El día que discutí con Warren Ellis

bad signal
WARREN ELLIS

badsignal-unsubscribe@lists.flirble.org

[...] I'm sitting here talking to you wirelessly
in the pub. If I feel the need, I can
run an instant messager off this
machine too, and talk in text
wirelessly in realtime to people all
over the world, for effectively no
cost.

I run, for a little while
longer, a web-based community
where interaction centers around
text and image, and sometimes
sound, and Keith Loh dancing in front
of a camera in Vancouver via
Clipstream streaming media
technology.

If I go home and kick the main computer
alive, I can talk to a bunch of people
via videophone. If I need to, I can
send them scanned images at the
same time, if I don't just hold them
in front of the camera. Or beam
them music [...]

See, the future is already here. All
you have to do is notice.

-- W

Mr Ellis, I usualy agree with most of your statements, but this time you have made a big fat mistake.

"See, the future is already here. All
you have to do is notice"

See, Mr Ellis, that the future is here for a very little, privileged minority. In this "Happy world" that we live in, 60% of the people never had a telephone conversation. Not to mention those who simply die for starvation, those who cant eat or feed their children. All of that people probably didn't noticed that the future is here, either. I understand that you live in a wealthy society, in a country that has a well educated population, and gives the oportunity to aquire a nice handheld with a wireless connection just like yours. A country that had commited infamous atrocities, looting, pillaging and economic opression against many of the countries that now, presently, cannot notice that the future is here, mainly because its inhabitants are fighting for their mere subsistence. I assume, nonetheless, that even in a developed nation like England, exist those who live in the streets, or simply haven´t resources enough to buy just one of your excellent comic-books, not to mention a Handspring Visor. So, not only the Third World is far from reaching the conclusion that we are all in magnificent era of gadgets that consolidate the free expresion, and grant conversations "in text wirelessly in realtime to people all over the world, for effectively no cost". No cost? Do you know how many people can buy antibiotics, or milk for a child, or wood to light a fire in a country like mine -I live in Argentina- with the amount of dollars that you spend every month in your ISP subscription?
I am definitively not telling you that you should destroy all of your personal stuff and embrace a life of poverty, like a saint -I hate saints- just because exists people that are in need, and blah blah blah. I just want you to focus on this: The digital revolution is a lie -or part of a lie that includes other modern commodities-; a mirage casted to bring a smoke screen over a fact that it´s never going to change: Some die of an indigestion because many others die of starvation.

Good luck

Antonio -just another fan of you-, from the remnants of Argentina.

In a message dated 7/22/02 4:41:40 PM GMT Daylight Time, antoniovazquez@datafull.com writes:



"See, Mr Ellis, that the future is here for a very little, privileged minority."


You can make the same argument about clean water. One of the
things that I donate a substantial amount of money to. And I notice
that you have an internet connection, one that is probably the same
speed as mine. And, living in Argentina, you don't want to try and
strike atrocity and oppression points off me. Get off your soapbox.

-- W

Mr Ellis:

Of course that I have an Internet connection, one that I can use because its placed in the place where I work. And, anyway,I count myself as a member of the privileged minority that eats every day, has regular medical attention, and, indeed, has access to the Internet. And, living in Argentina, I suffer everyday for the scars that the brutal military regime that exterminated 30.000 argentinians had left in my country. And that happened some years before of my birth. But that doesn't change nothing: This world will be FOREVER as extremely unfair as is today, as long as the people that has the resources to change it remains comfortable and proud with the current state of things. Please don contribute to the unawereness.

Aghhh. Maybe I should be sending this crap to Grant Morrison.

Antonio.

In a message dated 7/22/02 5:14:54 PM GMT Daylight Time, antoniovazquez@datafull.com writes:



"Aghhh. Maybe I should be sending this crap to Grant Morrison."


Please do. The other people I talk to in Argentina are much
less full of themselves.

-- W