Interview with Bruce Sterling

kpost writes "Reason magazine has an interview with Bruce Sterling." Fairly lengthy and entertaining interview for you bookworms out there. Covers a lot of different subjects.

Comments

I love this guy

[Tirel]

I particularly liked this Q&A:

reason: We're still seeing technological progress, at least in terms of tools. Some of us have DVD burners in our laptops, when not too long ago we couldn't imagine burning CDs. Content providers are freaking out about this because people are able to make their own product, or duplicate other people's product.

Sterling: I'm not really all that interested in what Hollywood does with its stuff. I mean, they're only the size of the porn industry. I think the real revolution is in industrial production. It's about manipulating factory processes, it's about mass customization, it's about a revolution in industry that gets the toxins out of the air and is more efficient by, say, a factor of four than what we had. When that happens we'll have a genuinely new world. Playing movies off handhelds, that's not really that big of a deal.

He is right to the point, it doesn't really matter what the RIAA, MPAA and their cronies do, they surely can't stop us, it might have worked in the past, but now we control the information paths and they can't do anything except scare those who haven't got access to the sources of information that we do.

I wish more people like him were in politics, that way maybe we'd be better off.

He's also one hell of a writer.

Great quote...

[_PimpDaddy7_]

"I'm not really all that interested in what Hollywood does with its stuff. I mean, they're only the size of the porn industry."

I think that says it all :)

The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse

[burgburgburg]

That's funny, but the thing that's peculiar about it is there was always a dark side. There was always the porn/mafia/drug dealer/pedophilia aspect -- the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

Wow. I hadn't recognized that pr0n is not only comparable to organized crime, drug dealing and child abuse but was also an explicit indicator of the end times. I was thought it was one of the main reasons there WAS an internet in the first place.

Another new (ongoing) Sterling interview

[kreinsch]

There is also Bruce's yearly visit to the Well's Inkwell.vue: The 2004 Bruce Sterling State of the World Address.

And, don't forget Bruce's new weblog at Wired: Beyond the Beyond.

Re:Would make sense to tell us who he is...

[AndroidCat]

If you really have no idea who he is, start this book and get up to speed.

Playing movies is no big deal...

[Per Abrahamsen]

... but experimenting with technology is. Palladium and similar technologies which are largely motivated by the desire to prevent us from unautorized playing movies, may as a side effect prevent us from experimenting with technology. If we can only run authorized programs, plug in authorized hardware, and browse authorized content, how can we experiment with new programs, new hardware or new content?

I know it's so terribly un/. of me, but

[argStyopa]

I keep reading Sterling hoping to see what all the rest of you are apparently seeing, but all I get it someone deeply, deeply in love with hearing his own clever ideas, usually couched in some nebulously sardonic comment that makes it oh-so-hip.

Some random snippets...
"Socially, policy makers have made a series of choices very similar to what preceded the collapse into World War I."
Huh? Like?

"we've really turned our backs on a world that could have been pleasant, delight-ful, peaceful, and technocratic. Now we face a world that is religious, narrow-minded, fundamentalist, and violent."
This is precisely the sort of vapid utopianism that begs so many questions it's meaningless. Really? How did "we" turn our backs on it Bruce?

"Sure, we hate Exxon because they're huge and they're everywhere." Personally, it seems a little L.Ron Hubbard-y to contrive a eco-social movement with designated hate subjects, if not downright Nineteenth Century. Wouldn't it be more intrinsically interesting to try to understand the reflexive envy in a society that's not all that zero-sum anymore? Doesn't Bruce feel some irony in poking at Ellison's "proper" enemies, when his own cachet cows look as stereotypically sacred as anyone elses?

I dunno. He's just got this 'end of history' thing cooking, looking for the McGuffin in a story that's just a stream-of-consciousness monologue. He keeps trying to refer to "the real story" or the very-much-italicized "truth", but I don't see how he manages it with a straight face. Maybe he's laughing all the way to the bank. I still cannot find the kernel of tangibility he seems to keep flourishing.

It's probably just me.

Mass customization

[wytcld]

... it's about mass customization ...

Work up this morning from a dream in which I was framing a /. submission on the question of why car manufacturers aren't aren't offering fully modularlized vehicles - sort of like you start with a front end option, add a drive-train option, add a rear option (so you get a lot of Ranchero-like hybrids). The best profits are in the vehicles people see more utility in (like pickup trucks) - this way you see more utility for you.

Maybe the carmakers are afraid that such modular creations wouldn't have as much brand identity, that the brand would effectively be more the individual customer than the manufacturer. But why should that matter if it sells? And think about the downstream revenue - get in a fender-bender, just replace that module - less work for repair shops, more orders to the factory.