“As Ulmer has relentlessly argued, electracy is still in its infancy, so the practices with which we engage will continue to change and morph. We are just beginning to grapple with the cultural effects of video culture, and, as I stated in the opening lines of this book, the space for investigation and participation is wide open.”
Literally: She is reiterating a point that the wave of electracy is just starting to rise. We are just only slightly beyond the starting point of this brave new world. We are still trying to wrap our heads around the effects of this new lifestyle of communication. And where we go from here is still unknown and still yet to be pioneered.
Intellectually: The internet and this entire digital age is a wild frontier. And tons and tons of people have tried to capitalized on innovation in this world, by claiming that they understand it. I believe that in truth, a serious knowledge of electracy, is that a solid portion of it is made of unknowable chaos. That parts of it cannot be predicted or controlled.
Emotionally: I think that a solid understanding of the passage above is critical to understanding the future. I believe that declaring and accepting the unknown and the unknowable is the intelligent move. Generation after generation have predicted life in the future. Some got certain aspects correct, and others were wildly inaccurate. This had nothing to do with there intelligence, but rather the truth that prediction of where we go as a society is not an exact science.
Speculatively: Historians, to a certain degree, use the past to get an idea of the shape of the future. When dealing with electracy, I feel that this method of measurement will not, in any way, be able to touch to magnitude of where we are headed. Electracy can only be mapped in context of what we already have experience and only slightly reflects what the future will be like. In the boom of the internet, billions of dollars were banked on the success of certain sites and networks. Most have failed, and predicting that was near impossible. Our electrate future is like water; one day it will be calm enough to swim in, other days it will crash down on top of you. Either way you have no control over what happens.
