From Counterculture to Cyberculture

I'm reading this book about the origins of the internet cultures. It traces some of the most dominant norms of the internet space back to california and many of the big name, 60's scene-sters. It's called From Counterculture to Cyberculture. This is probably the best quote i've found that tries to articulate the dissatisfaction with outgrowth of the boomer youth movement and a struggle to find a new power source for social change. It's taken from the introduction to the inaugural edition of Mondo 2000 published in 1988.

"All the old war horses are dead. Eco-fundamentalism is out, conspiracy theory is demode, drugs are obsolete. There's a new whiff of apocalypticism across the land. A general sense that we are living at a very special juncture in the evolution of the species.

Yet the pagan innocence and idealism that was the sixties remains and continues to exert its fascination on today's kids. Look at old footage of Woodstock and you wonder: where have all those wide-eyed, ecstatic, orgasm-slurping kids gone? They're all across the land, dormant like deeply buried perennials. But their mutated nucleotides have given us a whole new generation of sharpies, mutants and superbrights and in them we must put our faith--and power.

The cybernet is the place...The old information elites are crumbling. The kids are at the controls."

Of course, it's easy to dismiss this a feckless utopian plea into the darkness for a new generation of cyber-messiahs. In hindsight, it doesn't quite feel like hackers have managed quite the transition dreamed of in this declaration. But there is still cause to hope. The slacker generation has always kept it's own schedule. And after all, as a generation, the boomers contributions could be judged under the long shadow of their "greatest generation" parents, at least we, their children, have benefit of low expectations.