Informant38

Bruce Sterling on 911.net
digital first response:
The actual September 11 event, 9/11, was a rare and remarkable thing. And, with fewer than 3,000 people dead,
it's just not that big a deal as genuine catastrophes go. Politically, theologically and militarily it was huge, but
a workaday 911.net wouldn't fret much about terrorism. Instead, it would have to deal mostly with floods, fires,
climate change, earthquakes, volcanoes and (let's hope never) asteroids and weapons of mass destruction.

So, basically, with 911.net, we are describing a social re-definition of computer geeks as firemen. Native
twenty-first century computer geeks as muscular, with-it,first-responder types. I think this would be pretty goodfor the computer industry. We all need to take thedysfunctional physical world far more seriously. This week, Itly's flooding, Texas is flooding, Colorado's on fire. This morning, the brand-new wilderness forests around the site of the former Chernobyl are on fire,
spewing radioactive ash hither and yon. Chunks of Antarctica the size of Rhode Island have fallen into the
sea. I could go on.
This is the sort of activity that humanity is required to deal with in this new century. If we build a successful method with which to do this, those useful tactics will spread across the fabric of our civilization. I believe
they are already spreading. An innovation like 911.net will likely serve as a camel's nose in the tent for a
whole series of ubicomp applications across society.