from "Living at the Speed of Light" MCLEAN'S Jan 7, 1980:33.


   With the disappearance of private identity, representative
government, which has been based on majority rule and nose-counting
procedures, will yield to the pollstergeists -- the culture mind
readers. In the '80s, representative government will cease and the
public will take over. When voting can be done by home computer, it
will become a new form of belligerent "Home Rule." Such "ideal
democracy," as one constituted by a referendum or plebiscite on all
issues, would capsize our government and plunge the populace into
depth education for decision-making.

   Once a home computer is available as the means of shopping and
voting, there will be in the '80s a return to "cottage economy."
Home-computer TV and telephone links will encourage business, big
and small, to be done at home. Thus, with the decentralizing of big
business and big cities, high-rise office and apartment buildings
will become obsolete. They could, however, have many, residual uses
such as day-care centres or playgrounds for the Gray Panthers.
Similarly, the old unions will be obsolesced by the new, decentral-
ized cottage-computer-economy patterns.