Newspapers, as they are created and put together on computers … are seen as providers of building blocks – or databases of news and information – that can be turned into many different kinds of constructure.
The Department [of Defense] will depend heavily on networking technology in its quest to deter and suppress global hostilities. Networking technology will be used to support simulation training, distributed planning, image exploitation and other intelligence gathering, and command and control to name a few.
Over the last several decades, the electronics, software, and communications industries have opened a door to a future that will include things such as the National Information Infrastructure, automated manufacturing, and the burgeoning marketplace of information products … Currently, there is a debate about the principles that should guide government investment in science and technology … a science and technology strategy will be used as a guide to achieve our national and economic security goals.
MUAs are definitely the future … Graphics are seen as being the key to bringing MUAs to a wider audience; sound, too, if possible.
The entire country should be connected by electronic mail, much as we are connected today by telephone. Businesses could exchange documents electronically, and information could be disseminated quickly.
A major problem is how to protect individual privacy while providing necessary information. More research is needed on database security so that individuals accessing databases can easily obtain the information for which they are authorized, but cannot obtain other information.
The government should not be in the business of delivering glitzy technologies to people who already have more than their share, while others descend into destitution and hopelessness. At some point we will have to realize that the public interest requires attention to equity and justice. We should make sure that we include terms like equity and justice in the new vocabulary we’re starting to use to talk about the information superhighway.
MUDs won’t look the same in 10 years time, if they exist at all.
Participation that is limited to an elite nonrepresentative portion of our society does not conform to the American notion of democracy. With most users of the Internet being relatively young white males from a privileged socioeconomic segment of the population, we are more likely to end up with “electronic oligarchy” than with “electronic democracy.”
I don’t see MUD2 going graphical like DragonSpires, because I wrote it as a text-based game. As far as I’m concerned, making it graphical would be like doing a cartoon of “War and Peace” – interesting, but hardly the same as the original.