The WELL: inkwell.vue.234: Bruce Sterling: State of the World 2005

#74: Bruce Sterling (jonl) Sat 15 Jan 05 04:26

Sat, 15 Jan 2005 04:26:00 PST

(from jonl: I sent Kamrat Tupko's message to Bruce via email, and got this response:)

I have a bunch of questions for you.

*Those sure are a lot! I'm now in California and being overwhelmed with administrivia -- I need a to-do list just for my to-do lists.

First one concerns media. You say 'an email list at all seems kind of archaic now'. But it seems that with your list you obtain a different feel, flavour, style, and thus effect than with your blog for instance.

*Yessss?

And when you ask 'why not RSS feed?' this reminds me of a time when you said that there will be no RSS feeds on your blog and we all have to live with it.

*My blog's run by Tripod! Live with THAT!

So what's your take on this now, maybe not on RSS itself, but on the general craziness with all sorts of online publishing schemes. I could ask, "Why don't you start posting to a wiki??", I guess. I felt once that with your blog you were saying that such issues don't really matter. But I'm not so sure anymore.

*It's all about "cognitive loads" and "opportunity costs." I could explain that, but, well, first it's too hard to think about, and, uh, I'm busy doing something else right now.

But I'd rather ask, on this subject, what are you doing with your blog?

*At the moment, it seems to be mostly, uh, therapy.

That is, what is its flavour, style, feel and thus effect?

Flavour: astringent Style: autodidactic hodgepodge Feel: radically and globally scattered Effect: I get a surprising amount of sympathetic email

Answering my own question (!), I think that you are doing an utterly crazy thing: you are showing us that the Internet, once thought of as so strange by being detached from the world, is actually rather a receptacle for the strangeness that's already here, in the world, and it's evenly distributed!

*What's crazy about THAT? It's dead obvious!

I see you doing this with your musica globalista section, with your MMORPGing guestblogger, with your shots of Milan and Balkan. But then, I would ask, don't you worry this is skin deep, that this is a level of experiencing different cultures comparable to feeling very multicultural because you dine at a different ethnic restaurant each day?

*I'm in Los Angeles, man! People here do that routinely!

I remember you posting about obscure Polish movies and, with all due respect, was unsure how close that got anyone to getting that stuff (as in the phrase, 'get it?') - if that ever was the goal.

*Watch that movie! I promise I understand modern Poland!

Or is the blog just your wunderkammer, of the sort proposed by Dery, whom you recently linked to? This pushing of an non-American world through the blog to a presumably mostly American audience

*Why presume that, "Kamrat Tupko"?

I see it as a counterpoint to situations like this conversation, where the subject is 'state of the world' but the talk often slips to highly local issues located somewhere between Austin and Hollywood Hills. How curious!

*The specific IS the universal, man!

You seem to be saying, beware, the Internet is the world is the crazy great different place about the existence of which one might forget!!! Is that it, do you feel Internauts in the US need to be reminded that there are great, crazy, popular things going and they nevertheless have no idea that they exist?

*OF COURSE I want to tell people about crap they never heard of before! I'm a science fiction writer, I'm not some *&*^$%% televangelist!

But what interests me the most is you and Eastern Europe. What's your take on the region?

*"Transition To Nowhere."

I notice you spend a lot of time in the Balkans, which to me are a mix of Yugonostalgia, war craziness and new media savvy. They are so lucky, with all their media centers.

*And those war criminals and the cruise missile damage, man, who couldn't envy 'em?

And the further North you go, the less of them you see, and once you get to Poland

*Been there.

things in the 'getting the new media' category start to look quite bleak. And then there's the Baltic and you have to stop.

*One word: "E-Stonia."

We're the country with the most expensive telephone and internet connection prices in Europe, maybe even in the world? So I'd like to know what's your take on the Balkan affinity with the new media. Smart people say Poland is so big, agricultural, catholic and traditional that the situation is quite hopeless. It's hard for us to learn from places like the US, but maybe there's a lesson to be learnt closer, in the Balkans?

*Just jail some mafiosi and keep your birth rate up! You'll pull through! Just thank the Pope's God that you're not Russia, Ukraine or Belarus!

And then there's the environment. Would you agree that that's an even more hopeless issue to deal with in Eastern Europe? What is the right style, do you have a bag of tricks for preaching Viridianism in Eastern Europe?

*Stay tuned... [Read entire topic]

#73: Emily J. Gertz (emilyg) Fri 14 Jan 05 12:40

Fri, 14 Jan 2005 12:40:00 PST

Wow. Truly hope Bruce circles back around to answer even a tenth of that!

"...the Internet, once thought of as so strange by being detached from the world, is actually rather a receptacle for the strangeness that's already here..." is a lovely observation.

A lot of us got quite invested in the idea of the internet as an "other space," back in the 1990s.

But I was wrong. Things are really getting interesting *now* when it's becoming a utility intead of an oddity. [Read entire topic]

#72: from KAMRAT TUPKO (tnf) Fri 14 Jan 05 11:47

Fri, 14 Jan 2005 11:47:00 PST

Kamrat Tupko writes:

Dear Bruce,

I have a bunch of questions for you.

First one concerns media. You say 'an email list at all seems kind of archaic now'. But it seems that with your list you obtain a different feel, flavour, style, and thus effect than with your blog for instance. And when you ask 'why not RSS feed?' this reminds me of a time when you said that there will be no RSS feeds on your blog and we all have to live with it. So what's your take on this now, maybe not on RSS itself, but on the general craziness with all sorts of online publishing schemes. I could ask, "Why don't you start posting to a wiki??", I guess. I felt once that with your blog you were saying that such issues don't really matter. But I'm not so sure anymore.

But I'd rather ask, on this subject, what are you doing with your blog? That is, what is its flavour, style, feel and thus effect? Answering my own question (!), I think that you are doing an utterly crazy thing: you are showing us that the Internet, once thought of as so strange by being detached from the world, is actually rather a receptacle for the strangeness that's already here, in the world, and it's evenly distributed! I see you doing this with your musica globalista section, with your MMORPGing guestblogger, with your shots of Milan and Balkan. But then, I would ask, don't you worry this is skin deep, that this is a level of experiencing different cultures comparable to feeling very multicultural because you dine at a different ethnic restaurant each day? I remember you posting about obscure Polish movies and, with all due respect, was unsure how close that got anyone to getting that stuff (as in the phrase, 'get it?') - if that ever was the goal. Or is the blog just your wunderkammer, of the sort proposed by Dery, whom you recently linked to? This pushing of an non-American world through the blog to a presumably mostly American audience, I see it as a counterpoint to situations like this conversation, where the subject is 'state of the world' but the talk often slips to highly local issues located somewhere between Austin and Hollywood Hills. How curious! You seem to be saying, beware, the Internet is the world is the crazy great different place about the existence of which one might forget!!! Is that it, do you feel Internauts in the US need to be reminded that there are great, crazy, popular things going and they nevertheless have no idea that they exist?

But what interests me the most is you and Eastern Europe. What's your take on the region? I notice you spend a lot of time in the Balkans, which to me are a mix of Yugonostalgia, war craziness and new media savvy. They are so lucky, with all their media centers. And the further North you go, the less of them you see, and once you get to Poland, things in the 'getting the new media' category start to look quite bleak. And then there's the Baltic and you have to stop. We're the country with the most expensive telephone and internet connection prices in Europe, maybe even in the world? So I'd like to know what's your take on the Balkan affinity with the new media. Smart people say Poland is so big, agricultural, catholic and traditional that the situation is quite hopeless. It's hard for us to learn from places like the US, but maybe there's a lesson to be learnt closer, in the Balkans?

And then there's the environment. Would you agree that that's an even more hopeless issue to deal with in Eastern Europe? What is the right style, do you have a bag of tricks for preaching Viridianism in Eastern Europe?

Yours,

Tupko. [Read entire topic]

#71: from JOSH ELLIS (tnf) Wed 12 Jan 05 10:17

Wed, 12 Jan 2005 10:17:00 PST

Josh Ellis writes:

I wish I'd known you were coming through Vegas. I would have bought you lunch in thanks for sending my Kangol hat back to me after I drunkenly left it at your house last SxSW bash.

I've been thinking a lot about this whole notion of America collapsing with a whimper, not a bang; I've been reading a good bit about Rome recently as research for a novel, and I'm fascinated by the way that the Empire basically sputtered out when Constantine moved things to Byzantium. (I'm also quite interested in how the Byzantines managed to survive for almost 1100 years without making much of an impact on European culture, but that's a whole other conversation.)

Here's the thing: I'm having a very hard time reining in my pessimistic assumptions that Americans are so locked into our current modus operandi that we're going to be totally incapable of jettisoning all the stupid behaviors and habits that have gotten us where we are. (I gather Diamond's book is about these same ideas, I'm gonna pick it up tomorrow). I know a lot of people who have really neat ideas on living in a sustainable fashion, but for every smart kid getting his or her tax credit on with solar panels, there's two dozen more who really, really want an SUV that makes the Humvee look like a lil' red wagon. And as far as I can tell, these people seem goddamn near unreachable. They don't know, they don't care, and who the fuck are you to mess with the party, anyway?

I've always thought the most interesting thing about the Viridian movement is that it has the (presumably intentional) side effect of making sustainability sexy for consumers. My question is: do you, Bruce, see that as a primary way of reaching otherwise disinterested people? How do you get these folks to quit staring at the pretty bling bling and pay attention? Personally, I've about given up; I just ridicule them to amuse myself. But I'd like to believe there's a more constructive solution. Do you think it's possible for us to collectively hit the brakes? Or do you think we're going to have to have a nasty full-on collision before we wake the fuck up?

Also: you were talking about Americans being forced to live the way the rest of the world does. I lived in Turkey when I was a kid, which was a nice eye- opening experience for a disenfranchised son of suburbia. Do you think it would come right down to Kurdish-style encampments in Central California? I tend to think America is so chock full of consumer products that we'd have at least some sort of cushion -- Turks can't go down to Wal-Mart and buy ultralight ergonomically-designed six man pup tents, whereas we can. What sort of goofy post-imperialist scenario do you see as being most likely to play out in America?

Josh Ellis [Read entire topic]

#70: Sharon Lynne Fisher (slf) Mon 10 Jan 05 22:17

Mon, 10 Jan 2005 22:17:00 PST

That's a pretty frightening story. [Read entire topic]

#69: Autumn Storhaug (autumn) Mon 10 Jan 05 20:32

Mon, 10 Jan 2005 20:32:00 PST

I'd like to thank Dave Phelan for sending the link to the Clarke 'lecture.' I'm going to pick up The Atlantic tomorrow. [Read entire topic]

#68: Jon Lebkowsky (jonl) Mon 10 Jan 05 20:22

Mon, 10 Jan 2005 20:22:00 PST

The discussion will be here after you've unloaded, if you want to make your way back and continue. We were just getting warmed up. [Read entire topic]

#67: Bruce Sterling (bruces) Mon 10 Jan 05 19:18

Mon, 10 Jan 2005 19:18:00 PST

That's odd. A posting of mine vanished utterly. It was about my number one favorite Bollywood film, the cyberpunk technothriller QAYAMAT ("Apocalypse").

That must be a sign. I'm in Phoenix, Arizona right now. Tomorrow I'll be wading into flood-stricken Los Angeles. What with unloading the car and trying to get my academic ducks in a row, I can't imagine I'll have time to do this topic justice.

I have the intuition that 2005 is going to be a whole decade packed into a year. They say that education's very broadening; well, by 2006 I expect to be broader than a six-lane highway.

So long, and don't be a stranger. http://blog.wired.com/sterling/ [Read entire topic]

#66: Jamais Cascio, WorldChanger (cascio) Mon 10 Jan 05 16:01

Mon, 10 Jan 2005 16:01:00 PST

Those are quite lovely takedowns, too -- it's pretty clear that the real climate scientists at RealClimate have no tolerance for Crichton's bleatings. RealClimate is at the top of my RSS feed.

Although <jonl> and <emilyg> have quite ably represented WorldChanging here, let me offer my thanks and appreciation for your support of our efforts, Bruce.

Just as a note for you all -- my co-conspirator at WorldChanging, Alex Steffen, will be on stage with Bruce at South by SouthWest this March. They'll be giving a joint keynote. Should be a blast. [Read entire topic]

#65: Jon Lebkowsky (jonl) Mon 10 Jan 05 15:01

Mon, 10 Jan 2005 15:01:00 PST

Speaking of Crichton, the scientists at RealClimate made two posts analyzing his "State of Fear" arguments and pointing out the errors and omissions: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=74 http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=76 [Read entire topic]