He raises an interesting point, if from a very uninformed and emotionally sorry perspective. As a species, we have striven with high-effort, solid survival and protection of our own in real 3D terms for millenia. For a period of centuries we have added to that the social inventiveness that grew out of writing and printing -- the formation of groups, and constitutions, written rules, and documentation, but _slow_ message systems.

Consider how long it must have taken to write Boswell's Life or The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, when quills and blocks of type were the state of things. In the last century, "life" became a balance between messaging and solids -- the standardization of machines and mass production and agriculture, on one hand, and the advent of better paper systems, typewriters, linotype machines, carbon paper and even copying machines.

Commerce accelerated, as did other kinds of social inventions -- consider the growth of the US Federal Gummint in just the last century.

"Having a life" has always involved this balance of force, solid and messaging/information.

But for millenia, because of our meaty natures, the predominant focus has been on the three dimensional. The growth curve of speed of messaging ramped up dramatically when wires began to spread with the Bell and Marconi systems, and the first teenagers to grow up with telephones probably looked like hopeless geeks to their parents -- spending hours chatting on the phone when they could be baking.

In the last twenty years, though, this curve has stood up and taken off...outside of telepathy itself, which has always been a hit or miss proposition, we have never had such amazingly fast ways of exchanging information, decisions, numbers, pleasanteries, and emotion.

As with any introduction of a new wuality in a complex system, this can and sometimes does lead to breakdowns like those nameless grinches who post in tiny letters, or hackers who harm others; but there were probably some old leatherheads who had a hard time adjusting to the Pony Express and the advent of regular mail, likewise, and fled to the hills on burros :>)

But resilient critters ike us adapt and discover the best in new capabilities and new systems. The dimensions opened by instant exchange and understanding between physically remote people are an additional benefit to human repertory, not a distraction from it.

Everything that is good and uplifting and exciting (except protein itself) about human life exchanging with itself can be found here, as well as the dreck of human stupidity and neurosis.

To integrate it fully requires a new casting of the balance between physical and cyber spaces, information and effort. There is no virtual substitute for another set of warm toes under the sheets. That partof the balance mustn't be lost. But to live life not knowing the amazing and energizing joy of cybercommunication is to have lost a life indeed. Within his grasp, the Luddite you mention is walking away from the richest vein of new human communication and human experience around. And he knows it, which is why he is sour and grumpy.

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