Peregrine Gray ([email protected])
      January 13, 1999 (02:22)

      ...the Invisibles' (Grant Morrison) perspective on cities:

      "Our world is sick, boy... very sick. A virus got in a long time ago, and
      we've got so used to its effects, we've forgotten what it was like before
      we became ill.

      "I'm talking about cities, see?"

      "Human cultures were originally homeostatic. They existed in a
      self-sustaining equilibrium, with no notions of time and progress, like
      we've got. Then the city-virus got in. No one's really sure where it came
      from or who brought it to us, but like all viral organisms, its one
      directive is to use up all available resources in producing copies of itself.
      More and more copies until there's no raw material left and the
      host-body, overwhelmed, can only die. The cities want us to become
      good builders. Eventually, we'll build rockets and carry the virus to
      other worlds.

      "Cities have their own way of talking to you; catch sight of the reflection
      of a neon sign and it'll spell out a magic word that summons strange
      dreams. Have you never seen the word "Ixat" glowing in the night?
      That's one of the holy names. Or make tape recordings of traffic noise
      and listen to them at night. You'll hear the voices of the city coming
      through, telling you things, showing you pictures. Sometimes they'll
      show you where they came from. In waking dreams I've seen cemetary
      planets circling abandoned stars. Like mausoleums, silent and dead,
      every building a headstone.

      "That's what cities do... but those of us who know the secret learn ways
      to unlock the power in cities, we make pacts with them and they give us
      gifts in return..."

      sorta Neo-Luddite, but interesting... eh?

      Peregrine, Luddiest of the Luddites...

      Nah cities are just organisms.

      The real danger is the Shopping Mall parasite...

      Mant

      Cities are meat storage areas. When reality 2.0 is fully on-line, we can
      dump them on the dust bin of history.

      -- Arc Angel

      First where cities came from. They became courtesy of the last ice age.
      When the water receded it left behind fertile low lands that could
      support once roaming bands. With the lack of movement birth rate
      doubles, due to abundance of food hunting skills are lost, agriculture
      implemented, voila city.

      I don't know that I want this virus cured though. I can say I love being
      outdoors, hate cities ect. But the very fact that we are all using object
      that are impossible without the city would just prove us to be hipocrits.

      Now if you really wanted for the death of cities, hope the middle east
      starts world war 3. I hope no one takes this personally but it would be
      the easiest place to start it at the moment. A war on that scale should
      easily bring the human population down to more acceptable levels. The
      radiation and other chemicals set free to the air might be hard to deal
      with but such would be the price for returning to pre agriculture.

      Be still as a mountain, move like a great river.

      Um... wow, Ryan, you took that really seriously.

      To defend the position, I don't remember anyone saying they wanted
      the city-virus cured... remember the whole "we make a pact with the
      virus and it gives us stuff" part? And the main negative issue as regards
      the "city virus" thing was that by calling it a virus G.M. was saying that it
      would use up the materials of its host body (Earth) to propigate, thereby
      eventually killing that host body (still Earth).

      Anyway, ryan, thanks for the good summary of the beginnings of
      civilization. I guess what I have a problem with is being called (even in
      implication) a hypocrite... maybe now I'm the one taking things too
      seriously, but first of all, the computers we're using do NOT "require
      cities" to work, as you suggested... they require someplace to
      manufacture them, they require a power source, and the use we are
      putting them to requires a phone line. I don't consider that criticism of
      modern culture, even though expressed on a modern device, to be
      hypocritical. Look at things in a manner other than dichotomic black &
      white, and you may understand that one can criticize SOME aspects of
      modern life without being a Neo-Luddite and fanatically screaming
      "down with technology" or something of the sort...

      pah... anyway...

      Doesn't it seem there might be a better way to lessen
      the negative effects of urban growth urban culture
      without nuclear weaponry?

      But then, I've often expressed the opinion that a nice little nuclear war
      might be just what this over-populated little mudball needs... though
      that's only when I've given up on any hope of humanity's progress
      beyond our own blinders and fears and stupid societal limitations...

      bleah, I'm a scary pro-nuke guy!

      For shame you haters of life and willful ignorant of the Earth's cry for
      humans to return to the rightful ways of life and living in nature. We have
      become so corrupted by our own witchcraft that we can only see the
      destruction of our soul in Gaia as either necessary or in need of
      devastation. How far have we fallen from the times when we hunted and
      ran with our cousins in the forest? When human ate the deer and was
      hunted by the tiger. When we drank from streams and listened to the
      Earth-Mother as she spoke through the wind in the leaves. We must
      willfully pull ourselves away from the cities and the witchfolk who would
      dwell their. Gaia will provide for those who would try...

      Walrus playing a Dreamspeaker