William Gibson Gives Up on the Future 352
Tinkle writes "Sci-fi novelist William Gibson has given up trying to predict the future — because he says it's become far too difficult. In an interview with silicon.com, Gibson explains why his latest book is set in the recent past.
'We hit a point somewhere in the mid-18th century where we started doing what we think of technology today and it started changing things for us, changing society. Since World War II it's going literally exponential and what we are experiencing now is the real vertigo of that — we have no idea at all now where we are going."
"Will global warming catch up with us? Is that irreparable? Will technological civilization collapse? There seems to be some possibility of that over the next 30 or 40 years or will we do some Verner Vinge singularity trick and suddenly become capable of everything and everything will be cool and the geek rapture will arrive? That's a possibility too.'"
Re:always be a "???" (Score:3, Informative)
A human brain has ~100 billion neurons.
Re:I.J. Good & The Suspension of Disbelief (Score:5, Informative)
Re:become? (Score:3, Informative)
And Stephenson's Baroque Cycle is a monument to how much fun that can be. I mean, how many novels get to have a thorough explanation of the origin and evolution of international banking, swashbuckling scenes involving Barbary pirates, a wide range of um... occasionally unorthodox intimate antics, and a chase scene involving Our Hero barely escaping through the Mines Of This-Ain't-Your-Daddy's-Moria while being chased by wacked out Teutonic pagans stoked on psychedelic mushrooms, and ending up in a phospohorous-decorated scene right out of Scooby Doo, only involving a hot chick that's smarter than most of her fans, and who hangs out with world-changing philosophers and scientists while longing for the identity and demise of the slave-owning, rotten-fish-eating villain that stole her as a child and whose son she unknowingly marries as a facade behind which to extend her reach into the pockets and policies of European aristocracy? Did I mention Isaac Newton being brought back from the mostly dead? Sci-fi, schmi-fi!
Re:Sounds like a cop out to me (Score:4, Informative)
I think a few things happen as people get older (and I'm about 30 now, so take that for what it's worth): They've learned that the promise of a golden future is an empty promise, especially for people who grew up in the 70s and 80s. They realize that their parents were actual people who had babies, as opposed to mythical, ever-present beings. And, if they've had even the smallest taste of history, they realize that we're doing the same stupid things over and over, and the best chance of finding our way out is to learn from the mistakes of our predecessors, and figure out what we can do differently. In the US at least, history is typically taught as little more than a collection of meaningless dates; anything but interesting. When you start to dig down into who these people really were, what their lives were like, and what they accomplished, it becomes much more entertaining, interesting, and informative. For all of those reasons, history can be very appealing.
Aside from that, much of science fiction borrows heavily from history, intentionally or otherwise. Clearly Firefly is the Wild West. Star Wars is the American Revolution with Taoist philosophy. The Matrix revisits the question of Plato's Cave. Contact also explores The Cave (what is real?) and Nietzsche's philosophy. BSG is not unlike the Biblical story of the Israelites, except with Cylons instead of Egyptians, and Roman Mythology instead of Judaism. And SG-1 is trite crap. (Sorry, just had to throw that in). Many of these works are valid and entertaining in their own right, but with the proper context they can be even more enjoyable.
Re:I.J. Good & The Suspension of Disbelief (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I.J. Good & The Suspension of Disbelief (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Welcome to Marxism 101 (Score:3, Informative)
Really? And which Marx did you read? Groucho?
It's true that a key difference between Marx and Lenin was Lenin's insistence that a revolutionary vanguard could guide a country into socialism without a well developed capitalism - in fact Marx wrote in The German Ideology that an economy well developed enough that redistribution would not cause need as a prerequisite for socialism or "the same shit would just start all over again" (paraphrased).
The difference being that Marx' believed that there were necessary prerequisites, and that revolution could not just happen at just any time and be successful.
But to say that Marx never advocated revolution or resource distribution means you can't have read much of Marx' works.
I quote, for example, from the Communist Manifesto, chapter 2:
"The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all other proletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat."
"The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products, that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few."
All of his adult life Marx' was actively involved in political movements agitating for revolution and redistribution of wealth. Large parts of his writings were intended as practical political work far more than any attempt at developing theory - The Communist Manifesto being the prime example, but also other text like Critique of the Gotha Programme.
I do agree with you that there's a huge difference between Marx' careful analysis and Lenin who often took significant shortcuts in the interest of pushing forward whether or not it was the right thing to do, but that does not mean Marx' didn't want revolution. He wanted revolution at the right time, and even then because he saw it as inevitable rather than something to be desired - he expected that any attempt at peaceful transition of power when there was majority support for communist policies would still be attempted stopped by force.
Re:Not so hard, really (Score:3, Informative)
Don't know where you were, If you look at the census data [census.gov] you will see that almost 20% of Manhattan's population is under the age of 18. All I know is that I can't walk down the sidewalk without dodging mom's and dad's and their damn strollers.
And, don't worry: the end of the petroleum economy will radically change the American landscape. It's already happening in some areas. Atlanta, for instance, has seen big increase in people moving away from the 'burbs and into the city center to get away from long commutes and having to own a car.
Re:always be a "???" (Score:3, Informative)
There is no science that indicates that this is even slightly likely. We have every reason to think that the brain obeys the physics that everything else has turned out to obey, and no reason to think otherwise at this point in time.
I'll consider your brain-as-uber-thang ideas when you get some evidence to support them. So far, everything points to electrical, chemical, physical architecture, and possibly quantum structures and activities as the brain's underlying base "technologies", as it were. So until or unless you can produce said evidence, you get to enjoy the status of "crackpot", pretty much right along the lines of astrologers, religionists, and crystal gazers. :-)