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FC: Dispatches from Tomorrow, by Lizard
From: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
Date: Mon, 03 Jan 2000 16:13:05 -0500
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Date: Mon, 3 Jan 2000 12:01:36 -0800 From: Lizard <lizard () dnai com> To: declan () well com, politech () vorlon mit edu Subject: Re: FC: KQED in SF -- and We're Not Dead Yet! X-Mailer: Mutt 0.93.2i Several new essays o nthe issue are at www.mrlizard.com
[Including this one. --DBM] http://www.mrlizard.com/dispatches.html May 7, 2000 New York Times Magazine Jim Robbins is sitting alone in an auditorium built for 100. Six months ago, this hall was filled with families eager to begin their new lives at "Pine Woods Millennium Retreat"...a planned community for those who wanted to ride out the coming apocalypse. A large diesel generator promised to provide power, with fresh water coming from the nearby lake and ample hunting, fishing, and farming space. At its peak, the community housed nearly 115 people;now, only Jim is left. "We started out nervous and a lot of folks thought we were nuts. But we wanted to live, and, more, most of the people here wanted to get away from the cities, from the modern world. Go back to the idea of a real community, where you knew your neighbors and could count on them." After the deadline came and went without much effect, a town meeting was held. "It was a long one. We all talked, and argued, and debated. We reached the conclusion that we liked it here. People said it was such a change from the suburbs, that this was how they wanted to raise their kids, and we would make this a real community." He sighs, and looks away for an instant. "Three days later, people started leaving." "The first one to go....he was almost in tears when he told me, he said he had to think of his daughter...she missed her friends, her school, and she wanted to study ballet, and she couldn't do that here....two days later, someone else came by, said he had a job offer he 'couldn't refuse'...it just kept happening. And the more people left, the less it felt like a community...it was depressing, sitting in the empty dining hall, coming to the empty recreation center. We figured there'd be no TV, so we had room for square dances, or storytelling, or things like that, but there *was* TV, and, you know, it just couldn't compete." "When the generator blew in Feburary, I think that was it. It was only out for a few hours, and, you know, if things had happened like we thought they would, we'd all have been grateful for any electricity. But as it was, I think a lot of people decided that a real neighborhood, a real sense of place, wasn't worth as much as a McDonalds on the corner and a satellite dish on the roof." "By the end of March, I was alone. I'm just the caretaker now. I don't know, I sank a lot of money into this place, figuring it wouldn't matter in the long run -- it was all paper money, federal scrip, it would be worthless as soon as the system collapsed. And I wanted to make a place where a real community could live, someplace where we could give life to old values, serve as, I don't know, the center for a new, better, civilization after the old one died." "Maybe I'll see if I can rent it out for corporate training retreats or something." When asked if he would be joining the DCH class-action suit against 'false prophets', he replied, "Hell yeah! Those bastards raised a lot of hope in people. They ought to be made to pay." [...] -------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- the moderated mailing list of politics and technology To subscribe: send a message to majordomo () vorlon mit edu with this text: subscribe politech More information is at http://www.well.com/~declan/politech/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------
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