Varied and random notes from the MySpace-cadetery post-mortum meeting

An Institute researcher contemplates MySpace

In attendance, or the players:

Professor Pille

Anatole Zliplitt
Patty Pille

Edward Pahnjorndice

Leavander Fricke

Penny Pille

Dave Dimp

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Prof: Sweet Wotan upon the oak! Which of you irresponsible sirens birdsonged me into this fiasco!

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Zliplitt: Fiasco indeed!

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Patty: Now wait! It wasn't all that bad!

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Dave: Parts of it were almost sort of fun... almost. There sure were a lot of pretty girls.

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Zliplitt: Yes, cyber-strumpets and virtua-streetwalkers! Caution, one may yet contract a virus...

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Ed: There was something a touch disturbing about all the low-cleavage and muscle-boy MySpace profile pics turning up in the comments columns of various political and social-concern sites. I don't think people who are drawn into all this consider what the overall image of MySpace ends up as. I mean an anti-war sentiment loses all its gravitas when the person expressing it appends a picture of themselves as a half-dressed wanton.

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Fricke: Ahem, Before this turns into one of our famed carnivals of complaint, and I intend to join in too, are we agreed that we should leave this MySpace-thing doorway at least partly ajar?

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Dave: We have to, I think I left my scarf back there...

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Penny: No Davy, nine on the Peepergate, we're talking about this Interknittal thango we tubbed-up and water-jockeyed for a nitter-smit.

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Prof: Penny dear, please express your thoughts in common Erden at the conference table, this daddyoan sprach is leagues beyond us elders.

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Penny: Sorry, daddy....oh (giggle)

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Patty: Actually, I'm nervous about that--everyone's reassured me that the work my teams are engaged in on "da Urth" will not be effected by this MySpace experiment. This was a failed attempt at a communications interface, correct?

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Fricke: ... and your invaluable work is something else altogether. "da Urth" may ultimately prove to be a lost cause in the social sense, but we need to understand this Echo World phenomenon and we may be witnessing a civilization at the edge of collapse. We have an unparalleled opportunity here.

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Ed: Well, there's little to lose by allowing the site to continue along unsupervised. It may lure the right sorts of readers here.

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Prof: Right sort of readers? Admirable view, but you carry hope about in your watch pocket, Edward. I desire never to see the comments section of the Panopticon jam-socked with the stylings of intellectual kapok I encountered on their Interknit!

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Ed: To be realistic, I doubt we should have any worries in that regard; if anyone actually looks at this site it will be a wonder. People on "da Urth" seek more of the same--assurances--not anything truly novel.

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Fricke: Only natural. They've been under tremendous stress these last decades. Novelty afflicts them--bad novelty that is. They see any uncertainty, any newness, as threatening; this without grasping that they are depriving themselves of genuine external-to-the-carton thinking, which they need, now more than ever, to extricate themselves from their crisis. The sense among my staff is that this is, very grossly, the process by which civilizations collapse...but I'm getting ahead of myself.

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Zliplitt: Appalling that we are reduced to these methods and tin-pan venues to learn these things.

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Fricke: All thoroughly moot, however. Professor, I think we should move on. Any thoughts on what is happening over there. I'm very disturbed by much of what I gleaned but I'd like some fresh input before I present my own thoughts.

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Dave: "da Urthers" have strange ideas about having fun, that's for sure!

(to be continued)