Nothing is allowed on the net. Everything is accepted—by somebody, somewhere. There are two hundred million people on the net, and some of them are bound to be as crazy as you. A few are even crazier.

“Allowed” implies “permissions”, and you don’t have to ask anyone’s permission before going ahead with your own favorite perversion. The “rules of the net” are not encoded in law, nor enforced by the local gestapo. Yet.

Civil law is a different story, of course. The laws of libel and assault should apply as much to the net as to any other conversational medium. Would you say this over the telephone? In a letter? On the bulletin board outside your local grocery? If it’s legal there, it’s probably legal here. And if it’s illegal there, it’s probably illegal here, if anyone decides to enforce it. But “illegal” means simply that if you do it, someone with a gun is going to kick your butt into prison. You’re still allowed to do it: just be prepared for the consequences.

The People of the Net

Despite all the talk of on-line dictionaries and bibles, the real lure of the net is the people on the net. Once you have an e-mail address of your own, you can take part in loud and raucous philosophizing in giant rooms on the net, or quiet, intimate discussions with one or two other individuals. You can choose who you want to talk to (as long as they want to talk to you), and you can choose from—and even create—discussions on any possible topic, from revolution to evolution. And back again. You can talk with individuals, or you can talk with groups. And you can talk in real-time or by message.

Electronic mail allows you to exchange messages with individuals, and it also allows you to take part in mailing list discussion groups. Various newsreaders allow you to take part in a huge variety of Usenet discussion groups. In these discussion groups, an unlimited number of individuals ‘post’ articles to each group. Other individuals read these articles and reply to them. Electronic mail is more personal, allowing you to take part in private discussions or group discussions among a limited group of people.

The talk program allows you to ‘talk’ with another individual by typing. When you type, they see what you typed, and when they type, you see, immediately, what they typed. ‘Talk’ isn’t used much anymore. It’s too much like a telephone but without human voices. Chat rooms also exist on the net, where you can conference with larger groups of people. Usually, you’ll see what they typed when they press return, and they’ll see what you typed when you press return. You’ll type a sentence, press return, and then everybody else sees that sentence.

Internet discussions can move between Usenet, private mail, and conferences, with summaries of each posted to the others (or to web pages) when necessary. Nothing has to be static on the net.