When a millionaire computer entrepreneur from Florida set up an electronic bulletin board called Superdemocracy on his home computer a year ago, nobody had heard of H. Ross Perot and his technopopulist ideas.
But the belief that social problems can be solved by computers-let us call it technopopulism-has long found an enthusiastic following within the American techie culture. That culture produced Perot, who made his billions in the electronic information industry.
Tim Stryker, the founder of Superdemocracy, is a 37-year-old, self-made man of comparatively modest millions. Unlike Perot, he has never met such political bigwigs as former President Richard Nixon. He doesn`t even know the name of his local congressman and believes it wouldn`t make a difference if he did.
”I don`t know and I don`t care,” he says. ”The whole system is flawed.”
His idea of how to overhaul the government came in a flash, inspired by his Ft. Lauderdale company, which sells (what else?) computer communication systems.
In Superdemocracy, traditional politics would be replaced by electronic bulletin boards, a growing phenomenon that combines the functions of a corner bar, opinion poll and newspaper written by its readers.
Under his plan, Americans with modem-equipped computers log on to bulletin boards to debate ideas, then cast votes on issues. Throwing the bums out would be as easy as using a banking machine-all without leaving home.
His vision hasn`t exactly overheated anyone`s hard drive; of the 300 electronic visitors who have dialed up Stryker`s board, only 12 have decided to join his group. Yet the belief that technology can cure the public`s political alienation is a major plank in Perot`s wildfire presidential campaign as he charms the public with talk of ”electronic village halls” and 800 number telephone referendums.
Even if the modem-a gizmo that links computers over phone lines-doesn`t revolutionize the democratic process, thousands of Americans are already reshaping their political, social and work lives with friendships and contacts found through electronic bulletin board systems.
A federal study has even likened the potential power of these electronic channels to the revolutionary underground presses of colonial times and the 1960s.
Whole ”virtual” communities, as they call themselves, are flourishing without ever meeting face to face.
”There are people I feel close to whom I`ve never met,” says Langdon Winner, a political scientist at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., who is writing his latest book about democracy and technology. A regular bulletin board user, he was one of the first to teach on-line in a philosophy course in the early 1980s.
”People are looking for new sources of human contact in new settings because the traditional ways have collapsed,” he says.
But needing to own a computer and modem to join the bulletin board world means those who can`t afford the $900 to $3,000 in equipment are automatically excluded. Those who are illiterate or can`t type would also be left out. For that reason, many critics are concerned that the on-line world will become another haven for the country`s elite.
Fatal fantasies?
”It`s morally hazardous. No matter how many electronic communities you`re involved in, your body still inhabits a physical space,” says Richard Sclove, exective director of the Loka Institute in Amherst, Mass. This informal association of scholars and activists focuses on issues of democratic involvement in technology. ”Local communities are the building blocks for democracy. Rich people already live in a fantasy world. Electronic spaces could be like that,” Sclove adds.
Computer professionals and enthusiasts pioneered the first wave of electronic bulletin boards in the early 1980s to exchange technical information and programs called ”shareware.” With growth beyond the techie world in the last five to seven years, an estimated 3 million Americans now use 2,000 to 4,000 electronic boards nationwide, focusing on subjects as varied as ferret-owning, disabilities, Christian values, dating and fantasy, agriculture, sailing or almost any concept at all.
Activists from Greenpeace to the Ku Klux Klan run boards. As for
”democracy,” towns like Santa Monica and Berkeley, Calif., already run systems in which citizens discuss issues and organize community activities.
From kitchen-counter mundane to egghead sophisticated, conversation is as varied as the people who dial in.
On the Superdemocracy board: ”Even with the current presidential primaries, all you hear is who is ahead of who, but where do you find out what they stand for?” writes one woman.
On the ferret forum of Chicago Syslink, run by a telephone salesman from his Berwyn home: ”I called our local humane society and it appears that they do accept ferrets for adoption!” writes one happy ferret owner.
Jack Rickard founded the monthly Boardwatch Magazine in 1987 in Denver.
”The social, economic and employment implications are incredible, but if you haven`t dialed in, you just don`t know about it,” he says. ”We`re just now at the point where people are becoming aware of it. This is the dawn of the bulletin board, not the end.”
To an electronic tourist, the big on-line communication services like Compuserve, Prodigy, GEnie and America On-line may feel vast and impersonal, like a state university. The ”small colleges” of this world often focus on shared values or interests, like the Whole Earth `Lectronic Link, or the WELL, in Sausalito, Calif., in part created by the Whole Earth Review. On an even smaller scale, with just $2,000 to $5,000 in equipment, thousands of people have set up boards as a hobby on their home computers.
By dialing a telephone number, any of the estimated 9 million Americans who now own a computer and a modem can log on to most boards in the country-some are free, but many carry monthly rates of $10 to $20 or hourly fees of $2 to $12.
Just like `Cheers`
”When you first start on-line, you have a hard time believing there are other people out there. It`s like, `Where are you?` ” says Ann Kettner, a human resources specialist. ”Some new people think the computer is fooling them and it`s just a program. Hey, this is the 1990s.”
Trendwatchers have already dubbed the 1990s the decade of ”burrowing”
in at home, a term used to suggest a hard-core version of the cocooning of a few years ago. So it`s hardly surprising that Kettner and her husband met on- line via a bulletin board based in California, though he lives only five minutes from her home in Newark, Del.
Meeting people without the barriers of physical appearance is intoxicating at first, says Kettner, who ran up long-distance phone bills of as much as $600 a month when she began using the board.
”There`s all this communication,” she says. ”It`s just like `Cheers.`
”
In an electronic tavern, though, you log on instead of dropping by.
After dialing and typing in your name and password, you type a letter or number to enter various ”forums,” also called ”conferences.” In these public areas, everyone can ”talk” by typing. You can simply read the discussion-a practice called lurking-or type in a response, which the computer automatically dates and signs with your real name or with a pseudonym you`ve selected.
”You are not judged on the basis of appearance, gender, age, color or physical handicap,” says Reva Basch, a library database researcher from Berkeley. ”Everyone gets a chance to speak, even if you`re shy. You can lurk and get to know people before jumping in, and no one knows you`re there. No one thinks you`re this weird person lurking at the corner of the bar.”
Conferences can exist in ”real time,” which is dialogue between people logged on at the same moment. In ”computer time,” the more common form, conversations take place over days or weeks as people add their thoughts and return when they want.
The on-line world has its own set of social customs. Relationships are built by sending private messages called E-mail. ”A lot goes on behind the scenes. If someone is arguing in a conference, someone else (annoyed by the bickering) will say, `Will you guys take it to E-mail?` ” Basch says.
For Basch, who works at home during the day, logging on to the network is the computer equivalent of strolling down to the company kitchen to microwave a bag of popcorn and chat with co-workers. Sometimes, she gets so engrossed that her husband will log on to the network from the downstairs computer to send her a message that dinner is ready.
A new global village
The thrill of exchanging ideas in the electronic ether has precedents in the early days of telegraph, radio and television. Later examples include telephone party lines, CB radios and 900-number telephone chat lines, according to Daniel Czitrom, a history professor at Mt. Holyoke College and author of ”Media and the American Mind” (1982).
”Modern technology has made possible the utter reconstitution of community according to interests that have nothing to do with space,” Czitrom says.
The dawn of this era came in 1844 with Samuel Morse`s telegraph line. When the cable was hooked up to Europe, Americans were so excited they literally danced in the streets. For the first time in history, a message could be delivered without being physically carried to its destination. Many people believed that instantaneous communication among nations would lead to an era of peace and harmony.
In the early 1900s, a craze in home radio broadcasting thrived as thousands of ”hams” built transmitters. In the early 1960s, when Marshall McLuhan coined the term ”global village,” he believed world unity brought by television communication would reintegrate people into a sense of community.
Just the opposite occurred, though, because television watching is wholly passive and viewers do not participate in the image world on their screens.
But electronic bulletin boards allow direct communication between people far and near, without filtering by a third party like the media. That is why these systems can be a revolutionary force in America, according to Jim Warren, a columnist from Woodside, Calif., who writes about the future for MicroTimes magazine. His campaign to organize an on-line presidential debate that would take place over several weeks has been approved by the Clinton campaign, though Perot and President Bush have not responded.
As evidence that electronic bulletin boards can increase participation and raise the level of discourse, Warren cites a 1988 report by the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment on science and the 1st Amendment. The study, likening the bulletin boards to the underground press of earlier eras, says:
”The electronic underground press may (also) become the crucible of cultural change. The first simple experiments of this sort are already underway on many computer bulletin boards.”
The experiment is in progress on the Institute for Global Communications network, a not-for-profit bulletin board and information service based in San Francisco and used by leftist activists around the world. Organizing has been revolutioned by on-line meetings in which activists exchange strategies without having to fly to regional meetings, says Carl Davidson, who runs a news service on a branch of the network called Peacenet.
On-line or left out
As director of the Chicago-based group Networking for Democracy, Davidson helps activists get started using on-line systems. ”Some people are intimidated about putting in a modem, let alone turning it on and dialing,”
he says. ”We`ve come to the conclusion that if grass-roots community organizations don`t learn how to use these skills and fight for access to information, they`ll be left in the dust.”
Members of these ”virtual” communities are vigorously debating the meaning of their electronic world on a number of bulletin boards, most notably the WELL. Opinions vary widely, though most people are enthusiastic about their on-line lives.
”I think of the WELL as my very own ant farm or maybe it`s my own sea monkey community,” writes one woman.
”How is it not like a real community? You don`t have to live with them. You can choose to limit it to the screen,” says Howard Rheingold, who
”hosts” the ”virtual communities” discussions on one board and is writing a book about the subject. An editor of the Whole Earth Review, he is the author of ”Virtual Reality,” published last year. ”Maybe, in today`s world, to have any community at all you have to settle for an unreal one.”
A (;) IS AS GOOD AS A NOD
You must tilt your head to the left to understand these expressive symbols commonly used to replace the body language that is ruled out by written messages exchanged on bulletin boards:
(:) is a smiley face.
(;) is a person winking, which means just kidding.
(:p) is a person sticking his tongue out.
(:x) means my lips are sealed.
Computer telephone numbers for bulletin boards highlighted in this story: Superdemocracy, 305-370-9376; The WELL, 415-332-7190; Chicago Syslink, 708-795-4442; Peacenet, 415-322-0284. Numbers for the big-name communication services can be found in the phone book or through directory assistance.
