Solipsism Gradient

Bruce Kushnick’s book, “The Unauthorized Bio of the Baby Bells”, can now be downloaded for free from TeleTruth.

Thanks to David Weinberger’s Joho the Blog for the link!

Yesterday, I was rereading some of Robert Anton Wilson‘s Illuminati books, including “Right Where You Are Sitting Now”.

This book was published in 1982. There are some great quotes, like:

By 1983, the computer industry will probably be the number one money-making industry in the world.

The major battle of the 1980s will be over the control of microprocessors. the techno-managerial elite, the ACLU and those scientists who are true to the spirit of science will unite to attempt to accelerate the flow of information with these marvelous great tools. All conspiracies, and scientists working for conspiracies, will attempt censorship, blockage, legal restrictions… how much freedom of electronic ‘speech’ we are allowed in the next ten years will determine whether conspiracy or the Bill of Rights is going to dominate our future.

RAW’s books are great fun and somewhat alarming if you take that sort of thing seriously, which I usually don’t. However, every now and then some sort of synchronicity happens; today, Cory Doctorow’s Boing Boing referred to the strange case of the scary vanishing logo of a certain government agency.

The eye-in-the-pyramid in that logo is, of course, the standard symbol used by RAW’s Illuminatis… one wonders who dreamed that one up; either a secret conspiracy buff, or someone completely naïve and uninformed about the implications. Either way, it’s scary.

Charles Stross and Cory Doctorow (of Boing boing fame) have a great new work of science fiction up: Jury Service, a “gonzo post-human novella”. Here’s the first chapter. Highly recommended!