R.U. Sirius and Jay Cornell have a new book out: Transcendence – The Disinformation Encyclopedia of Transhumanism and the Singularity.
We talked to R.U. about the book, and other stuff, on the Mindful Cyborgs podcast last year. Here’s part 1 and part 2.
Here’s the second half of our conversation with R.U. Sirius, editor of the late great Mondo 2000 magazine and the co-author of the forthcoming Transcendence: The Disinformation Encyclopedia of Transhumanism and the Singularity.. This time around R.U. tells us about the state of the Transhumanist movement and what he misses about the 90s, and Chris and I go off on a tangent about algorithms and an app store for identity.
Download and Show Notes: Mindful Cyborgs: Counterculture, The Singularity, and the Amish with R. U. Sirius pt 2
The first half is here.
This week Chris Dancy and I talked with former Mondo 2000 editor and Counter Culture Through the Ages co-author R.U. Sirius about counter culture, quantified self and his forthcoming book Transcendence: The Disinformation Encyclopedia of Transhumanism and the Singularity.
Next week we’ll post the second part of our conversation, where we dive a bit deeper into the state of Transhumanism, plus gab about identity and 90s nostalgia.
Download and Notes: Mindful Cyborgs: Counterculture, The Singularity, and the Amish with R. U. Sirius pt 1
Previously
My interview with R.U. from 2002 My interview with R.U. and Disinfo founder Richard Metzger from 2011
Mindful Cyborgs: Contemplative living in the age of quantification, augmentation and acceleration.
Hosts: Chris Dancy and Klint Finley.
Listen or download on Soundcloud and iTunes.
Follow: Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest.
Transcript, show notes and more inside.
R.U. Sirius wrote:
If, in 1995, some cypherpunks had published a book about the upcoming “postmodern surveillance dystopia,” most commentators would have shrugged it off as just a wee bit paranoid and ushered them into the Philip K. Dick Reading Room. Now, it is more likely that people will shrug and say, “that ship has already sailed.”
Full Story: The Verge: Cypherpunk rising: WikiLeaks, encryption, and the coming surveillance dystopia
I interviewed Richard Metzger and R.U. Sirius last week at Contact. We talked about the Occupy movement, what it’s like to start a new publication today and whether tools for free speech have room for improvement.
I apologize in advance for the audio quality – I didn’t have a windscreen for my microphone, so things get pretty noisy when the wind picks up.
R.U. Sirius was the co-founder and editor of the influential cyberculture magazine Mondo 2000. He also ran for president on the Revolution Party ticket in 2000 and has worked for publications such as Wired and H+ Magazine. He recently started a new online publication called Acceler8or. He’s also working on an open source history of Mondo 2000. My previous interview with him is here.
Richard Metzger was the co-founder and creative director of Disinformation, where he served as the host of the online show Infinity Factory and the Channel 4 show Disinfo Nation. He’s now the editor and host of Dangerous Minds. My previous interview with him is here.
If it’s collaborative, but also your memoir, what happens when there’s conflict of memory? When your memories of what happened are completely different than the people participating in the book?
That’s kind of the experiment. That’s something you discover in the process of writing, co-writing, or editing the book. I have no particular prejudice towards the truth. If somebody gives me a colorful story, I may run with that. I may run with some people denying that it happened, or I may choose to deny something happened that someone else thinks, or I may not.
To me, it’s not a process of journalism or a conventional memoir, but a process of trying to create a piece of literature largely out of reality — but not confined entirely to reality. It’s become a cliche, like in Kurosawa’s Rashomon, in which each character goes through the same experience but remembers it in vastly different ways.
It could be interesting to have some of that in a way that’s literary and exposes something about the human being. And also, hopefully, amusing and funny.
Kickstarter: An Open-Source History of Mondo 2000 (Audio interview and transcript)
21C is back with new material, plus archival material by or about Hakim Bey, William S. Burroughs, Erik Davis, Philip K. Dick, Ashley Crawford, Mark Dery, Verner Vinge, William Gibson, Rudy Rucker, Jack Parsons, Richard Metzger, Genesis P. Orridge, Kath Acker, JG Ballard, John Shirley, Robert Anton Wilson, Iain Sinclair, Terrence McKenna, Buckminster Fuller, R.U. Sirius, Timothy Leary, Bruce Sterling and more.
Sadly, in 1999, the company went bust, somewhat ironic given that 21•C in that form never made it into the Century after which it was named – the 21st. 21•C stalwart Mark Dery and I made some attempt to resuscitate the title early in the new millennium to no avail.
Yet many of the ideas and issues raised in the original magazine continued to arise, and with them perpetual queries as to how to get copies of the original articles, a nigh impossible task. With the prompting of two other 21•C stalwarts, Darren Tofts and Murray McKeich, it was decided to resurrect a core selection of articles in an archival on-line format. With Mick Stylianou’s wizard like help this was fairly painless. It didn’t take long to decide to add new material and it is hoped that new issues will be posted at semi-regular intervals.
This inaugural on-line issue takes as its theme Apocalypse Noir – the trend toward the apocalyptic, or at the least extremely dark – in contemporary writing. If earlier 21•C’s tended toward the darker aspects of cyberpunk, then the newer crop of writers have given up any pretense of a happy ending. Good luck!
(via Alex Burns)
Before The Open Source Party. Before The Guns and Dope Party. Before The Revolution Party. In 1969, Timothy Leary ran for governor of California against Ronald Reagan. The motto was “Come together – join the party” and John Lennon originally wrote the song “Come Together” for Leary.
According to a letter from Leary published in Mondo 2000 # 6 in 1992, this was Leary’s platform:
1. The basic function of government is to protect individuals against organized gangs and groups.
2. Decentralization: California secedes from the USSA.
3. Another basic function of govt. is to entertain/educate.
4. The government makes a profit. Instead of paying taxes, the citizen received dividends.
5. The profits derived from licensing pleasures: Marijuana license like an auto license/registration, hard liquor, gambling; prostitutes were professionals like dentists or lawyers; LSD, etc., used in state parks or theme parks; Entry taxes – California would be like an amusement park – entrance fees and daily residence fees; Education – California specializes in education – non-Californians paid substantial fees.
The only other info I could find about the platform:
Revealing part of his guber-natorial platform for the first time, Leary pledged solutions to California’s 10 major political problems.
He leaked out only a few of those solutions, but what did emerge was unique — to say the least.
“I’m going to legalize marijuana and charge a $1,000 a year permit fee for those who want to make it,” he said.
“Given the size of California population, that will generate a huge amount of additional revenue each year.
“Then I’ll turn that money over to the police and the forces of the right wing to keep them happy and off people’s backs,” Leary explained.
Wouldn’t that be discriminating against the poor who can’t afford $1,000 a year for the privilege of turning on? he was asked.
“That’s not really a problem,” he explained, “because it’s only a short-term situation — in five years I’ll eliminate all money from Californian society and return to a barter system.”
(Source)
See also: Timothy Leary Dossier
Keep forgetting to mention this: R.U. has launched a podcasting network, including the R.U. Sirius show, an audio version of NeoFiles, and other shows.
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