Good Hive Mind story

From: Sean Kenny (seankenny@blueyonder.co.uk)
Date: Fri Jan 19 2001 - 11:34:15 MST


Kevin Kelly told us that someday, a small determined group
         would use the Power of the Net to coagulate itself into a
         enormous electronic hive-mind. He's a bee-keeper, so we
         believed him. We just weren't expecting it to start so
         early, or so much in UK.REC.COMPETITIONS. Regulars there are
         already demonstrating the damage a highly-interconnected
         mass-consciousness can wreak; between them (it), the uk.r.c
         posters estimate they (it) win(s) over 5% of the UK's online
         giveaways. So when BOL announced that its "Win 500 DVD
         Players!" competition was over - and nobody on uk.r.c had
         won a thing - they were, en masse, suspicious. BOL were
         adamant: yes, the winners had been notified. No, uk.r.c
         couldn't see the list. Yes, that was against ASA rules - but
         BOL only had e-mail addresses. Then how are they sending the
         DVD players out, responded the newsgroups' groupmind - as
         attachments? Good point, replied BOL, have some DVD players
         and go away. A happy ending - except for the knowledge that
         perhaps BOL *would* have gotten away with it, if it is
         wasn't for the unifying power of the froups. But are those
         supposed competitors getting too pally? A few days later,
         all of uk.rec.comps received a mail from BT. Dear Karen, it
         said, you've won a lava lamp. Apparently, BT say now,
         there's only one lava lamp - and only one Karen. And
         uk.rec.competitions is she.
         http://x53.deja.com/=dnc/viewthread.xp?AN=715709536
                                  - don't mess with threads this long
         http://www.deja.com/=dnc/viewthread.xp?AN=717027906
                                                     - no, i'm karen!
         http://www.ntk.net/boldoh/
                                             - historical perspective

from britains satirical net weekly Need To Know www.ntk.net



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