PIT STOP MANIFESTO
by Pit Schultz
1. Internet culture will bring the US, Western Europe, and the UK closer in
to mental alignment,
2. HOWEVER, Internet users account for a small percentage of the population,
generally the better informed and more upscale segment. This base of people will watch less television as a result.
Therefore, the audience for television programming will become "dumbed down", OR, certain programs will have to become "smarted
up"... we're definitely seeing this occur in the United States... one programming style for the computer/net literate, and one
for those who are not... the gap between them is increasing...
3. net driven culture will not be limited to the net...it will become its own
worldview, with its own polities, its own mindset, its own consumer patterns, its own ways of relating across generations...
4. Eastern Europe, Former Soviet Union, Africa, Southeast Asia, China, South
America will have significant political reasons from The Top to resist internet access... people with secrets to keep DON"T like
the implications... just like the aftershock of Romania when Nicole and Ilena Ceausescu were shot... the Old Guard got VERY
paranoid...
5. therefore, watch for "offshore" dissidence, and the coordination of
information about internal struggles/realities with Amnesty International, and other freedom service organizations...
6. watch for other outgrowths of information freedom, such as small, low
powered radio stations defying central authority, and novel forms of tax evasion and pleasure seeking... (like Sex Zones in
Thailand linking to Japanese businessmen desiring Fucking Vacations or Get High Zones linking to drug consumers or Enlightenment Zones
when people can go for spiritual stuff...)
7. following on #6, the world becoming Zones of Permission and Zones Of
Denial... for instance, one goes to Singapore Zone to get incredible microelectronic engineering done at a good price then goes to
Buddha Zone then goes to Party Zone... international government becomes Zoning Board Politics...
8. "art" as we understand it becomes replace with integrated multi-media
experiences. Art Museums become Artifact Museums...
9. political candidates and "cause activists" start mailing out CD ROMS, and
the people that used to be artists are employed to design these things...
10. new technology rich religions appear, but people will be very cautious
because of the experience with the Church of Scientology. The Church of Scientology will get in a LOT more trouble than
anyone expected, and it will turn out that they have major dirt n big players, and that is why they have gotten away with it for
so long.
11. a new personality structure will appear, or, we should say, a new
pathology/neurosis of Passive Agressive Neo-Idiot, the residue of old bureaucratic forms that cannot/will not adapt. There will also
be evolving standards of criminal sophistication, causing Neo-Crime. Neo-Idiots and Neo Criminals will lead to deep social
reaction. In the United States Neo-Idiots and Neo-Criminals will become more allied with the Laywer/Judge class in figuring
out ways to "work the system". The system will respond by become high-surveillance, data-base intensive, replacing potential
trouble causing people with automation and robotics wherever possible