Just don't think of this actual book that you have in your hands right now as a book at all; think of it as a surf board. Now climb on top and catch this big wave I'm sending your way as Gene Roddenberry and I circle the Earth in our capsule. Back in the Sixties, lots of us were, if I might say, a little leery of technology, except that which produced better things through chemistry. We were called the counter-culture. Now, I don't remember much else about the Sixties. But today we-Sixties people live on. Now, many of us take in large doses of electricity. Ecstatic Electricity. We drop pixels of Electronic LSD. But I wander. I want to introduce CyberReader2 so that each of you who will read and study this book can become cybernauts. Back in the Sixties, we of the counter-culture knew we were embarking on an important trip into the future. Future-hacqing! If you look at the history of the development of consciousness, earlier generations moved like snails across the centuries. They surfed tiny waves. Why, it took about a century and a half for earlier generations to move from cave drawings to handwriting. Today, we surf tidal waves. Why, in this century alone we have advanced from black & white television to color TVs (with colors more real than real) to virtual reality. Whereas we used to watch TV it now watches us! While we used to sit in front of the TV, we now "sit" in it. We are capable of being in its virtual space. (We are beaming ourselves up and down and all over the virtualscape.) Soon, we will evolve into cyborgs, a hybrid of half protoplasm and half silicon. Back before the Sixties, after WW2, oh, say, between 1950 and 1965, there were the Beats, who were "low-tech, but early psychedelic explorers." After that generation, between 1965-1975, there were the Hippies, who were, as I said, "psychedelic, but anti-high-tech." After that high wave, between 1975-1990, There were theCyberpunks , who were "high-tech electronic." Now, we are getting to you, your generation, the biggest wave to date in the history of the development of human consciousness. Between 1990-2005, there is you who I call the "New Breed" and who are "psychedelic [cyberdelic], super high-tech, with interest in smart drugs, brain machines, and the Internet." Well, this is how I survey recent history in my book Chaos and Cyber Culture. VV includes a selection from that book here in CyberReader2 for you to read. Excuse me, I keep forgetting that I am supposed to be introducing VV's CyberReader2! Actually and Virtually, it is the phirst of its kind. It's a smart book! VV nudges especially those of you who are incipiently of the "New Breed" from books as well as TV to simulated books to virtual books out to the W3. Each wave that you are asked to surf gets a little bigger. Perhaps a little more frightening. But remember, you are the New Breed! What VV wants you to do, and your own generation wants, just as recent generations extolled, is TFYQA. To Think For Yourself; Question Authority! So when you read and surf with this book ... TFYQA. Live up to that code not only in your everyday lives but especially while reading the authors in this book, many of whom themselves (by now) represent authority because they questioned authority. Now, you must question them just as you must question me! Surfing and Questing and Hacking are what we-cybernauts are about. Extend (hyper- ) your mind and if you think all this only hype, then, surf with that thought. TFYQA! Make VVaves! --"Tim" (1920-1996)

Introduction, CyberReader2    CR 2/e HP