DADA5 - ARTICOLI
JUST A FEW WORDS FROM YOUR FOREIGN DEPARTMENT CERBERUS

by Vittorio Curtoni

JUST A FEW WORDS FROM YOUR FOREIGN DEPARTMENT CERBERUS
by Vittorio Curtoni

Hello there!
I must say I'm  quite  amazed,  and  quite satisfied, at how
things are going.  Two or three months ago, when  our  Great
Director  Angelo  Politi asked me to spend some time for the
English texts section of DADA, I thought this would be, more
or less, a sine cura:  just  a  few messages now and then, a
few poems, one story or two...  Look at it now!  We acquired
what  we  may   consider   regular,   and   most   valuable,
contributors,  like Stephen Pain from England and Jay Marvin
from Chicago; we  have  new,  interesting contributions from
Fred Roberts (an American living  in  Germany!),  Robert  W.
Howington   and   Greg   Farnum  (two  Americans  living  in
America!); we  have  a  "manifesto"  written  by  John Perry
Barlow,  a  true,  sincere  and  powerful   declaration   of
independence  for  the  citizens  of the cyberspace; we have
this new department, "Our Guest of Honour" (an idea of mine;
I hope everybody likes  it),  dedicated  to writers of world
fame, that starts with S.P.  Somtow, an author I thank  with
all my heart for his exquisite kindness.  And more is on its
way...  DADA is really becoming international!  Hurray!

I've been, since the Seventies, the editor of many magazines
and book series in the science fiction and horror fields.  I
had  the  pleasure  to  make  contact,  by letter, with many
writers all over the world.   Some  of  them, at least for a
time, became true friends.  Some still are.  But never in my
life have I had an experience even  remotely  comparable  to
Internet.   I really think this is the true new frontier.  A
frontier potentially capable  of destroying borders, limits,
misunderstandings.  Okay, the Global Village.  We  all  know
it.   What  I  mean is that I'm experiencing it in the first
person for the  first  time  in  my  life,  and  boy!, is it
great...  DADA is, or hopes to be, one of the  bridges  that
Internet  can provide.  At least, that's my philosophy.  Our
philosophy.  "Games without frontiers",  to use the words of
Peter Gabriel.

Well, I think this is just great.  Thanks to all of you, and
keep on sending your stuff.  As long as it is good (and what
you'll find in this issue IS good), you'll  become  part  of
this  international  bridge.   Supposing  that  your  humble
Cerberus likes what you write, of course...  :)))

Yours truly, Jack the Ripper.  
Ahem...  Vittorio Curtoni



QUALCHE PAROLA DAL NOSTRO CERBERO ADDETTO AGLI ESTERI
di Vittorio Curtoni

Salve a tutti!
Devo  dire  che  sono  notevolmente  stupito, e notevolmente
soddisfatto, per come  stanno  andando  le  cose.  Due o tre
mesi fa, quando il nostro Grande Direttore Angelo Politi  mi
chiese  di  dedicare  un  po'  di  tempo al settore testi in
lingua inglese di  DADA,  pensai  che  sarebbe stata, piu' o
meno, una sine cura: qualche messaggio ogni  tanto,  qualche
poesia,  un  racconto  o  due...   Guardate cos'e' diventato
adesso!  Abbiamo acquisito  quelli  che possiamo considerare
regolari, e preziosissimi, collaboratori come  Stephen  Pain
dall'Inghilterra  e  Jay  Marvin  da Chicago; abbiamo nuovi,
interessanti contributi da  Fred  Roberts  (un americano che
vive in Germania!), Robert W. Howington e Greg  Farnum  (due
americani  che  vivono  in America!); abbiamo un "manifesto"
scritto  da   John   Perry   Barlow,   una   sincera,  forte
dichiarazione  di   indipendenza   per   i   cittadini   del
cyberspazio;  abbiamo  una  nuova sezione, "Il nostro ospite
d'onore" (una mia idea; spero piaccia a tutti), consacrata a
scrittori di fama mondiale, che  inizia con S. P. Somtow, un
autore che ringrazio di tutto  cuore  per  la  sua  squisita
gentilezza.   E  altre  cose  stanno  bollendo in pentola...
DADA sta davvero diventando internazionale!  Urra'!

Sin dagli anni Settanta sono stato curatore di molte riviste
e  collane   librarie   nei   campi   della  fantascienza  e
dell'horror.   Ho  avuto  il  piacere  di  contattare,   per
lettera, molti scrittori di tutto il mondo.  Alcuni di loro,
almeno  per  un  po'  di  tempo,  sono diventati veri amici.
Alcuni  lo  sono  ancora.   Ma  mai  in  vita  mia  ho avuto
un'esperienza anche lontanamente  paragonabile  a  Internet.
Penso sul serio che questa sia la nuova vera frontiera.  Una
frontiera  potenzialmente  capace  di  distruggere  confini,
limiti,  incomprensioni.   Okay,  il  Villaggio Globale.  Lo
sappiamo tutti.  Quello che  voglio  dire  e'  che io la sto
sperimentando in prima persona per la prima  volta  in  vita
mia,  e  ragazzi!,  e'  grandioso...   DADA  e',  o spera di
essere, uno dei  ponti  che  Internet  puo' offrire.  Per lo
meno, e' questa la  mia  filosofia.   La  nostra  filosofia.
"Giochi  senza  frontiere",  per  usare  le  parole di Peter
Gabriel.

Be',  secondo  me  e'  grandioso.   Grazie  a  tutti  voi, e
continuate a inviare materiale.  Se e'  buono  (e  cio'  che
troverete  in  questo numero E' buono), diventerete parte di
questo ponte internazionale.   Ammesso  che  al vostro umile
Cerbero piaccia quello che scrivete, ovviamente...  :)))

Sinceramente vostro, Jack Lo Squartatore.
Ehm... Vittorio Curtoni


A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace
by John Perry Barlow

Governments of the  Industrial  World,  you  weary giants of
flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace,  the  new  home  of
Mind.   On  behalf  of  the future, I ask you of the past to
leave us alone.  You are not  welcome among us.  You have no
sovereignty where we gather.

We have no elected government, nor are  we  likely  to  have
one,  so  I  address you with no greater authority than that
with which  liberty  itself  always  speaks.   I declare the
global  social  space  we  are  building  to  be   naturally
independent  of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us.  You
have no moral  right  to  rule  us  nor  do  you possess any
methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear.

Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the
governed.  You have neither solicited nor received ours.  We
did not invite you.  You do not know us, nor do you know our
world.  Cyberspace does not lie within your borders.  Do not
think that you can build it, as  though  it  were  a  public
construction  project.   You cannot.  It is an act of nature
and it grows itself through our collective actions.

You  have   not   engaged   in   our   great  and  gathering
conversation,  nor  did  you  create  the  wealth   of   our
marketplaces.   You  do not know our culture, our ethics, or
the unwritten codes  that  already  provide our society more
order than could be obtained by any of your impositions.

You claim there are problems  among  us  that  you  need  to
solve.   You  use  this  claim  as  an  excuse to invade our
precincts.  Many of these problems don't exist.  Where there
are real conflicts, where there are wrongs, we will identify
them and address them by our  means.  We are forming our own
Social Contract .  This governance will arise  according  to
the  conditions  of  our  world,  not  yours.   Our world is
different.

Cyberspace  consists  of  transactions,  relationships,  and
thought itself, arrayed like a  standing  wave in the web of
our communications.  Ours is a world that is both everywhere
and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live.

We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege
or prejudice accorded  by  race,  economic  power,  military
force, or station of birth.

We  are  creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express
his or her beliefs, no  matter how singular, without fear of
being coerced into silence or conformity.

Your  legal  concepts  of  property,  expression,  identity,
movement, and context do not apply to us.  They are based on
matter, There is no matter here.

Our identities have no bodies, so,  unlike  you,  we  cannot
obtain  order  by  physical  coercion.  We believe that from
ethics, enlightened self-interest,  and  the commonweal, our
governance will emerge .  Our identities may be  distributed
across  many  of  your jurisdictions.  The only law that all
our constituent cultures  would  generally  recognize is the
Golden  Rule.   We  hope  we  will  be  able  to  build  our
particular solutions on that basis.  But  we  cannot  accept
the solutions you are attempting to impose.

In  the  United  States,  you  have today created a law, the
Telecommunications Reform  Act,  which  repudiates  your own
Constitution  and   insults   the   dreams   of   Jefferson,
Washington,   Mill,  Madison,  DeToqueville,  and  Brandeis.
These dreams must now be born anew in us.

You are  terrified  of  your  own  children,  since they are
natives in a world where  you  will  always  be  immigrants.
Because  you  fear them, you entrust your bureaucracies with
the  parental  responsibilities  you  are  too  cowardly  to
confront yourselves.  In our  world,  all the sentiments and
expressions of humanity, from the debasing to  the  angelic,
are  parts  of  a seamless whole, the global conversation of
bits.  We cannot separate the  air  that chokes from the air
upon which wings beat.

In China, Germany, France, Russia, Singapore, Italy and  the
United  States,  you  are  trying  to  ward off the virus of
liberty  by  erecting  guard   posts  at  the  frontiers  of
Cyberspace.  These may keep out the contagion  for  a  small
time,  but  they  will not work in a world that will soon be
blanketed in bit-bearing media.

Your  increasingly  obsolete  information  industries  would
perpetuate themselves  by  proposing  laws,  in  America and
elsewhere, that claim to own speech  itself  throughout  the
world.   These  laws  would  declare  ideas  to  be  another
industrial  product,  no  more  noble than pig iron.  In our
world, whatever the human mind  may create can be reproduced
and  distributed  infinitely  at  no   cost.    The   global
conveyance  of  thought no longer requires your factories to
accomplish.

These increasingly hostile and colonial measures place us in
the same position as  those  previous  lovers of freedom and
self-determination who had  to  reject  the  authorities  of
distant,  uninformed  powers.   We  must declare our virtual
selves immune to your  sovereignty,  even  as we continue to
consent to your  rule  over  our  bodies.   We  will  spread
ourselves  across  the  Planet so that no one can arrest our
thoughts.

We will create  a  civilization  of  the Mind in Cyberspace.
May  it  be  more  humane  and  fair  than  the  world  your
governments have made before.

Davos, Switzerland
February 8, 1996

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John Perry Barlow, Cognitive Dissident
Co-Founder, Electronic Frontier Foundation

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It is error alone which needs  the  support  of  government.
Truth  can  stand  by  itself.--Thomas  Jefferson,  Notes on
Virginia
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