Sci-fi writer Bruce Sterling opens the conference with his more realistic appreciation of futurists: most of the good things that happen to us on this planet happen because we make it out of bed in the morning. It's not plausible to say that some huge wonderful things will happen in 2008. "2008 is a crap year."
Global warming will not be solved in 2008. Technology is fast-moving, reckless even, but is it really exciting to watch? Is it entertaining to watch Microsoft speed past Google. Not really. Gates left Microsoft because it was so boring.
Technology threatens to overwhelm us unless we have the correct analytical tools and capacities to understand its content. Without them we'll know it's important, we'll know it's powerful, but we'll never know why and we'll never understand why politicians trying to control the net are oh so very wrong.
(At this point, Sterling burst into a wonderful wandering tirade on the Peer-2-Peer-thrashing French President and his new bride Carla, the dangers of the imblance between Ambition and Publicity... I didn't get the segway, but it was jolly entertaining.)
Loved it! The whole Sarkozi/Bruni situation is so far away from the way French politicians behaved, that I was actually wondering what next!? Sterling gave some good options. Wondering if a tv series will be made ...
Posted by: Caroline Cassels | February 08, 2008 at 09:59 AM