geography

The interesting issues in regards to technology and geography is the sort
of expansion and collapse. The global village concept can be seen as an
erasure of geography in terms of distance and border formed schism, yet
it also can be seen as an enhancement of geography and boundary, simply an
acceleration of information exhange.

The same is true of the net.

One of the Mcluhan's most oft used phrases: "television is chewing gum
for the eyes"

yes. exactly. And so are the more mundane searches online, the
fluff sites about entertainment, the clog of user speed at certain times
on dial up services, the collapse of service on a cable
line………..tedium……simplicity…..easy entertainment or
void……………

and yes geography is collapsed online………..but what of telegraph?
telephone? radar………ship
reports………………………..radio…………weren't these older
technologies also collapses of distance into data, signal, chunks of
information processed and recieved at greater speed and greater range?

yet the ship report also came from a specified location……..


so in a vr game or multi playere game world………………..is this
a collapse of geography……….or

is it an enhancement as places interlink yet server data locates each
person's computer………as a specific location center for data ..

is this instead a sort of non-geography? a place off the map yet
tethered to the places of all participants…………….a choice to link
in a non specific place……….yet still be aware that one is known on
a certain level to be a plotted point……………isn't that similar to
television shows in the past like the last episode of mash or who shot
j.r? sounds odd…..but it was also a non specific
place…..entertaining…….there was a tangible sense of connection with
others across the continent
as an event……………….and the nielsen voter boxes sent plotted
point data estimating who was there from plotted points?

just a thought