The American Mind

Timothy Leary and Cuddles for Hire

William Hillman

(1/2020) Computers and the internet have revolutionized how we work and interact. The wired world has democratized information and knowledge. Without interruption, I can work sitting in a cabin in the hills of west Virginia, by a campfire in Montana, or a beach in the Keys. Like all epic changing technology, the new freedom and access come with a price.

Back in the late 1980’s I spent some time with Timothy Leary. Contrary to the popular Moody Blues song, he was not dead and no, I never did any drugs with him. He was working on a book with my English professor about virtual reality. It was one of many books he would start but never finish. I was the computer nerd who kept the professor’s computer up and running (this was in the days when a 10-megabyte hard drive and the Intel 8088 were cutting edge). I joined them for dinner a few times and engaged in some long and interesting conversations.

Most of the conversations we shared revolved around the immerging technology of virtual reality. Leary called it the LSD of the next generation. The only difference, he said, was VR would be the most addictive drug ever conceived. "People will not want to leave the computer world, they will spend days, turned on, booted up and jacked in." This was the pinnacle of the "cyberpunk" movement that promised to change the way we interacted with each other and the world around us. It was a new world where VR would expand our universe. But would it? Or would it shrink the real universe of the user?

A friend and critic of Leary, R. U. Sirius condemned cyberdelic escapism:

"[...] Anybody who doesn't believe that we're trapped hasn't taken a good look around. We're trapped in a sort of mutating multinational corporate oligarchy that's not about to go away…. At the same time identity, politics, and ethics have long turned liquid. [...] Cyberculture (a meme that I'm at least partly responsible for generating, incidentally) has emerged as a gleeful apologist for this kill-the-poor trajectory. You find it all over Wired [an online magazine] - this mix of chaos theory and biological modeling that is somehow interpreted as scientific proof of the need to devolve and decentralize the social welfare state while also deregulating and empowering the powerful, autocratic, multinational corporations. You've basically got the breakdown of nation states into global economies simultaneously with the atomization of individuals or their balkanization into disconnected sub-groups, because digital technology conflates space while decentralizing communication and attention. The result is a clear playing field for a mutating corporate oligarchy, which is what we have. I mean, people think it's really liberating because the old industrial ruling class has been liquefied and it's possible for young players to amass extraordinary instant dynasties. But it's savage and inhuman. Maybe the wired elite think that's hip. But then don't go around crying about crime in the streets or pretending to be concerned with ethics."

It has taken over 30 years for processing power to reach a level where the consumer virtual reality that Leary predicted is possible.

This Christmas, the sellout toy of the year was a virtual reality system called Oculus Quest. It was all my youngest son wanted this year. And, like good parents we found one; though it will not arrive until sometime in late January. As a parent I feel torn over the level of exposure to the wired world I allow my children. It’s a tough call. A total ban, and there is the risk of them falling behind. Education and schools are so wired, kids cannot go to school without being wired in. At the other extreme, I’ve seen the effect of total cyber immersion. The health issues associated with the sedentary life of sitting in front of computers is well documented. We see skyrocketing rates of ADHD, obesity, childhood diabetes, heart issues, etc.

"A 2010 Kaiser Foundation study showed that elementary aged children use on average 7.5 hours per day of entertainment technology, 75 percent of these children have TV's in their bedrooms, and 50 percent of North American homes have the TV on all day. Gone is dining room table conversation, replaced by the "big screen" and take out. Children now rely on technology for the majority of their play, grossly limiting challenges to their creativity and imaginations, as well as limiting necessary challenges to their bodies to achieve optimal sensory and motor development. Sedentary bodies bombarded with chaotic sensory stimulation are resulting in delays in attaining child developmental milestones, with subsequent negative impact on basic foundation skills for achieving literacy. Hard-wired for high speed, today's young are entering school struggling with self-regulation and attention skills necessary for learning, eventually becoming significant behavior management problems for teachers in the classroom." -- The Impact of Technology on the Developing Child, Huffington Post, December 2017

In our house, we’ve tried (emphasis on tried) to set rules on exposure time and require the kids to be in at least two extracurricular activities. We’ve taken the other standard protective actions like monitoring how much and what they have access to. It’s what the cyber world is doing to their real world that most concerns me. This, I don’t have any control over.

The Cyperpuncks promised that the wired world would bring us together and make the world accessible and smaller. It may have made the world of information more accessible but it is damaging us socially.

We are more tribal. It is so easy to surround yourself and isolate yourself with people who think just like you do. We can easily put ourselves in an echo chamber, without ever interacting physically. In the real world we learn to interact, socialize, and (hopefully get along with) people who have nothing in common with us other than proximity.

The virtual world can be programed to suite us. With the click of a button we can live out our wildest fantasies. The jacked-in player can climb mountains or be the greatest warrior without any of the hassle of training or over coming fear. In the real world we must grow and adapt in order to survive. In the real world the greatest pleasures often come from struggles and hard work.

Thirty years later and we live in world with a growing segment who are incapable of interreacting with the real world. But as humans we have needs that cannot be fulfilled by the wired world. The wired world retards the tools required to satisfy those needs.

We need social interaction. Few of us can survive without it. This is why men go crazy in solitary confinement. The solitary confinement brought on by the cyber world is self-induced and often happens in a crowd.

Evidence of this growing isolation brought on by the wired world, is the exploding number of businesses trying to fill personal connection needs. All are sad substitutes that ignore need for deeper personal bonds. For $80 per hour, someone will come and cuddle with you and attempt to give you that personal interaction that humans need.

We need more churches and bars.