Upsilon Andromedea's Journal: Arrival

Joined and subscribed and posted and was immediately assailed.

(I've even seen spell flames here, something I thought would have been ground out of the cyberculture by now. They are a little less pervasive on boards than 8 years ago, when they seemed to take precedence over content most of the time.

(Odd and telling to me they are, given the environment of the alleged transgression: an international forum, in one of the hardest languages to spell, where everyone is typing their correspondence madly between real world obligations.

(Obviously, spell flames in that environment constitute a competition to exclude whoever possible by contempt.

(Therein is the basis of all flames. I guess the evolution of each individual has to start somewhere, even in cyberspace.)

Cyberspace actually provides a bloodless arena, a generally accessible one that doesn't take second place to the bloody ones, a definite improvement in the history of humanity.

However, real wisdom and some outstading humor, lies beneath the data in cyberspace. It is the slow, spiralling crawl toward humanity's enlightenment that has been going on one way or another for millennia, all lit up in photons.

I like it.

Of course, much as I love science, I'll loose in competition on such a huge technical board. But I am applying a measure: the extent to which I need to hold my own in competition equals the extent to which I have fallen short of wisdom and understanding, aka humor and insight, and paused instead for debate and ignorance, aka frustration and insecurity.

(No judgements here. All are vital components of the birth-to-death ride.)

In search of cyber-community, I've come to what I believe will someday be a significant section of the cerebrum of humanity--the common think tank of the populace--Slashdot.

Wish Timothy Leary were here to see it! I think that it was just what he was thinking of toward the end and that it would have satisfied him enormously.