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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."

11 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 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.

    2. 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.
    3. 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
  2. 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 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?
  3. "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.

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. 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?"

  7. Bad Metaphor by superid · · Score: 5, Funny

    A bad metaphor is like a leaky screwdriver.

    (shamelessly stolen from someone's /. sig)