De Groot pauses. He is careful not to implicate himself, but his emotions are running high. ''And even more than that, people who don't use the drugs are outraged because of the invasion of privacy. They just feel like it's an infringement on civil liberties. And I think they're right. I have a friend who applied simultaneously at Sun Micro Systems and Xerox Park, Palo Alto Research Center. And he found out – and he's someone who uses drugs – he found out that Xerox Park was gonna do a urine test so he dried out and he went in and did the urine test and passed and then they offered him the job, and he said, `I'm not taking the job because you people do urine testing and I'm morally opposed to it,' and he went to work for Sun. Sun does not do urine testing. They're very big on not doing it. I think it's great.''
Not surprisingly, Sun Micro Systems' computers run some of the most advanced fractal graphics programs, and Intel – which is also quite ''Deadhead-friendly,'' is an industry leader in experimental technologies like virtual reality. The companies that lead in the Valley of the Nerds are the ones that recognize the popularity of psychedelics among their employees. Still, although they have contributed to or perhaps even created the computer revolution, psychedelics-using cyberians feel like a persecuted sect in an oppressive ancient society that cannot see its own superstitious paranoia. As an engineer at a Microsoft research facility complains, drug testing makes her feel like the "target victim of an ancient voodoo spell.''
From the cyberian perspective, that's exactly what's going on; so computer programmers must learn not to give any hair or bodily fluids to their employers. The confiscated parts are being analyzed in scientific ''rituals'' that look into the employee's past and determine whether she has engaged in her own rituals – like smoking pot – that have been deemed heretical by the dominating religious body. In this case, that dominating body is the defence industry, and the heretics are pot smokers and psychedelics users, who have demonstrated a propensity to question the justifiability of the war machine.
Chapter 3
The Global Electronic Village
Persecution of psychedelics users has fostered the development of a cyberian computer subculture. De Groot is a model citizen of the cyber community and dedicates his time, money, and equipment to fostering the ''Global Electronic Village.'' One system he developed, which takes up almost half his apartment, is an interface between a ham radio and a computer.
He eats an ice cream from the shop downstairs as he explains how his intention in building the interface was to ''provide ham radio operators with access to the electronic mail services of UNIX systems to other sites on the Internet. My terminal is up twenty-four hours a day. It was never done before, it was fun to do, it gave me the ability to learn about electronic mail, and it provided a service.'' No profit? "You could make money off of it, I suppose, but my specific concern was to advance the state of the radio art.''
It's hard to keep in mind that young men like de Groot are not just exploring the datasphere but actively creating the networks that make it up. This is not just a hobby or weekend pastime; this is the construction of the future.
De Groot views technology as a way to spread the notion of interconnectedness. ''We don't have the same distance between us anymore. Camcorders have changed everything. Whenever something happens in the world, chances are that someone's around with a camcorder to tape it. We're all neighbors in a little village, as it were.'' Even de Groot's more professional endeavors have been geared toward making computers more accessible to the community at large. The success of the cyberian paradigm is dependent on regular people learning to work with the technologies developed by vanguard, countercultural entrepreneurs and designers.
''If you don't adhere to the new paradigm then you're not going to survive.'' De Groot puts down his ice cream spoon to make the point. "It's sink or swim. People who refuse to get involved with computers now are hurting themselves, not anybody else. In a very loose sense, they are at a disadvantage survival-wise. Their ability to have a good-quality life will be lessened by their reluctance to get with the program.''
Getting with the program is just a modem away. This simple device literally plugs a user in to cyberspace. Cyberspace, or the datasphere, consists of all the computers that are attached to phone lines or to one another directly. If a computer by itself can be likened to a cassette deck, having a modem turns it into a two-way radio. After the first computer nets between university and military research facilities went up, scientists and other official subscribers began to ''post'' their most recent findings to databases accessible to everyone on the system. Now, if someone at, say, Stanford discovers a new way to make a fission reactor, scientists and developers around the world instantly know of the find. They also have a way of posting their responses to the development for everyone to see, or the option of sending a message through electronic mail, or "E-mail,'' which can be read only by the intended recipient. So, for example, a doctor at Princeton sees the posting from Stanford. A list of responses and commentary appears after the Stanford announcement, to which the Princeton doctor adds his questions about the validity of the experiment. Meanwhile, he E-mails his friends at a big corporation that Stanford's experiment was carried out by a lunatic and that the corporation should cease funding that work.
The idea of networking through the computer quickly spread. Numerous public bulletins boards sprang up, as well as information services like Compuserve and Prodigy. Information services are large networks of databanks that a user can call through the modem and access everything from stock market reports and Macintosh products updates to back issues of newspapers and Books in Print. Ted Nelson, the inventor of hypertext, an early but unprecentedly user-friendly way of moving through files, has been working for the past decade or so on the ultimate database, a project aptly named ''Xanadu.'' His hope is to compile a database of – literally – everything, and all of the necessary software to protect copyrights, make royalty payments, and myriad other legal functions. Whether or not a storehouse like Xanadu is even possible, the fact that someone is trying, and being supported by large, Silicon Valley businesses like Autodesk, a pioneer in user-interface and cyberspace technology, legitimizes the outlook that one day all data will be accessible from any node – any single computer – in the matrix. The implications for the legal community are an endless mire of property, privacy, and information issues, usually boiling down to one of the key conflicts between pre- and postcyberian mentality: Can data be owned, or is it free for all? Our ability to process data develops faster than our ability to define its fair use.
The best place to watch people argue about these issues is on public bulletin boards like the Whole Earth `Lectronic Link. In the late 1970s, public and private bulletin board services sprang up as a way for computer users to share information and software over phone lines. Some were like clubs for young hackers called kødz kidz, who used BBSs to share anything from Unix source code to free software to recently cracked phone numbers of corporate modems. Other BBSs catered to specialized users' groups, like Macintosh users, IBM users, software designers, and even educators. Eventually, broad-based bulletin board services, including the WELL, opened their phone lines for members to discuss issues, create E-mail addresses, share information, make announcements, and network personally, creatively, and professionally.
The WELL serves as a cyber-village hall. As John Barlow explains, ''In this silent world, all conversation is typed. To enter it, one forsakes both body and place and becomes a thing of words alone. You can see what your neighbors are saying (or recently said), but not what either they or their physical surroundings look like. Town meetings are continuous and discussions rage on everything from sexual kinks to depreciation schedules.''