We call it a Nightmare nothing between the underclass and the virtual class, No public control just virtual elites, Certainly no liberty for all just Newt and the boys in a perfect little techno-bubble clean, sterile and immunized from degrading American flesh Get wired, they say Get deregulated and upgraded Get netted and vetted Get multi-tasked, demassified and bit-netted Get backslashed, backtracked and backlit Let’s surf, merge, and purge Leave behind the First and Second Waves and welcome the famous Third Wave.
Predictor: Kroker, Arthur
Prediction, in context:A 1995 piece by Arthur and Marilouise Kroker, editors of CTheory, reflects on their views of the networked future. Here it is in its entirety: ”Hacking the American Way? That’s Newt Gingrich’s A Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age where Newt and the boys want to hack the future they want to tame it, train it and hack it for profit where Alvin Toffler wants his third wave to drown us out so he can go fishing in cyberspace for ’coaxial cables, dark fibre, and digital hardware’ ’It’s our turn,’ they all chant to download, upload, freeload and explode what they call ’Cyberspace and the New American Dream.’ But we call it a Nightmare nothing between the underclass and the virtual class, No public control just virtual elites, Certainly no liberty for all just Newt and the boys in a perfect little techno-bubble clean, sterile and immunized from degrading American flesh Get wired, they say Get deregulated and upgraded Get netted and vetted Get multi-tasked, demassified and bit-netted Get backslashed, backtracked and backlit Let’s surf, merge, and purge Leave behind the First and Second Waves and welcome the famous Third Wave.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Community/Culture
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: CTheory
Title, headline, chapter name: The Third Right: Hacking the American Way
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=146
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney