alt.cyberpunk history

[Sourcerer]

Towards the end of 2009, some of the regulars from the 2nd
altcp generation came back and had a Christmas party at the
Rancho. Aparently the 3rd altcp gen came to an end in 2006
or thereabouts, and a 4th generation did not appear, and by
2009, the newsgroup was no longer active.

The altcp 'generations' does not refer to the age of the
posters, but to the timeframe they posted in. 1986-1993 is
the timeframe of the 1st generation, from the newgrouping to
the argument over Billy Idol in '93, which Shawn Wilbur
wrote up in "Running Down The Meme: Cyberpunk,
alt.cyberpunk, and the Panic of ¡93".

I had been on The Well bbs where there was a cyberpunk
group. The Well also had a usenet feed and I could read
alt.cyberpunk. When I realized I was reading altcp rather
than the bbs, I found a local isp and dropped The Well. Up
to then I wasn't interested in participating and so lurked
off and on for a few years, but I had formed an attachment
to altcp which I still don't understand beyond an obvious
interest in cyberpunk.

About the same time:

Interdisciplinary Dialogue within the
Global Network Environment

by Heath Michael Rezabek University of Northern Iowa for
the15th Annual Conference of the Association for Integrative
Studies Wayne State University, Detroit, MI October 7-10
1993

Rez didn't mention altcp.

This moment became known as Eternal September, defined as
"All time since September 1993", referring to the moment
usenet became "trendy" -- when AOL got a newsfeed and
unleashed the migration into usenet of the clueless.

I got pushed out of lurking and into the fray because I
could sense a problem within altcp and usenet, both of which
I liked a lot. Early in 1994, Nesta and I had some email
about it (Nesta, then, was mostly Bruce Arthu Bendler). We
kinda agreed to poke about and see what's what.

The result was the creation of the 2nd generation. We began
by cleaning house.

[Kevin Calder]

On Monday, 2 November 2015 15:01:06 UTC, Sourcerer wrote:

Still the end-times after all these years. The suspense is killing me - albeit more slowly than anticipated.

[Donald Ecsedy]

Hi, Kevin! Poly says "Hi", too.

The cybergothic dystopic future has pretty much turned out
as expected.

Post by Kevin Calder
Still the end-times after all these years. The suspense
is killing me - albeit more slowly than anticipated.

[The Passenger]

Post by Donald Ecsedy
Hi, Kevin! Poly says "Hi", too.

Aloha!

Post by Donald Ecsedy
The cybergothic dystopic future has pretty much turned out
as expected.

Yes - it seems the singularity was postponed due to lack of interest!

Adam Curtis had a bit to say about last-gen cyberspace utopianism in his most recent far-too-long documentary but it wasn't very insightful I didn't think. I'm not sure he understands technology.

[Nicolas]

Post by The Passenger

Post by Donald Ecsedy
Hi, Kevin! Poly says "Hi", too.

Aloha!

Post by Donald Ecsedy
The cybergothic dystopic future has pretty much turned out
as expected.

Yes - it seems the singularity was postponed due to lack of interest!
Adam Curtis had a bit to say about last-gen cyberspace utopianism in
his most recent far-too-long documentary but it wasn't very insightful
I didn't think. I'm not sure he understands technology.

Hi!
The technological level is certainly not as advance as the cyberpunk
culture imagined it. But the inner state of the world, centered on pure
liberalism, libertarism, pur extrem egalitarian humanism and mondialism
around a new world order centered on a new world government is quite
ready to come true. It's just too bad that the only part of the
cyberpunk culture who's gonna fully realising itself is the bad part;
it'd be cooler to resist with homemaid robot, cool AI and make pursue
driving gravity cars... At the end, take apart a futur where implant are
mandatory, a true resistant would never be for the implants, of any
kind.
To conclude, and I think that it's the most afraiding thing about, the
current extrem egalitarian humanism propaganda take its root in feminism,
"hack"tivism and this whole hacking world first. In fact, it's the
technological field who have the higher position in such an expand of
this vision of the world. That maybe shows that the futur oposition
against the partisan of the new world against the partisan of the old
one (funny thing is that since the begining of the modern domination
upon the world, this combat exists) actually will take its root right
know, in the "hacker" field. That's certainly afraiding, but beautiful
too to see the future shaping itself. Afraiding because this engine have
so much mass that it's unstoppable, but beautiful because even though
the project is monstruous, it's incredibly well made.