If the Beats Had the Internet

There's a fun little essay on Three Quarks Daily.

From the story...

In the forties and fifties the Beats created a geography of the American imagination that continues to attract new generations. At the same time, a group of Soviet researchers wanted to re-engineer society with computers and communications. It remains to be seen whether either group’s intellectual heirs will shape our digital future, or whether real change will come from somewhere else altogether - like the Islamic world.

Fifty years ago Soviet and American cyberneticists were creating the theoretical framework for the Internet – or something like it - as an engine of social design. At the same time, the Beat writers were challenging the entire concept of social engineering in favor of more spontaneous ways of living.

So, a thought experiment: Would the Beats - those old American freethinkers - have taken to the Internet as a new medium of expression or rejected it as too dehumanizing? Would they have been bloggers?