September 16, 2003
Howard Rheingold is widely recognized and appreciated as one of the great and original "characters" of the Net -- and also as one of the first to begin serious assessment of the potentials of online community, in his book, Virtual Community. His substantive credits as a writer are too numerous to mention, but among his other books are Tools for Thought, They Have A Word For It: A Lighthearted Lexicon of Untranslatable Words and Phrases, and, most recently, Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. He was editor of The Whole Earth Review and The Millennium Whole Earth Catalog. He was also the first Executive Editor of the online magazine, HotWired, which he then left to launch his own Electric Minds website. Another one of his major web undertakings is Brainstorms, "a private webconferencing community for knowledgeable, civil, adult, fun conversation about technology, the future, life online, culture, society, family, history, books, health, home, mind, phun, money, spirituality, media, and academiaville".
You'll find access to all these resources and many others (how this guy pulls off all the online stuff he does is beyond me) by going to http://www.rheingold.com/. Plus, you can check out his painted shoes (http://www.rheingold.com/art/shoes/).
Rheingold would like to say a few things to NetFuture readers:
Some people, including Steve, seem surprised that I support -- and urge others to support -- NetFuture. I have been personally and professionally fascinated by and involved in creating, discussing, and writing about technological enterprises. I have written about my enthusiasm for the potential of certain technologies, and will without a doubt do so in the future. My writings have been the strawman and target of criticism by Steve Talbott and others. So why do I read, support, and urge others to support NetFuture?First, I'm the first to admit that I'm not sure I'm right about everything I write and say. I'm more than a little wary of people who are sure they are right; I believe that enormous human suffering has been caused by people who think they know the Answer. One of the reasons I believe in (but don't worship) science is that it offers a powerful if imperfect way of testing truth claims; by applying scientific reasoning it is possible to discover that microorganisms, not sin or evil spirits or foreigners, cause diseases, for example. I do believe that understanding this, then taking the step of creating a new technology that separates drinking water from sewage, to cite another example, was a great step forward for humans. Hygiene, immunization, anaesthetics -- I could list many many technologies that relieve suffering. On the other hand, I'm not so sure that PCBs or a petroleum economy or thermonuclear weapons are a boon to humankind.
And I believe in consistency: If I believe that testing truth claims is important, I should test my own. I am not convinced that all technologies are an unmixed blessing. Although I find much contemporary technology criticism shallow, I have learned a great deal from critics who are neither shallow nor narrow (Lewis Mumford, Jacques Ellul, and Langdon Winner, for example). And I know one practical fact of life: There are enormous funds available for selling the latest technological product, and very little funding available for studying and educating people about the pernicious effects of the same products. I have a daughter in college, and I'm concerned about the kind of world she will be living in. I consider myself a decent human being and I'm concerned about the effects of my choices on others. I don't always, or even often agree with Steve (I'm sure he'd be surprised at how much I do agree). But I always pay attention. He's not shallow. He knows some history. He helps me reexamine my own assumptions. So when he makes an appeal, I try to find a few dollars to send the Nature Institute, even though I'm never quite sure how I am going to pay my own bills next month. How about it? We need NetFuture. If we don't help Steve and others think critically about where our civilization is going ... who will?
Howard Rheingold