Fw: [rohrpost] Down to Earth
lerone@iname.com
lerone@iname.com
Wed, 12 Sep 2001 23:06:43 +0800
Ist wohl beim ersten Mal irgendwo hängen
geblieben...
-----Original Message-----
From: lerone@iname.com
Sent: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 22:18:49 +0800
To: rohrpost@mikrolisten.de
Subject: [rohrpost] Down to Earth
Hallo,
anbei etwas zu den Ereignissen und dem
"Downing" der zweiten, "virtuellen"
Welt...
für Informationen empfehle ich übrigens neben
den schon auf der Liste
genannten besonders:
http://newsinsider.cjb.net/
|| oliver lerone schultz | marienburger str. 5a |
10405 berlin| t:
+49(0)30-440 46 46 7||
>>>
"A Simple Flow of Online Conciousness" by
Spides:
For me, this morning the 'cyberspace' community
had an absence of its usual jovial and emotional
falsifications. It's no secret that once online,
people let a different side of their psyches prevail,
forming their own personal idealised faceless
self on computer screens worldwide. After the first
plane hit, people were still cracking gags about
what would happen on Letterman this weekend,
people were talking about upcoming Tribes 2
games they had that evening. Senseless false
people making senseless false jokes to save
face in front of the peers, while they privately
wondered what would have caused such a thing
to occur.
When the second plane hit, the facade began to
fall away, people started trying to call loved ones,
the stoic late teens, self professed adults, woke
their parents to recount this tragedy for all to hear.
It was at this time the Internet began to get busy;
chatrooms were being flooded by non-frequenting
outsiders searching for information. It was at this
time BBNPlanet, the source for the majority of
large international news sites took a complete
belting and fell offline altogether for a couple of
hours.
This was the first time I ever saw emotion carried
in text over the Internet and it frightened me.
These people who you thought you knew, the
fellow geeks who offered you advice in your trivial
times of need were falling apart before your very
eyes. The panic had set in and the kids dragged
their televisions and radios towards their
computers - details flooding in.
The Internet was initially designed with the key
purpose in mind of being a decentralised method
for information distribution, a communications
network that would survive through nuclear
holocaust. With traffic belting CNN, ABC, BBC,
NBC, Reuters and AP, we all resorted to
conventional methods of communication,
everything being quickly relayed into chatrooms.
Concern about the New Yorkers we have come to
know over our times on the Internet quickly rose to
a boiling point, calls were made and the entire
New York phone circuitry was overloaded. Then
the third plane hit.
It was at this time the idea of the strange and
horrible coincidence of two planes flying near
simultaneously into the WTC towers was
dispelled. The United States was under a terrorist
attack and those who were posting faux EBay
auctions regarding a "WTC Tower, Some
Assembly required" retreated to their private bomb
shelters or door frames, ostracised from their
chatrooms with no where to turn, weeping tears
of
their upcoming oblivion.
But people needed information; the place for
panic was in your own private haunts. The IRC
(Internet Relay Chat) networks of SlashNET and
IdleNET channels of coverage were alive with
constant newsfeeds even before the rumours
began regarding the third plane crash.
First it was total disbelief, hammered home by the
rumours: a bomb planted within the militaristic
hallowed halls, a helicopter safely crashing on the
private pad at the Pentagon, simply
nuked-out-of-the-sky possibilities or nothing
happening at all. Another plane crash was
confirmed and those who were safe in
Washington found exactly the opposite was true,
the Whitehouse was evacuated and another
plane crashed in Pennsylvania.
Rumours regarding a fifth crash, two flights en
route to Washington, one of which being shot
down by an F-16, car bombs at Capitol Hill
circulated. This further sent people who were
previously in panic into either acceptance of their
nation's upcoming demise or further disarray. But
this disarray quickly decayed into what was found
to be concern for their fellow online friends,
e-mails and instant messages being exchanged
to ensure their well-being. Apparent in this
concern was also a certain amount of
detachment, especially for those of us abroad, we
were distraught but not in tears, all we saw were
numbers. 737, Flight 75, 911, 10,000 dead. The
information continued to flow through the
feedsites and BBNPlanet was restored, the
Internet was once again serving its purpose.
The disgust of those watching these events
unfold turned to quiet accepting smiles, human
nature prevalent throughout as morbidly curious
photographs and videos began to make the
rounds through various rooms. Those with digital
cameras were hitting the streets for the first time
in days, snapping visual information up because
people needed to know, giving blood to their way
home.
The new world was unfolding before the very eyes
of 'cyberspace' citizens and they took it in stride,
discussing and speculating who the perpetrators
of this heinous act were, as well as the means of
their demise. Simon Weil's take on Plato's Cave
stated that we were held down by the thoughts
pushed upon us by the upper class elites,
causing great confusion. Communications
technologies such as the Internet are paradoxical
ways of both holding up this confusion and
making sense of it. It was on this historical day
the new world saw this confused naivety
disintegrate, paving a way to an unknown yet
foreseeable future.
"The father of a friend of mine was describing the
papers raining down after the crashes, how that
was the single defining feature of the incident until
the smoke obscured his view"
Our condolences and best wishes to all those
involved.
Sincerely,
Frank Gibson (Spides)
On Behalf of Anticow Studios, NZ
anticow.gamer.net.nz
--
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