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Understanding Micropolis and Compunity 65

portation—we effectively increase it via the new technologies of
communication, by using fax machines and e-mail, time- and date-
stamping messages, and packages and memos, ensuring that our
words and information get where we want them to go, and do so on
time, through a variety of control mechanisms. In fact, one of the
most touted aspects of the combination of telecommunication and
computers is that it will somehow supplant transportation alto-
gether and result in a great increase in telecommuting. That, so far,
has not happened, but it presents an interesting, and heady, mix of
metaphors that have driven (pardon the pun?) national conversa-
tions in Western countries, and continue to fire the futurist mani-
festos of many politicians, particularly ones in the US Congress (as
well as marketing pundits).
We still lack control over what will happen to the messages we
create and send when they get where they are going, because they
are essentially out of (our) control. I do not believe any form of
technology can assist us to better create and interpret messages—
only we ourselves have the capacity to better those abilities. It is
most disheartening, perhaps dangerous, to believe that since ma-
chines have replaced some forms of human labor they will replace
human thought. Perhaps the greatest force mitigating against
telecommuting, and ultimately against most technology, is that
people like people, seek to be with other people, and seek to maxi-
mize interaction. Developers of tools like those associated with the
Internet’s use succeed best, it seems, when they recognize that,
and put technology in service of conversation rather than commu-
nication, in service of connection between people rather than con-
nection between machines, and in service of understanding rather
than movement.

Note

This manuscript appeared originally in the Electronic Journal of
Communication/La revue electronique de communication, 8 (3 & 4), 1998
(see <http://www.cios.org/www/ejcrec2.htm>) and is reprinted by kind per-
mission of the editors.

References

Baudrillard, J. 1983. “The Ecstasy of Communication.” In The Anti-
Aesthetic, ed. H. Foster, 128. Port Townsend, WA: Bay Press.