Wired to Aired to Weird

Edison and Tesla and subsequent pioneers in electricity put together a new world in which electrons would travel through wires. At about the same time, Marconi and subsequent radio pioneers put together a newer world in which electromagnetic impulses would travel through air. Between and among the new techno frontiers that were emerging as these technologies grabbed our attentions and our daily habits. . . we humans morphed into a new species. . . humanus electriconus What had come to be known as natural selection during the Darwin era evolved into post-natural selection, whereby natural influences such as chromosomes and genes and genetic codes were displaced, or merged, with electric and electronic impulses, messages and images. These phenomena imposed a different kind of mutation upon the human species, pertaining to, especially, sensory and mental characteristics and post-biological traits. In the latter years, when the internet laid its cables and trends and threads and impulses upon us, innovators and opportunists detected nodes into which they could insert media: information media, entertainment media, political media, and blah blah and spam and whatever else captures the attentions and imaginations of the newly-evolved species, humanus interneticus. This evolved species is fundamentally different from the original creature, homo erectus. As the new critter evolves in response to the world wide stimuli and intense media interventions, we establish a new path of evolutionary development, homo weirdo. The biological and cultural manifestation of this phenom produces a new arrangement of personal identity, whereby individuals are driven by cultural and media influences to take sides on issues of political and planetary gravity. Thus the homo weirdo species separates itself into two sub-species: weirdo democraticus and weirdo magamaniacus. As time ticks by, we shall see how this plays out, as we transition from wired to weird. Whatever happens and however this plays out, one thing is for sure, we ain’t in Kansas any more.

Glass Chimera