Hi Rob S. Allow me to put some closure on my earlier stated commitment to return to your post #msg-26077959, still largely based on my original stream of consciousness (as I recall it now), but a bit more nuanced for venue and presentation. First let me say that I found your post an enjoyable and sometimes provocative read from a number of different vantage points.
In one part of your post you painted a fascinating and somewhat inspiring picture of daily life, which I might add could also be interpreted by some measures as fanciful, as well, depending on one's occupation, geography and other personal preferences and attributes.
For those who fit the mold, however, the merits behind doing everything in cyberspace are more clear. However, several times while reading through your message, especially the second time around, I found myself musing about the effectiveness of advocacy and proselytizing about e-ridesharing, for example, versus the natural, evolutionary means that have, since the beginning of time, caused population centers to evolve and grow along rivers and other formations in nature, and in more modern times along railroad rights of way and established vehicular highways.
And yes, one could now also argue that such migrations can also be influenced by the presence of abundant bandwidth (fiber routes) and cheap energy. Countervailing the latter, however, we find advocates who say that one could live just about anywhere and reap the benefits of cheap energy if they follow the sun and follow the wind via high-speed Internet connectivity. Still, proximity to bandwidth, even in that last instance, is imperative. If I appear to be wavering here, you're right. I am. But not out of uncertainty, alone, but rather due to the multi-variables at play that are sometimes only temporal in nature, hence combine and interact rather ephemerally with each other in ways that are serendipitously-combinatorial, as opposed to "by design" or conspiratorial.
At other points throughout the read I mused about Internet-addiction and the growing scourge that is individual isolation, which afflicts a growing number of mouse-clicking citizens today. Hence, my somewhat admittedly-glib observations concerning heaven and hell and brains without bodies. I was reminded of a recent article I posted on this subject, Does Technology Reduce Social Isolation?, here: #msg-26076275, which article itself caused me to muse further about the manner in which many of my social-net friends who have never spent so much time in the sky traveling trans-continentally and inter-nationally as they do today, simply because, instead of teleconferencing, they are fulfilling their "real social needs" to "get out there" and be among other socialnetters at confabs, unconferences and seminars that focus on the subject.
Other than those forays I just alluded to, however, many netizens with a socialnet bent (sometimes myself included, I'm afraid, and I dare say others here, as well) remain shuttered indoors for hours and days on end, even on the most beautiful of days -- until, of course, the need for the next fix of reality becomes so overbearing that they've no choice but to get out and go to another conference.
Apologies if I appear to have veered from your thesis in some parts of this message, but I think the observations and issues I have raised are also germane to the topic at hand, and they need to be discussed as well.
Thoughts?
FAC
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