In 1979 Kurt participated in a group forum “online,” an “Omnicon” open to invited parties provided access to what was an early precursor to the World Wide Web. Sponsored by Omni Magazine, (now defunct), over a ten-week period, utilizing the EIES (Electronic Information Exchange System), the topic for discussion was Superliterate Societies, ie: reading and writing via computer code (Fortran, hence the warning ‘only 57 lines may be used for this text’), use of a connected terminal, and the issues that might arise from it, such as elitism. One participant was Kurt’s pal Walter (Clifford) Barney, and this gave Kurt the opportunity to also toss his many ideas into the online mix, which he did with enthusiasm. Again, in 1979 we find Kurt ahead of his time, as his Omnicon comments about the environment clearly indicate.
“Transcending belief is the task of consciousness in coming to recognize itself. All of which prompts a few searching inquiries--specifically about the four "great killers" in the present history of our watery planet. They may be identified as pollution, population, climatic change, mismanagement of the earth's resources. …The problem is not running short of fossil fuels, it is burning them.”
