Talk:Cyberspace

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Contents

[edit] Gibson: born in S. Carolina, but Canadian?

Gibson is described in this entry as "Canadian", yet the "William Gibson" entry states that he lives in Canada but was born in South Carolina. As far as I know that makes him American - unless he changed citizenships?

[edit] Vinge

An earlier description of Cyberspace (under a different name) is in Vernor Vinge's True Names. Should we mention it here? How about a list of prominent sci-fi authors who wrote about Cyberspace? --Cema 21:42, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

  • If you have a citation for Vinge, go ahead and mention it under the History section of the article. Kerowyn 08:45, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

I think these references should have its own section (just made it). 84.242.86.47 06:28, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pictures

I haven't seen The Matrix, but Wikipedia tells me there are scenes in it where green letters are superimposed on "reality", unmasking it as a virtual construct determined by code. I think that would be a nice illustration of cyberspace - can anybody make a screenshot? (IANAL, but I suppose it isn't a copyright problem - certainly Wikipedia already has a lot of Matrix pictures.) 84.242.86.47 10:37, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Neo "sees" the code that makes up the "reality" of the Matrix once he "becomes the One" towards the end of the first movie (and apparently sees it that way from then on, but this is never explicitly stated). --Nijyo 05:52, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Neal Stephensen popular reference appropriate?

One omission that's worth noting, though ... Neal Stephenson's description of the online world in Snow Crash was vivid, compelling, and IMHO utterly illustrative of cyberspace. EVEN though he called it the Metaverse. Hiro Protagonist's role in creating it, and seeing how it had developed by thousands of others "jacking in," gives a good illustration of the early cyberpunk (literature) development of the idea. Too much information, or perhaps good to add after the Gibson citation? I think the MATRIX filmmakers pretty much lifted it from Gibson, Stephenson and Philip K. Dick (short story, "Frozen Journey"), and for my money would quote Snow Crash before The Matrix. ... Opinions welcome. TIA. -- David Spalding 17:58, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I think it would be best to expand the Art paragraph (IMHO it fits there best - the whole context section already ranges pretty widely... :-) ) with something about differently called but very typical cyberspaces in SF, some predating Gibson, and illustrate with Vinge and Stephenson. 89.102.137.189 18:59, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Popular Culture

I added Ghost in the Shell. Was very surprised it wasn't mentioned at all in the article, since it borrows heavily from its predecessors, and was explicitly used in the Matrix as the stylistic reference for many visuals. --Nijyo 05:55, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Good addition, but let's not go overboard. After Gibson's early works, and Snow Crash, many anime and subsequent "cyberpunk" and cyberpunk-influenced works starting elaborating on the idea of cyberspace. Called the Net, Matrix, Metaverse, whatever, we could list them all ad nauseam, but to what end? The article is about cyberspace, and at some point we don't want to confuse a reader too much. Just my two cents. --David Spalding 04:08, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge Virtual world with this article?

Virtual world seems to discuss essentialy the same concept as cyberspace; I think those articles should be merged under here.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  21:38, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I strongly disagree (but with a grin). "Cyberspace" was a fictional term coined by William Gibson, and was appropriated for a time to refer to the real telecomms world of modems, BBSs, online services, and finally the Internet/World Wide Web. IMHO it's a subset of "virtual world," which can encompass virtual realities, online MUDs, online games (Xbox, PS2), even a CGI representation of, say, Coruscant, for a film's visual effects. "Cyberspace" doesn't really cover all the varieties of "virtual worlds" which have been dreamt up, innovated, or advertised. If anything, cyberspace is one or two very discrete instances of "virtual worlds." Case in point, the children's playroom in the film THE ILLUSTRATED MAN (the Serengeti with the lions), or the holodeck on Star Trek. All represent "virtual worlds," but aren't "cyberspace." Off the soapbox for now... --David Spalding 00:28, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Disagree. Certainly there's a lot of overlap, but this page should be about the specific term "cyberspace", its history, connotations and usage. Reading Virtual world, it looks like another kind of virtual reality, with different history and usage. Linking them is IMHO preferable to merging. 84.242.86.47 18:48, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
Disagree. The concepts are very different. --- RockMFR 23:49, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
I disagree as well. There is too much information in this article specific for Virtual Worlds to be included in an article about Cyberspace. A link to this article or a short paragraph about Virtual Worlds should IMHO however be included.
disagree. I haven't heard the term cyberspace being used for at least 2 years.. where I am hearing the term virtual worlds being used all the time these days. --Leighblackall 07:16, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
disagree. Virtual worlds are just neighborhoods in cyberspace AnneStark 19:09, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
disagree. But V World should be improved! Nuff said. frummer 07:33, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Formatting of large quotes

I think the Barlow and Sterling large quotes need to be in quote boxes, but I'm not certain on how to implement. If someone with more experience can do it,.... :) --David Spalding 15:54, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Moved the Hacker Crackdown excerpt to a quote box. Tempted to do it to the long-ish John Perry Barlow quote earlier in the article, but I'm not sure the Quotation format is an improvement. David Spalding | Talk 00:34, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
I don't like it very much, personally - cquote IMHO looks better... 89.102.137.189 16:47, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] That Weiss column link

I rather liked the Slate reference - admittedly it's been used as a primary source, but I can't find any secondary source saying that "cyberspace" is now used mostly by the behind-the-curve crowd wanting to be cool, i.e. old media and state bureaucracy - which would be nice to have in the article... 89.102.137.122 09:16, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I concur. I thought it was only "okay," but annoying that the use of "cyberspace" was not the column specifically, but a section of the newspaper. The WHITEHOUSE.GOV link is far more compelling, as an example of crusty, conservative Washington politicos adopting it. Perhaps one by a brick 'n mortar company would work (or a university page). Just my 2¢. David Spalding 17:35, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
Well, I'd like to have more than one reference there (and 3 would be better than 2). I haven't noticed any brick 'n mortar companies talking cyberspace lately, but if you want crusty, what about http://news.findlaw.com/legalnews/scitech/cyber/ ? 89.102.137.122 19:46, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
Crusty? Heh-heh. That seems pretty legit. I'll take it. David Spalding | Talk 04:51, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is statement about "meatspace" accurate?

The article states: Gibson also coined the phrase Meatspace for the physical world contrasted with Cyberspace.

This statement meets the Wikipedia standard of verifiability, in that secondary sources can be found that make this claim, but I'm not sure it's true. None of the sources I've seen quote a passage from Gibson with the word "meatspace" in it. The closest I've found is taken from http://ask.metafilter.com/15851/Origin-of-the-term-meatspace:

Although he doesn't use the word 'meatspace' explicity, I think I'd credit this term in part to William Gibson's Neuromancer. He frequently uses meat as a metaphor for the physical world.

"Strapped to a bed in a Memphis hotel, his talent burning out micron by micron, he hallucinated for thirty hours. The damage was minute, subtle, and utterly effective. For Case, who'd lived for the bodiless exultation of cyberspace, it was the Fall. In the bars he'd frequented as a cowboy hotshot, the elite stance involved a certain relaxed contempt for the flesh. The body was meat. Case fell into the prison of his own flesh."

In contrast, it's easy to find secondary sources that quote specific passages that use the word "cyberspace". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thiesen (talk • contribs) 08:00, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Cyberspace

There are more things called "Cyberspace". The term needs a "for other uses, go here" page which then can include the Cyberspace role-playing game, for instance. CapnZapp (talk) 19:53, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes check.svgY Done Skomorokh 20:07, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks muchly CapnZapp (talk) 21:56, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Part of the series on Cyborgs

Even though the terminology cyberspace comes from cybernetics, I am not sure it should be considered as part of the serie on cybords, as in cyberspace can often be accessed via goggles / headsets / suits, hence no link to cybernetics. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.57.103.19 (talk) 23:25, 26 September 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Cyberspace Operations

I think we need to pull a couple of the Department of Defense references out of this article and create a separate "Cyberspace Operations" article to devote to the USAF CyberCommand (Provisional), and the other non-Gibson related activities currently occurring in the DoD. I'm just looking for some discussion around this before I proceed. Warren Fish (talk) 01:15, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I tagged this article as being of top importance to the Computer Security Project. The concept of 'cyberspace' is officially recognized as part of the US National Critical Infrastructure. I think it is beneficial to have a common article for 'cyberspace', provided we can reach agreement on the proportional coverage between 'Internet Culture' Project and 'Computer Security' Project. Regarding 'Cyberspace Operations'. I suggest 'Cyberspace Theater' which puts more emphasis on 'the space, in which defensive or offensive operations are performed', rather than on the operations themselves. What do you think ?
-- Equilibrioception (talk) 05:30, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
The articles that need to be updated include Theater (warfare), Theatre of military operations, Information warfare
-- Equilibrioception (talk) 05:35, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
Its a busy time of the year for me....but I want to update this. However, at the same time, there is a LOT going on in US DoD wrt cyber. Its a very sexy (read: lucrative) theme. When I have a little more time, I'll get on it. However, I'm not sure if theater warfare, military ops, etc, are appropriate for Cyberspace Operations as they related to US DoD. Information warfare is dead on though. Keep in touch and review my work. P.S. if you want, please add NetOps to the Computer Security Project.--Warren Fish (talk) 02:31, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
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