Illustration by David Lu
Bruce Sterling’s latest piece in wired in awesome. Check it out:
Category: Bruce Sterling
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Bruce Sterling – Dispatches From the Hyperlocal Future
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2007 the world takes over the computer
graphic by martin lorenz @ TwoPoints.netBruce Sterling has written yet another interesting little piece. It’s super short and really fascinating. Here’s an excerpt:
“Steve’s ultracapable iPhone, whose screen can be squinched with your fingertips as if it were Play-Doh, bids fair to become Apple’s “remote control for reality.†With the Web in your purse or pocket, applied to physical reality via Google mapping services, you own the ultimate Reality Distortion Field! For Gates, the computer is transforming itself into Microsoft on wheels, a Zune that walks: with brand-new software supporting Microsoft for Robots, a PC can ramble all over your house photographing, scanning, listening, grabbing, and gripping—maybe even fetching a beer! Where does Microsoft’s Wireless Robot want to go today?“
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Bruce Sterling SXSW 2007
Photo by BrianfitI really enjoyed listening to Bruce Sterling’s rant from SXSW 2007. MP3 27MB 59 Mins. For some reason this post got lost in my ‘drafts’ section in WordPress. Better late than never…
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“You don’t have to predict the future when you live in it”
Photo by janbrasnaBruce Sterling writes:
In 1998, I had it figured that the dot-com boom would become a dot-green boom. It took a while for others to get it. Some still don’t. They think I’m joking. They are still used to thinking of greenness as being “counter” and “alternative” — they don’t understand that 21st-century green is and must be about everything — the works. Sustainability is comprehensive. That which is not sustainable doesn’t go on. Glamorous green. I preached that stuff for years. I don’t have to preach it anymore, because it couldn’t be any louder. Green will never get any sexier than it is in 2007. Because, after this, brown will start going away.
Full Washington Post piece
Printable (aka readable) version
Bruce Sterling’s Blog: Beyond the Beyond
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Bruce Sterling: Climate Change
Photo by: AkuppaBruce Sterling on Climate Change:
Climate change is not gonna be combatted through voluntary acts of individual charity. It’s gonna be combatted through some kind of colossal, global-scaled, multilateral, hectic, catch-as-catch-can effort to stop burning stuff, suck the burnt smoke out of the sky, and put the smoke back into the ground. That’s not gonna get done a little green teacup at a time, because we’ve been doing it for two centuries and we don’t have two centuries to undo it.
“Reducing emissions” is a wrongheaded way to approach it. If “reducing emissions” is the goal, then the best technique available is to drop dead. The second-best technique is to go around killing a lot of people. Nobody’s got a lighter eco-footprint than a dead and buried guy. He’s not walking around leaving footprints: the Earth is piled on top of him.
We’re past the point where reduction helps much; we will have to invent and deploy active means of remediation of the damage. But from another, deeper perspective: we shouldn’t involve outselves in lines of development where the ultimate victory condition is emulating dead people. There’s no appeal in that. It’s bad for us. That kind of inherent mournfulness is just not a good way to be human. We’re not footprint-generating organisms whose presence on the planet is inherently toxic and hurtful. We need better handprints, not lighter footprints. We need better stuff, not less stuff. We need to think it through and take effective action, not curl up in a corner stricken with guilt and breathe shallowly.
Super fascinating Bruce Sterling: State of the World 2007 thread at The Well