Ask Bruce Sterling 111
This week's interview subject is author Bruce Sterling. If you've never heard of him (shame on you!) learn a little about him here or type his name into any search engine. He's an interesting dude and one of my personal favorite contemporary writers, and I feel privileged to have him with us this week. Post your questions below, as usual, and, as usual, Slashdot moderators and editors will select 10 - 15 of them, and (again as usual) Bruce's answers will appear Friday and, if he has time, he might jump into the discussion that follows the posting of his answers.
Stephenson opinion? (Score:3)
Are photovoltaics really 'green' ? (Score:1)
When do you think biological processes, that strip Hydrogen from water and bond it to Carbon , then use fuel cell tech to produce electricity will be available.
Viridian Green (Score:5)
ted to innovative, practical, and far-reaching responses to environmental crisis
. You've focused on the use of design and engineering to create a less destructi
ve way of living on this planet.
You're doing so in a way that seeks to avoid politics - you'll name names, but s
eem unwilling to pitch battles. Is this fatalism, or an attempt to preserve cons
ensus in a movement that includes both libertarians and communitarians? Do you b
elieve that conscientious consumerism is going to be sufficient to avert continu
ed environmental destruction? Do you believe that "local minima" of the immediat
e benefits of good design will always win in the market? Do you think lasting ch
ange will be possible without global regulation? And what do you think the most promising recent Viridian-positive developments have been?
Where you stand in the Grand Scheme of SF (Score:1)
Who do you consider to be your peers?
Which writers (SF and non-SF) do you like?
J:)
also...
which is stranger; fact or fiction?
Future William Gibson Collaboration? (Score:5)
William Gibson (Score:1)
Dear Bruce (Score:2)
While on the subject of Heavy Weather, IMHO it would make a great movie itself. Any plans?
Who have you influenced? (Score:3)
Which new authors do you feel that you have most strongly influenced? What specifically makes you select them?
Thanks,
Ben
Viridian Open Source? (Score:2)
---
Maybe that's just the price you pay for the chains that you refuse.
Distraction and open source (Score:3)
First off, did Marianne Dyson get any NASA funding to help get your T1 trunk to Siberia?
Secondly, in your most recent book titled Distraction, you base a large part of the economic demise of America on the scenario of the Chinese government making all U.S. commercial software freely available on the net. While I am not deluded about the role and importance of many commercial products, how do you think the recent rise in availability and quality of free software would affect this scenario? How much consideration, if any, did you lend to the free software movement when writing Distraction?
Keep aiming to please.
Dead Media Manifesto? (Score:3)
If I'm not mistaken, the thrust of your manifesto was that a research tome on such media should be created, but since you were too swamped with projects, you hoped that people out there on the Internet who read it would come together and help to create the book themselves.
I was wondering if this has been very successful, and if so (or if not) what you have learned from the Manifesto and its consequences.
Admire Dead Media Page (Score:1)
The corroded future (Score:3)
The Mirrorshades Movement in 2K (Score:1)
Where do you see the mirrorshades literary movement heading in the year 2000?
Operating systems (Score:1)
With what word processor/text editor do you use to write your books?
If you need assistance installing Linux, let me know. I work in Round Rock.
Your opinion of collaborative writing? (Score:3)
- Did you enjoy the challenge of working with another author, especially one with such a distinct style?
- Do you think that sci-fi is, as a genre, particularly conducive to collaborative projects? If so, why, and if not, any opinion on why they are so common?
- Do you have any advice for aspiring collaborative writers (other than the key "don't kill your partner")?
-Joshquestions, questions (Score:2)
Next book? (Score:2)
--
More Up-To-Date Sterling Pub Links (Score:1)
When did you become 'contemporary'? (Score:1)
I'd always figured you fit more closely in a 'speculative fiction' category.
What do you think of the recent technological changes? Where do you think we're likely to go from here?
"Maneki Neko" world (Score:1)
Do you think that people would allow their lives to be ruled by AIs speaking to them through their PDAs? Is it inevitable? Is it a Good Thing or a Bad Thing, or does it matter?
---
Geoffrey Wossum
Project AKO [uta.edu]
The Pace of Technology vs. SF (Score:3)
Rereading Islands in the Net recently, I was struck by the observation that the humble DVD rendered some of the early scenes almost obsolete (only in a speculative sense).
With that in mind, are there any technological or cultural developments in the past few years that have caused you to rethink your speculations/predictions/opinions about the near future? If so, what are they?
Thanks for your time!
--
QDMerge [rmci.net] 0.21!
Post-Cyberpunk: Next? (Score:2)
Where do you see the cutting edge in the next decade? What young writers do you think are really evolving the form?
Re:Operating systems (Score:1)
Re:Operating systems (Score:1)
--jamais
Shaper/Mechanist (Score:2)
Will you be doing any more stories set in the Shaper/Mechanist universe? If not, then why? Has it been mined out, made insignificant, is no longer fun or has it been copied by other's too much?
Jack
No more 'Whoa'? (Score:5)
I still remember early Cyberpunk, and then the early years of Wired, as times of being exposed to one "mind blowing" idea after another. The future, though far from Utopian, was going to be very interesting. Anymore, though, I see few ideas that make me sit back and say "Whoa...now *that* is cool."
Now, in a mundane world of spam and banner ads, the coming future doesn't seem nearly so thrilling. In trying to pinpoint the source of my apathy about new ideas, I can't quite decide if it's me, us, or you. That is, I can't decide if: (a) My personal perspective has changed, and I've learned enough that little suprises me anymore, (b) We've all gotten better at predicting the future, so little surprises any of us, or (c) You folks (the SF writers and Futurists) blew out all the great ideas in the 80s and early 90s, and we'll just have to wait awhile for the next Big Thing.
So what I'm wondering is: Have you become at all jaded about technology and its effect on society? What do you think about our current state of predicting the future? Are there any ideas, authors, etc., that you've seen recently that make you say "Whoa..."?
Power to change one thing (Score:1)
Has Japan lived up to your expectations? (Score:1)
About twelve/thirteen years ago I heard a speach you gave at a technology conference in Olympia Washington. A major point of that speach had to do with the Japanese economic structure (zaibatsus and the like) and its pontential in a future of networked international corporations. You also made some predictions as to the future power of the Japanese and general Asian economy.
Would you say those predictions have been proved out? Would you say they missed the mark? Or would you say they are still operational given enough time?
Jack
Reflections on a future that has arrived. (Score:3)
Are you surprised by how much what you forecasted has or has not come true? Is there anything you thought for sure was going to happen but didn't?
And thought hindsight is often useless, in what ways would the current situation (cultural/political/technological) change the stories that you have written? Part of the trap with writing speculative fiction set in the near-future is that as the future date approaches, unless you are dead on with the predictions, the story will move into the realm of wild fantasy. John Carpenter's 'Escape from New York' serves as an example. In the end, it all comes down to the story. How well do you think your stories (and cyberpunk in general) will stand up in 20 years time?
I ain't no ominous cow-herd! (Score:1)
OS ? (Score:1)
Re:diamond age = interactive fiction? and PANTS! (Score:1)
Bruce Sterling wrote HEAVY WEATHER and THE HACKER CRACKDOWN, and co-wrote THE DIFFERENCE ENGINE.
Is Heavy Weather fact or fiction? (Score:1)
Weather appears to be getting worse. Global warming is predicted to raise the temperature of the Earth up to 4 degrees and the recent New York outbreak of encephalitis is being blamed on the rising temperatures. [cnn.com]
In Heavy Weather, the characters were asked at just what point did the Earth become unsavable due to human caused pollution. So, my question to you is: Do you believe the Earth is unsavable and Heavy Weather was a prediction of what is to come, or was it a wake-up call?
Thanks,
Monica Gaudio
commercialization of the net (Score:1)
Difference Engine Question (Score:1)
in "The Difference Engine" you postulate an America divided by North and South with the South having won it's independence. In what way do you see the South would have been helped by difference engines? Also, with the North's greater industrial capacity wouldn't the Union be more able to employ bigger and better difference engines much like it did with ironclads? I think it would be fascinating to have a book length treatment on how Difference Engines made a, er, difference!
Picking new topics (Score:1)
How do you choose these topics? Is there any one event or news story that gets you thinking? If this is the case, can you share some of the things that led you to create the worlds in your novels?
Cyberpunk R Us? (Score:2)
In your view, are we just groping our way blindly, trying through our technology to get past our perceived shortcomings, or is mankind actually doing something to enhance life on earth, and our future life in the cosmos?
Or to put it succinctly: Do you believe there really is such a thing as progress?
Yeah, I'm a Mac programmer. You got a problem with that?
Heavy Weather, private currencies, and stuff (Score:1)
First off I loved _Schismatrix_ (all the crazy people like that one, right?:)
Second, in _Heavy Weather_, you described a global economy where the national currencies were weak in relation to private currencies backed by corporations and private banks. This idea struck me, and has stuck with me. I'm most facinated by the fact that I can see the beginning of that senario blossoming in reality with the introduction of the digital currencies. Where did you come up with this senario? I've heard from reliable sources that a certain cypherpunk inspired this back story.
Thirdly, I went to a birthday party of one of your cousins in Aug, and lemme tell you, your family is a hell of a lot of fun.
Fourth (and last), your article on Burning Man was great. I've met alot of people out there that attended after reading that. I think that you are one of the few writers that have actually been able to write a fair account, and almost relay the spirit of what happens out there. You should come out to the Austin regional event [burnaustin.org] next spring.
Thanks,
Damon
Sterling FAQ (Score:3)
My question? Would you reconsider revisting the world of systems crackers and the like? The Hacker Crackdown was a damn good book.
The coming age? (Score:1)
Is this indeed the coming Age and where do you see it going? And if not, where are we headed after data and electronics are as much a part of culture as the machines of the Industrial Age are now?
Holy Fire: Senescence, Innovation, Stagnation (Score:1)
Future of Piracy/Crytography (Score:1)
The shape of future corporations (Score:4)
Recently we've seen companies with radical new business models (such as Redhat and VA Linux) hiring developers to work on whatever they want, and corporate HR departments focusing on 'recruiting from within' to minimize employee turnover. Both these trends may be extrapolated to lead to Rizome type corporations.
So here's the question: What do you currently think future business entities will look like, and what can we do to make those future entities as human-friendly as possible?
--
Technology and the street... in reverse? (Score:1)
I'm wondering, though, if the principle is starting to work in reverse. "Street" technology (well, at least technology born not of high-tech R&D labs, but rather by individuals for their own needs), like Linux and the WWW seem to be eaten up wholesale by big corporations these days.
Do you think that, in focusing on Big Corporate technology, that the pushing of this home-grown tech into the corporate sector has been overlooked in the cyberpunk genre?
Speaking of which, is there even such a genre anymore?
A Dark and Scary Place (Score:1)
My question for Bruce is:
Beyond the obvious overworked subjects like global warming and nuclear winter, what social, political and/or technological hurdles must we overcome in order to avoid the "dark and scary" future? Or, alternately, which hurdles are unavoidable, and how will they darken our future?
The Singularity (Score:1)
In June of 1992 you gave a speach to the Library Information Technology Association in San Francisco. In the speach you said, "The nature of our society strongly affects the nature of our technology." You brought up some very interesting points about commodities, the profusion of information, and controlling human attention. This led to to some intriguing commentary about the "Singularity" and the "human condition," and finally your idea on "Deep Archiving" for future civilizations.
Since that time we have seen technological explosions affecting human communications and the further dissemination of data. Also, such phenomenon as the Open Source movement are taking hold, perhaps bringing back a little of the old "Free as Air, Free As Water, Free As Knowledge" ideal.
Now, more than ever, we are experiencing a global interconnectedness, particularly at the Cyberpunk subculture level.
Given these developments, what now have you to say about the complete transfomation of the human condition? Any further insight or predictions?
Difference Engine Replica (Score:2)
Apparently, the Science Museum in London completed a replica of Babbage's Difference Engine on his 200th birthday (URL below). How do you feel about that? Have you seen it? Neat, eh?
http://www.nmsi.ac.uk/on-line/treasure/objects/
Postcyberpunk and the Death of the Movement (Score:1)
Bruce: What are you doing to break up SF monopoly? (Score:2)
So, my question to you is, What are you, as a person and as a writer, doing to foster the next generation of writers who will throw the old fogies of the 80s and 90s into the dustbin of history? Have you been pushing the boundaries of literate SF for other writers, or are you just raking in the bucks like the rest of the IPOs that society is gaga over?
Or are you growing comfortable with your role in the old paradigm and unwilling to take the lead into the new age, in which, possibly, you may have a lesser place in the grand scheme of things.
By the by: love most of your writing - it's been great running into you at Cons, back when I did those, in the days when I had a double-hyphenated name. Say hi to Bill for me.
Re:Dead Media Manifesto? (Score:1)
Sci Fi, Sci Fact and Getting Something Done! (Score:1)
Bruce, so far I've been _very_ impressed with Viridian, both as a concept, as a social experiment, and as a peice of social engineering.
I'd like to ask you four questions:
0> Is this more fun than writing science fiction? Why?
1> In your opinion, has Viridian so far been a success?
2> How many people does it take before Viridian becomes a household word?
3> Apart from buying green power, what can an individual nerd with viridian leanings _do_?
PS: I'm vinay(at)neuron.net, posting as an AC.
Death of frontiers (Score:4)
Which leads me to my question. Do you think it's possible nowadays to create a sustained, independent, and transgressive community (a TAZ, if you will) without it being co-opted by society at large? Some of your old Catscan essays (particularly the one on Jules Verne [eff.org]) hint at what your response to this question would have been in the past, but I'm curious to hear what you have to say now.
The real alternate history (Score:1)
Short stick? (Score:1)
Now that the year 2000 is upon us, most people's sticks have shrunk - the "future" is much nearer now and has become more opaque.
My question is, do you feel that having constant access to all these ideas and short-term futures - a consequence of the Internet, I suppose - is blinding most people to genuinely new and farseeing ideas? Not that there aren't people succeeding; besides yourself, David Brin and Greg Benford come to mind.
Old & New Questions (Score:1)
The Hacker Crackdown.
Was the OSS of that novel worth it? What hassle did you go through with the publishers? Did it convince them to change their opinions - I myself grabbed it from a friend, but now keep a copy of the freeware version on my desktop.
Slashdot
How do you feel about being a
Is there a sequel for heavy weather coming? Did the world get trashed?
answer what you like...
Are you planning follow-up Heavy Weather? (Score:1)
Follow-up to this may interest those seeing in part, your near term story line rendered into reality. Are you thinking of writing up more fact or fiction along these lines? What do you think of Net Heads using your books to develop new stuff? More than a few storm chasers use the above mentioned radar system with cell phones, laptops and assorted mobile gear to seek storms. Dan
How was Burning Man this year? (Score:1)
How do you think the press should be handled?
Do you think video cameras remove the operator from the immediate experience? If so, how can one avoid that? What can we do about BM porn ending up on eBay, or should we care?
What do you think about it now vs., say, 1994?
Did you see JC Superstar by Mark Pesce, Toni Parisi (of VRML fame), and Paul Godwin?
What were your favorite parties/events/art pieces? Who were the coolest camps? Were you with HAmlet (Austinites)?
Fiyaaaaaaaa on da playa!
Re:No more 'Whoa'? (Score:1)
I go "Whoa" when a cool idea that's been around a while, actually becomes physical reality. It's one thing to see a possible future, but when it's actually in front of your face it's pretty wild. From Sci-Fi to theory to experimental lab to reality.
Like hand transplants. Or head transplants. Or enough bandwidth to download images on a page without waiting minutes or hours on a 2400 baud modem. Now *that* is cool.
Re:"Viridian Movement"? someone tell me more! (Score:1)
http://www.well.com/mirrorshades/viridian/
Schismatrix coming true... (Score:1)
What is the future of intellectual property? (Score:1)
I mean, within a decade or two it will 'seem' to be simpler and less time consuming to purchase the encrypted, static equivalent of a large size library and keep it with you in a wearable PC or somesuch. Reading material on it would require a microtransaction to unencrypt it via the PKI. Just cram a good chunk of the world's most desirable static data (Homer in XML, etc.) in a crystalline microstructure and copy it a few billion times. No need to cache most documents in webservers/webclients anymore as they are local. It is the links between the documents that are dynamic.
The network would only be used for new or dynamic data, such as unlocking a book out of the library chunk or finding out the current UV levels at the North Pole.
Ok, I'm rambling. Caffeinated and I really enjoy yr stuff.
Do you think the powers that be will try to stop this from happening? Or do you think they will bless it? Or do you think that hackers will eventually break the encryption anyway? Don't you think the powers that be would want to put together their ideas of the world's most 'useful/needed' data?
So how good a doomsayer are you Bruce? (Score:1)
Vulture
Austin, Texas
Personally I've read BS's writings and treat them all (fiction and non-fiction) as worst case scenarios.
Re:"Viridian Movement"? someone tell me more! (Score:1)
i put up the speach at:
http://www.spack.org/essays/viridian.html
The Cyberpunk Genre (Score:1)
I ask because among the main three authors (well, to my opinion: yourself, William Gibson and Neal Stephenson), there is little common ground except for technology, and that's not even always true. What defines a book of the 'cyberpunk' genre (if there is such a thing)?
Sam Jooky
http://www.worldwidemart.com/sapienza/s alad [worldwidemart.com]
Geek toys (Score:1)
Re:Stephenson opinion? (Score:1)
On Stephenson's novels:
Snow Crash was everything that William Gibson wish he'd written, and I imagine Gibson is feeling pretty threatend right about now, especially since he hasn't written a good book since Neuromancer. Virtual Light was the last Gibson book I purchased, and I won't be spending any more money on Mr. Gibson.
Diamond Age pretty much sucked in my opinion. The book's whole paradigm (ick, hate this word, but it's apt here) is centered around a "Victorian" future, mostly based in China (gag). Needless to say suspension of disbelief wasn't acheived in this novel.
Cryptonomicon was litterally the best sci-fi book I've ever read. And that's putting it in the company of Sturgeon, Heinlein, and Niven. Nobody today in any genre can touch this book. And that includes Orson Scott Card, who in my opinion peaked with Ender's Game, by the way, I'm already yawning a couple pages into Ender's Shadow. Card lost me when he ruined the ender series with Speaker for the Dead, I mean come on, it should have been called Ender the Pussy Goes to the Planet of the Pigs. Subsequent books in this series were equally lame.
If you have not purchased Cryptonomicon you are definately missing out. For you Linux geeks, Stephenson has done a nice job of selling the OS in this book, granted he calls it Finux for legal reasons (not sure why, not like Torvalds gives a crap about free publicity).
Holy Fire vs. Logan's Run (Score:1)
http://www.mp3.com/fudge/ [mp3.com]
Distraction and Slashdot (Score:1)
Re:Is Heavy Weather fact or fiction? (Score:1)
Do you mean life on earth, or human life when you say unsavable? Nothing is going to happen that Earth itself wont survive, at least not that humanity is likely to be around to see. Or are you thinking like a typical human in that no humanity == no earth?
The Hacker Crackdown (Score:1)
I read The Hacker Crackdown when I was in 8th grade, and it sparked my interest in the internet and in programming. You presented the stories of the people in such a great way, that made me want to learn what was going on in the world of computers.
Do you have any plans for a new edition, detailing some of the newer cases that have cropped up since you wrote the book in 1992?
Re:Is Heavy Weather fact or fiction? (Score:1)
It's typical of most biological life forms to be interested in their own survival more than the survival of others. See the Selfish Gene theory.
However, you got me. I should have been more specific and asked, "Is the Earth going to be able to support human life?"
Monica
The Ompages Project (Score:1)
Mr. Sterling,
Many volunteers have referenced your name in connection with the ompages project, not that you endorse the project but that the ideas expressed in the project's website evoke memories of ideas expressed in your works and/or the works in your annotated bibliography.
Please consider this proposal [ompages.com] and tell me, is this what you meant by "Islands on the Net"? What are the social and/or political ramifications of this kind of volunteerism? Thank you.
Nate
Re:How was Burning Man this year? (Score:1)
"Been there, done that, what's next" was the attitude I got from him when someone asked about BMxx
Damn... I didnt get to see the JCS show...
EyeZone/EyeBot @ 2:55 Mercury
(be sure and make the TikiBus benefit 10/16 and Helloween on 10/30 if you're in CenTex)
few questions (Score:1)
Not to mention Greg Egan (Score:1)
Neal Stephenson would also be a good choice.
Re:How was Burning Man this year? (Score:1)
Nope, I'm in SF, but transplanted from Houston, and accumulated a year or two in Austin. Have a great coupla parties!
A little story about a 3rd world country... (Score:1)
--
Re:The shape of future corporations (Score:1)
--
Hot in Austin (Score:1)
I recently read your speech to the Austin Software Council on the Greenhouse Effect, and the virtues of clean energy. You tell 'em! The brave new world economy crowd (Wired
But I fear that conservation measures will not be enough if the underlying problem of population growth isn't addressed. And in the U.S. that means immigration. What better place to take a stand than against the unprincipled ripoff of American programmers & engineers - the H1-B program. Foreign programmers are imported by the hundreds of thousands for a feigned shortage, driving down wages and forcing programmers out of the field. e.g.
http://slashdot.org/articles/99/08/03/1126238_F
This so some super rich can indulge their obsession with chasing Bill Gates, himself the number one supporter of H1-B.
Taking on immigration will make you unpopular in some circles (e.g., conservatives & liberals.) But while some people of conscience will use clean energy, you may have noticed that our SUVs are not getting any smaller, as the remaining oil is pumped from the ground to the air. (Coming next year, the Ford Exterminator, built on an authentic surplus Russian tank chassis! Safety Feature: in the event of an unfortunate collision with your neighbor, you are guaranteed to squash him like a bug!)
Are you ready to lead us from bondage, o cybersage, to the promised land
Doc Bones
Re:The Mirrorshades Movement in 2K (Score:1)
Q for Bruce Sterling (Score:1)
All the good questions have been asked e.g. about movies, technology, Shaper/Mechanist stories etc.
Schismatrix was superb, rich with ideas.I doubt if many directors would be able to make a good movie out of it, but Heavy Weather would be great as a film, IMO.
Any opinions about graphic novels, or plans to put any of your stories in that form?
Speaking for the unspeakable (Score:1)
questions for Bruce (Score:1)
Re:questions for Bruce (Score:1)
Got so wrapped up in what I was thinking that I forgot that these are HTML-formatted.
Please don't flame the newbies.
-b.
Economic bubble? (Score:1)
Is the US economy currently in a "bubble", similar to Japan a decade ago?
global warming, burning carbon, veridian (Score:1)
Slipstream? (Score:1)