Information is “in” these days [1]. Robert Anton Wilson’s Right Where You Are Sitting Now is mainly about information, as is the new Signal catalog from the folks at Whole Earth (who of course have made a career out of spreading information, as indicated by their slogan of “access to tools”).[2] Yet while the phrases “information economy” and “underground economy fall [3] easily from the lips of major pundits, no one has yet combined the implications of these ideas to consider the “underground information economy.”
Clearly there is such an underground economy of information. Just as there is an underground economy of financial transactions, hidden from “official” [4] scrutiny by active or passive design, [5] there is an underground economy of information which is similarly largely unknown to anyone other than its participants. Some [6] have called this “the Network,” but that term is too confining for the reality. [7] The underground information economy is more precisely conceptualized as a network of networks, or a meta-network, with a complex an unvisualizable, though not undiscussable, connectivity.
To show that the underground information economy is structured as a meta-network it suffices to consider the contacts of a typical fanzine editor. Take, for example, Dave Meltzer, editor of The Wrestling Observer. [8] He can probably contact almost anyone in the network centered around the appreciation and examination of professional wrestling very quickly, either through his own mailing list or through those of other zines which he sees. But he is nearly [9] helpless to get in touch with [10] someone whose prime interest is the music of the Beatles, or someone fascinated by the goddess Demeter. The (lack of) relationship is reciprocal: the editors of Good Day Sunshine or Pallas Society News would find it extremely difficult to locate a source of pro wrestling information with their own resources. Yet the music collectors and the pagans have their own well-developed networks, just as the wrestling fans do.
However, there are ways for these disparate networks to communicate, [11] for there are links which span the various networks and give them an overall channel of communication, if they want it. [12] These links are the zines and people who participate actively in more than one of the component networks of the meta-network, such as my own Factsheet Five. [13] These inter-network links are similar to the gateways of the international computerized telecommunications network, but I prefer a visualization more related to the physical universe. If we think of each network as a ball of cotton, with fuzzy edges of connections falling away from the core, then the linking zines are bits of string which tie the various cotton balls together. [14]
That is all very nice, but what’s the point? [15] Well, the meta-network is a more fragile thing than any of its component networks, for it is a much more fragile thing than they are. While each component network has many links between individual zines and people, the meta-network is created by just a few network-spanners. [16] To eliminate the punk music network [17] would require eliminating nearly all of its component pieces, for almost any of the zines could carry on the business of connecting people and exchanging information all by itself. But to eliminate the meta-network would only require destroying a handful [18] of key zines which act as conduits of cross-fertilizing information. [19]
Thus, we [20] can see [21] that while all zines [22] are created [23] equal, [24] some are more equal than others. [25] This idea has consequences. [26]
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[1] Is it possible that our use of “in” to indicate objects and actions which are fashionable itself refers to the process of inviting them “into” our minds? Once something becomes “in” to us, it is a part of us, no longer alienated from us by the barrier between thoughts and actions.
[2] There are of course many classic works focusing on the use and misuse of information as well, from Korzybski’s Science and Sanity to Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass.
[3] A word which indicates the lack of volition involved in spreading the cliche variety of meme.
[4] A word with very little information content. Incidentally, the practice of indicating loaded words with quotation marks in speaking by waving a pair of fingers in the air apparently dates back to Korzybski’s lectures.
[5] That is, by hiding or by just not making a lot of fuss.
[6] For example, the Rev. Batrix.
[7] So, for that matter, is any term. Identifying a word as “too confining” is a common ploy to enable the author to dismiss someone else’s work in favor of his own.
[8] One of the beauties of thought experiments – gedankenexperiments to you pendants – is that it is unnecessary to obtain the consent of the experimental subject.
[9] Note this word. We’ll come back to it.
[10] A metaphor for those who prefer a more tactile approach to information.
[11] Admittedly in a slow and imperfect fashion.
[12] We’re back. Did you notice?
[13] If I was properly humble, in the academic mode which this structure seems to indicate, I would have relegated that title to a footnote. But I refuse to let my imagination be bound as much by the form as it “should” be. Indeed, these footnotes are getting progressively more out of hand – another tactile information metaphor.
[14] To complicate the picture beyond our capacity to derive any pedagogic lesson from it, the phenomenon may well be hierarchical and scale-independent. That is, what appears at first to be a meta-network may in turn prove to be a component network of a meta-meta-network, just as Dean Swift’s great fleas were merely resting on the backs of still greater fleas.
[15] As in pencil point; the “point” is the place from which information magically flows – and we know information is in fact magical, for it is nothing more than the old power of naming.
[16] That is, the component networks have more connectivity and are correspondingly more robust. The previous phrase, replete with pompous words, belongs in the main text but has somehow fallen down the page into this footnote. This bodes ill for finishing this paper.
[17] Some neophobes would argue that this is a laudable goal, but in this case it is only an example for purpose of illustration.
[18] Oh no! More tactile metaphors! Why is there this hidden fascination in the language with information as something we can touch and therefore manipulate (from the Latin manus, hand)? Could it be a plot by the creators of language to retain control?
[19] Now there’s an interesting idea: what does information sex look like?
[20] This is, of course, the auctorial we, by which the author – it’s no coincidence that this word is so close to “authoritarian” – attempts to co-opt the reader into agreeing with a conclusion without having time to consider it.
[21] A return to the visual information metaphor initiated by the word “focusing” way back in footnote number 2.
[22] And just why do you accept the idea that all information in the underground is contained in “zines?” Isn’t the spread of dangerous and outrageous ideas by word of mouth at least as important?
[23] Note that we are all convinced information is not a conserved quantity; it is easily created and therefore, reciprocally, destroyed. But that’s the subject for another essay.
[24] A mathematical term dragged into the discourse in order to bolster a weak argument with the authority of the “Queen of Sciences.”
[25] Here the author borrows a metaphor from Orwell’s classic Animal Farm, in order to impress his knowledgeable readers with his erudition. The less knowledgeable readers, perhaps, will think he coined it himself and be impressed with his wordcraft.
[26] As do all ideas, but it’s become obvious that we will not get to the consequences in the main text. Instead, it’s time to finish this essay were it was obviously heading all along, in the footnotes. The possible conclusions bifurcate neatly, depending on the political prejudices of the author. On the one hand, it would be easy to call for the increased support of the critical links which hold the various networks together into the meta-network, as a means of buttressing our civil rights. On the other, it would also be easy to call for more redundancy in the meta-network, which could be achieved by supporting new attempts to build inter-network links. On the third tentacle, perhaps the unexamined assumption that the meta-network is A Good Thing could be called into question – would it really be so bad if a thousand component networks bloomed in isolation? But the entry of the question mark shows that the information content of this essay has come to an end, and so we leave the reader here, probably with a vague sense of being cheated, to devise his own means of escape from this footnote and on to the next piece of text.
OVO 7 Information (October 1989)
Occupy Portland protest, Portland Oregon USA October 2011.
