less communicative. At least, to our standards of 'normalcy' today.

And then we wonder why George W. Bush has no clue about this techno-babble that we brush away with such ease. It is our language, not his. How can we -- how will we -- be able to communicate if our so-called leaders do not have the foundation of understanding it? Could it then be said that there will be no candidate worthy of this understanding until our youth gets twenty or thirty years older and is able to run for offices? Perhaps then, the ISDN lines in the White House will be filled with instant messages back and forth to other world leaders. Something like this, for example:

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[1] - taken from Dark Hearts and the Net, by Jon Katz. Full article can be found at www.slashdot. org/features/00/10/12/1625219.shtml.

[2] - 11/15/91 -- according to ZZYZX's Phish Stats! -- a shameless plug for my favorite Seattleite.