Capitalism & Technology .How do we get from prophets to profits and back again? The Aquarium has discussed the possibility of a mutual investment scheme, but at this point we are without a strategy. Let us consider the larger issues.
Investing would seem to conflict with the Aquarium’s interest in expediting the end of the world. Well, to paraphrase either Bill Clinton or Bill Gates, that depends on what you mean by ‘end’ and what you mean by ‘world.’
The conflict is mitigated by the historical probability that capitalism itself is firmly rooted in the apocalyptic vision of the prophetic tradition. Certainly it has a strong affinity for the puritan segment of that tradition.
Material reality, for both the mystic and the prophet, is an illusion to be transcended. The Aquarium concurs. The question is how? The mystic goes up the mountain and the prophet comes down from the mountain. The prophet prepares us for the incarnation. The incarnation prepares us for the resurrection. Cyberspace also prepares us for the resurrection. But in the meantime, everyone seems prepared to eat everyone else’s lunch, including Microsoft and Amazon, for instance.
There is a slight problem here concerning means and ends. Eating the other guy’s lunch is one thing, but eating his last supper is another thing. We have the old utopian dilemma of competition vs. communion. If Bill Gates were Jesus there would be no problem -- all we’d have to do is get rid of Janet and Linux. This reminds me that we should buy some of Red Hat Software, or would that be profiting on slave labor?
It would be wonderful if we could follow the model of Linux and all be volunteer programmers of the resurrection, but that might not keep body and soul together unless we take the Heaven’s Gate route, speaking of volunteer programmers. Instead of Bill Gates we could have Bo and Peep, but hold the applesauce. That business model might not survive until its IPO.
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rev. 11/3/98