Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Bruce Sterling's Final Prediction

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the so-long-Nostradamus dept.

In Bruce Sterling's final column for Wired, he summarizes the output of a survey of Net prognosticators conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. The piece is peppered with Sterling's trademarked stop-you-in-your-tracks imagery. An example: "The bubble-era vision of a Utopian Internet is dented and dirty... The Lexus has collided with the olive tree, and its crumpled hulk spins in a ditch as the orchard smolders."

31 of 162 comments (clear)

  1. Batshit Insane by 19thNervousBreakdown · · Score: 5, Funny

    "The bubble-era vision of a Utopian Internet is dented and dirty... The Lexus has collided with the olive tree, and its crumpled hulk spins in a ditch as the orchard smolders."

    This metaphor is a can of Pringles, and its vigor is enhanced by venomous ducks that flip it daily with a caterpillar that just won't shut up.

    Seriously... what?

    --
    <xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
    1. Re:Batshit Insane by CaffeineAddict2001 · · Score: 2, Informative

      It made perfect sense to me. "The Lexus and the Olive Tree" isn't that obscure a reference. Wasn't this book a bestseller?

    2. Re:Batshit Insane by Ed+Avis · · Score: 2, Funny

      Come back Jon Katz! We miss you!

      --
      -- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
    3. Re:Batshit Insane by Zen · · Score: 2, Funny

      Nah, wrong genre. It was music, and it was "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" (KT Tunstall)

    4. Re:Batshit Insane by Bastian · · Score: 4, Informative

      It was a book on globalization that came out several years back. The book-a-minute version I'd give for it is, "You can't stop globalization, but that's OK, because might makes right." The author tries to argue that the modern incarnation of free-market capitalism is a Good Thing, basically a remix of the old "rising tide that lifts all boats" combined with the pollyannaish implication that it must be good simply because it's happening.

      There were a few good points in there, but all in all I think that deep down inside The Lexus and the Olive Tree there was a clear and concise essay screaming to get out and being smothered by 200 pages of ad-hoc musings that were thrown in as filler.

    5. Re:Batshit Insane by Dun+Malg · · Score: 4, Funny

      THe orchard-lexus metaphor is one of many literary constructs in its time-honored genre:

      "Is there anything more beautiful than a beautiful, beautiful flamingo, flying across in front of a beautiful sunset? And he's carrying a beautiful rose in his beak, and also he's carrying a very beautiful painting with his feet. And also, you're drunk."
      -- Jack Handey

      "Love is like racing across the frozen tundra on a snowmobile which flips over, trapping you underneath. At night, the ice-weasels come."
      -- Matt Groening

      Unfortunately, I don't think Mr Sterling was trying to be funny.

      --
      If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
    6. Re:Batshit Insane by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yet, it still doesn't. The book centers around the Lexus -- globalization -- and the olive tree -- tradition. I don't see how the Internet as it is today has anything to do with the collision of the Lexus and the olive tree. In my mind, the Internet is a $70,000 4.7L V8-powered 4WD Lexus LX SUV mowing down the entire olive tree orchard, while the trees scream in protest. Either that it's just a bunch of tubes, I haven't figured out which...

      --
      My blog
    7. Re:Batshit Insane by Bastian · · Score: 3, Informative

      I should clarify. The book was, more or less, trying to argue that the whole globalization package - not gust the general idea of the world opening up, but all of the details of how it is happening right now - is optimal.

      While pretty much everyone agrees that the general idea of globalization is good, there's still some room for debate over whether the particulars of how its happening are actually benefitting impoverished regions or if it's just forcing them into a "race to the bottom" (and possibly dragging developed and developing nations along for the ride, too). The situation with the garment industry in Cambodia is a current popular conversation topic along this line.

      I guess a (stretched) analogy would be that while it's good to let some fresh air into your house, knocking out the windows with bricks isn't necessarily the best way to do it.

    8. Re:Batshit Insane by NDPTAL85 · · Score: 2, Funny

      The only alternatives promote nothing but misery. So if someone prefers misery as opposed to prosperity then yes I guess you are right. No issue ever has 100% agreement afterall.

      --
      Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
  2. A Question In Parting by Giant+Ape+Skeleton · · Score: 3, Funny
    That column leaves me with one question for Bruce:

    Who is your meth dealer, and does he make house calls?

    --
    The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
    1. Re:A Question In Parting by jrwr00 · · Score: 2, Funny

      I don't even think meth can fuck you up that badly

      --
      WulframII - Free Online Mutiplayer 3D Tank Shooting Game
  3. IMHO by El+Cabri · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Wired is an overrated collection of BS. I read it for a while during the bubble extasia, found it was crap, stopped reading it. I picked up an issue (that one with the atheists) a few weeks ago to see if it had matured : in my opinion it has not. People who write for Wired should get out and do something useful.

    1. Re:IMHO by pubjames · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Wired is an overrated collection of BS.

      Wired was great once. It went down hill when the internet bubble started to grow and money went to their heads, and then went downhill as it became a catalogue of the latest gadgets to buy and puff-pieces about Hollywood movies. Until about 1996 or 7, it rocked.

    2. Re:IMHO by esconsult1 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Wired still rocks. Sometimes.

      I find myself traveling around once per month, and its the one zine that you can totally engross yourself if you have no interruptions for an hour or so. Science. Technology. Culture. Totally directed to the geek technorati, and one of the last bastions of the long-form tech article that you'll find anywhere.

      The writing is a little less cocky and in-your-face since the last few months, and that's a good thing. They've started to report more on the subject of the articles instead of telling us readers what's good for us. A subtle shift, but well overdue.

      Overall I'll keep my subscription going.

      --

      Newsfollow.com

    3. Re:IMHO by Dun+Malg · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Wired is an overrated collection of BS. I read it for a while during the bubble extasia, found it was crap, stopped reading it. I picked up an issue (that one with the atheists) a few weeks ago to see if it had matured : in my opinion it has not. People who write for Wired should get out and do something useful. Same here. I read it Way Back When, and now (unfortunately) we ended up with a subscription when my wife was forced to chose something as part of subscribing to Salon.com. I tried to read the first issue last night. You can't tell where the ads start and the over-graphic-ized articles begin. There's still too few words, too much "artsy" blank space. The only difference is that now there they have more ads than they used to. It's pretty much all crap. Plus the stink of the ink fumes gave me a headache after 20-odd pages.
      --
      If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
    4. Re:IMHO by twifosp · · Score: 5, Insightful
      People who write for Wired should get out and do something useful.
      What, like post on Slashdot criticizing other people's work, rather than creating something of your own?
    5. Re:IMHO by siegesama · · Score: 2, Insightful

      seconded. Also, the gp falsely assumes that posting on slashdot and other forms of creativity are mutually exclusive.

      --
      what the hell is a 'junk character', anyway?
  4. "lexus and olive tree" Is a Tom Friedman reference by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Thomas Friedman used this visualization in a book I read about 4 years ago on Globalization. Wikipedia it.

  5. The synopsis holds true... by PingSpike · · Score: 2, Funny

    Most people do stop in their tracks when they suffer an unstoppable urge to vomit.

  6. English 2.0 by dintech · · Score: 4, Funny

    The bubble-era vision of a Utopian Internet is dented and dirty... The Lexus has collided with the olive tree, and its crumpled hulk spins in a ditch as the orchard smolders.

    I think he's using that new-fangled English 2.0 thingy.

  7. Lexus and the Olive Tree by CubeRootOf · · Score: 5, Informative

    This refers to toms friedmans book ' Lexus vs the Olive Tree ' or close, look it up - its a good book.

    Here is the summary:

    The Lexus represents modern life, aka - globalization, the internet, computers etc etc, and our love for these things and conveinces which make our lives better.

    The Olive Tree is our long standing traditions, communities, churches, families, the ties that bind us to each other and to the places we live.

    I have not RTFA, but from the summary, I can see this guy is a good writer... although he does lean somewhat heavily on an informed audience.

    This metaphor is actually pretty good - Our modern culture is clashing with our values, and its not pretty. Video game violence legislation, computure monotiring etc etc, all of the things we rail about on slashdot... the majority of them are a direct result of this clash.

    Read the book, and understand your world better.

    Don't read the book, trash authors because you don't get it, and look like an idiot.

    1. Re:Lexus and the Olive Tree by Bastian · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Of course 'The Lexus vs. The Sword' doesn't sound quite right

      Probably because a pathological obsession with violence isn't the exclusive provice of "olive tree" people.

    2. Re:Lexus and the Olive Tree by Wicked+Zen · · Score: 3, Insightful

      While the original metaphor of the Lexus versus the olive tree might have been good, Sterling's reference to it is not. It is common in poor writers reference good work in an effort to make one's own seem better than it is.

      "The Lexus has collided with the olive tree,"

      Fine. He ought to have stopped right there.

      "...and its crumpled hulk spins in a ditch as the orchard smolders."

      Appalling. This Lexus has collided with an olive tree so violently that it has got the orchard (not just the tree) smoldering while the vehicle itself, now a crumpled hulk, is still spinning in a ditch. What got the smoldering staerted? Did the gas tank rupture and spew already-burning fuel all over it? It just doesn't make sense. Mr. Sterling has taken a perfectly apt metaphor and mangled it.

      How one can draw the conclusion from this bit of tortured writing that the "guy is a good writer," I loath to guess. Taking that point of view, I would suppose that every movie that has a character utter "Here's looking at you kid," is a good one. It simply isn't the case.

    3. Re:Lexus and the Olive Tree by uxo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's a poor metaphor if you can't understand it unless you've read the book. Consider "a rose is a rose": it's a great metaphor, but if you've never read Shakespeare you'd have no idea what is implied by it.

      But you don't have to have read Stephen King's "Pet Sematary" to comprehend "The soil of a man's heart is stonier!"

      I think I'll "understand [my] world better" if I read Milton Friedman (the economist) in lieu of Thomas Friedman (the journalist).

  8. Somewhere out there by CaffeineAddict2001 · · Score: 5, Funny

    "The bubble-era vision of a Utopian Internet is dented and dirty... The Lexus has collided with the olive tree, and its crumpled hulk spins in a ditch as the orchard smolders..."

    William Gibson and Chuck Palahniuk are saying to themselves: "Oh god, *I* don't sound like that, do I?"

  9. Prediction not in TFA by DaveCar · · Score: 2, Funny


    In the future, "Wired" will not suck.

    I think I still have some early vintage copies from when it first got published in the UK (~1995?). Any takers?

    No, thought not.

  10. translation by bomb_number_20 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I got it! I got it! Here's my interpretation of his little... interpretation...

    The internet is the olive tree. In the bubble, people thought the internet was going to solve everything- probably even cure cancer. Overall, techies saw it as a great equalizer, bringing 'peace' and 'equality' to the world. Still with me?

    The Lexus is big business, big money and big investments, turning the internet into tv and basically ruining it while squabbling with one another over who gets to 'own' whatever part of things.

    The Lexus colliding with the olive tree is the clash of ideals between how corporations think the internet should be run and, you know, the rest of us.

    He sounds pretty pissed off and worn out to me. I can't say I blame him, though.

    Of course, I didn't even read TFA.

    --
    That's ok, Jesus likes me anyway.
  11. Bad Metaphor by superid · · Score: 5, Funny

    A bad metaphor is like a leaky screwdriver.

    (shamelessly stolen from someone's /. sig)

  12. Wrong Bruce! by CheeseTroll · · Score: 3, Informative

    This just in: there are >1 persons named Bruce.

    This is Bruce Sterling, the sci-fi author, not Bruce Perens, the OSS advocate.

    --
    A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
  13. Come on people by COMON$ · · Score: 2, Informative
    Lexus and the Olive tree

    are slashdotters really this lazy?....wait dont answer that.

    Let me introduce you all to a site you may have heard of in passing. Wikipedia, you should check it out sometime. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lexus_and_the_Oli ve_Tree

    --
    CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
    1. Re:Come on people by jimmichie · · Score: 2, Informative
      are slashdotters really this lazy?....wait dont answer that.
      Too late.

      It's nothing to do with being lazy. It's a case of having to know the answer to know there is even a question. The reference is obscure and many people will not have heard of it, and you can refer people to the source without being a smarmy git.

      I'm new here, aren't I?