Michael Naimark

In the summer of 1972, Ann Arbor was glutted with Quaaludes. ‘Ludes (Rorer 714s) were readily available for under a dollar. Many friends had bottles of 500. As a young undergrad, it was a very happy summer - skinny dipping in the Huron River, dancing and making lots of love, and group showers. As smart people in a smart community, we not only had fun but could rationalize why it was good as well. It was also the summer of an unsuccessful Vietnam War rally in DC and of Watergate. A couple years later, rumors circulated that then-Attorney General John Mitchell had incentivized several drug companies to have drugs like Quaaludes “fall off trucks” in campus communities that summer. Nixon won the election that fall.

In the middle of the dot-com bubble, SF MOMA held a “future of new media” panel consisting of a conversation between Director David Ross and Germany-based ZKM Director Peter Weibel on a rare US visit. It was one giant hug-fest in its optimism about the promise of the Internet. Near the end, an older fellow near the back of the packed auditorium exclaimed “The Internet is already a toilet.” He went on to describe what we know now as spam, netporn, phishing, etc. He was practically lynched. We were all smart people (verifiably so since everyone was profiting well) and had unbounding confidence that our net-topia was just around the corner.

The NetPublics symposium was bold and timely, and a great group of people. I'm grateful to have attended. But my 2¢: we need to be very careful and clear-minded right now about large-scale, real world consequences.