Note: This is off-list. I don't care if you post it back there, but I don't see the need to take it there. You have said repeatedly: "...and, two, that our social structures map directly to our communication architectures..." I've been doing some thinking about this, and it seems to me that you are about 95% correct in this, you just don't take it far enough. It seems to me that what we think of as society is our communication. Social structures don't just map to the communication infrastructure (architecture, whatever), the communication infrastructure IS the social infrastructure. Society is Communication. Communication is Society. You can't have society without communication. As soon as you have any communication, you include (or are included) in the society of the person you are communicating with--and as soon as the communication is stopped for any length of time you are not apart of it any more. <Somebody's .sig> --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'