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William Gibson says today’s internet is nothing like what he envisioned

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Re: William Gibson says today’s internet is nothing like what he envisioned

#31

Post by JohnJamesRambo »

Symmetry wrote: post #9

We're definitely in more of a Bruce Sterling cyberpunk future than a William Gibson cyberpunk future. Distraction has been feeling eerily prescient recently.

We are actually in the Mike Judge Idiocracy cyberpunk future and it terrifies me. Our president is a reality TV freak, the citizens are so science-retarded that they think Covid is a hoax, the population all sit in our homes watching testicle-kicking videos on huge TVs while drinking Mountain Dew and eating Cheetos while the world melts down outside.

Re: William Gibson says today’s internet is nothing like what he envisioned

#32

Post by metabagel »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #23

"And then I woke up the morning after the election, looked at my computer, and realized that the manuscript I'd been working on was actually set in 2017, but it had become a 2017 that no longer existed," he says. "And it was so organic, and so fractally complete a change that it just crushed me. I thought 'that's dead, that whole thing I'm working on.'" Honestly, if you were deeply, dramatically surprised by Trump's…

The election probably hinged on the handling of “her emails” by the FBI Director. I don’t see how anyone could have predicted the extent to which he would bungle that. His investigation found no wrong-doing, but he publicly excoriated her anyway. Then, he opened a new investigation, which again found nothing.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-comey-letter-probab...

Re: William Gibson says today’s internet is nothing like what he envisioned

#33

Post by Proven »

_red wrote: post #30
arkades wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But then it struck Gibson that he could save his manuscript by creating a future world in the year 2136 — a world in which 80 percent of the population has been wiped out by climate change, but also a world where characters time-travel to create an alternate past in which Clinton won the election. "After giving that only a few hours' thought, I realized that the world in which Hillary won wouldn't be a happy world…

>I don't see this as a pathetic premise. You might agree with the politics of it which could be clouding your vision (I'm not intending that as anyway critical). Sometimes it's helpful to view it from another angle: Imagine if back in 2015 I told you my big book idea was set in 2200 and was about a group of renegade patriots who traveled back in time to stop Obama getting elected because 80% of the population had bee…

Well said!

Re: William Gibson says today’s internet is nothing like what he envisioned

#34

Post by ceilingcorner »

metabagel wrote: post #32
ceilingcorner wrote: post #23

"And then I woke up the morning after the election, looked at my computer, and realized that the manuscript I'd been working on was actually set in 2017, but it had become a 2017 that no longer existed," he says. "And it was so organic, and so fractally complete a change that it just crushed me. I thought 'that's dead, that whole thing I'm working on.'" Honestly, if you were deeply, dramatically surprised by Trump's…

The election probably hinged on the handling of “her emails” by the FBI Director. I don’t see how anyone could have predicted the extent to which he would bungle that. His investigation found no wrong-doing, but he publicly excoriated her anyway. Then, he opened a new investigation, which again found nothing. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-comey-letter-probab...

1) The "FBI emails changed the election" narrative is a thesis, not a statement of fact. I seriously doubt the average person knew or cared about this. This sounds like the news media over-emphasizing their own relevance.

2) I don't think it really matters for the point I'm trying to make. Even if Hillary had won, the election would have been close, thus showing that the support for Trump's platform was still widespread. If he lost, we'd probably just see a different right-wing populist candidate arise in 2020. The issues that led to his rise would still exist, which is precisely my point.

Re: William Gibson says today’s internet is nothing like what he envisioned

#35

Post by justin66 »

_red wrote: post #30
arkades wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But then it struck Gibson that he could save his manuscript by creating a future world in the year 2136 — a world in which 80 percent of the population has been wiped out by climate change, but also a world where characters time-travel to create an alternate past in which Clinton won the election. "After giving that only a few hours' thought, I realized that the world in which Hillary won wouldn't be a happy world…

>I don't see this as a pathetic premise. You might agree with the politics of it which could be clouding your vision (I'm not intending that as anyway critical). Sometimes it's helpful to view it from another angle: Imagine if back in 2015 I told you my big book idea was set in 2200 and was about a group of renegade patriots who traveled back in time to stop Obama getting elected because 80% of the population had bee…

You're not well informed about the book and that makes your comments pretty painful to read, a problem which the radio clip obviously didn't remedy. Although in fairness to NPR, it's just radio, it's not exactly the New York Times Book Review.

> The notion that 120+ years in the future the world will have changed so little that its still follows the same MSNBC vs Fox News script of today borders on hubris.

Agency, and its' predecessor The Peripheral, are set both in (a version of, or more precisely multiple versions of) the present day or the very near future, and in the future. There's no way to not take the present day into account. But the politics of Gibson's future are not reminiscent of "MSNBC vs Fox News," if that makes you feel any better.

Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with what you are writing about.

Re: William Gibson says today’s internet is nothing like what he envisioned

#36

Post by ses1984 »

Nasrudith wrote: post #15
mcv wrote: post #3

> "the internet when he first conceived it, he thought it was a place that we would all leave the world and go to. Whereas in fact, it came here." Somehow this reminds me of the difference between various editions of Shadowrun , a cyberpunk-fantasy rolepalying game in a dystopian near future where magic and dragons returned (though the magic is irrelevant to my point here). In the earlier editions, from 1989 through…

There were also gameplay reasons behind that for flow. One of the criticisms of the newer model is that the needless connectivity without so much as a logistical benefit doesn't make the decker/hacker feel smart so much as make it feel like the world is set up by colossal idiots who would think giving the army hand grenades which are always remote detonatable without a manual safety fuse would be an excellent idea an…

Whoever paid for that grenade doesn't trust the soldier / mercenary they gave it to very far, that's why the network connection exists in the first place, hackers can exploit that.

At least that's the reason I just made up.

Re: William Gibson says today’s internet is nothing like what he envisioned

#37

Post by pjc50 »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #23

"And then I woke up the morning after the election, looked at my computer, and realized that the manuscript I'd been working on was actually set in 2017, but it had become a 2017 that no longer existed," he says. "And it was so organic, and so fractally complete a change that it just crushed me. I thought 'that's dead, that whole thing I'm working on.'" Honestly, if you were deeply, dramatically surprised by Trump's…

> The causes of working-class angst against globalism and coastal centers of power goes back to at least the late 70s, with the offshoring of jobs and the subsequent death of thousands of towns in the now-called Rust Belt.

So .. how's that working out?

> the realization that your model of history was so flawed that a new, surprising event wasn't actually unpredictable, but merely based on data you were ignorant of.

Iain M Banks calls this an "outside context problem" in Excession.

Re: William Gibson says today’s internet is nothing like what he envisioned

#38

Post by pjc50 »

bawana wrote: post #20
yellowbat wrote: post #17

The hacker spirit of the early Internet has been replaced by corporate shenanigans and capitalist greed. Just like "hacker" in "hacker news".

+1. I just watched Eric Weinstein on Lex Fridman's podcast. He is angry about how students have been emasculated by the establishment. That the death of Aaron Schwartz was a tragedy and the students should 'rise up and take back' MIT. Yet he himself has a net worth over 100mill and is doing nothing about it.He promises betterment through revolution like Batista and Castro, yet he himself is busy amassing wealth. Why…

This guy? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Weinstein

I can't understand why anyone would even begin to take calls for revolution from someone like that seriously, when he's so obviously a grifter.

Re: William Gibson says today’s internet is nothing like what he envisioned

#39

Post by jacobush »

_red wrote: post #30
arkades wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But then it struck Gibson that he could save his manuscript by creating a future world in the year 2136 — a world in which 80 percent of the population has been wiped out by climate change, but also a world where characters time-travel to create an alternate past in which Clinton won the election. "After giving that only a few hours' thought, I realized that the world in which Hillary won wouldn't be a happy world…

>I don't see this as a pathetic premise. You might agree with the politics of it which could be clouding your vision (I'm not intending that as anyway critical). Sometimes it's helpful to view it from another angle: Imagine if back in 2015 I told you my big book idea was set in 2200 and was about a group of renegade patriots who traveled back in time to stop Obama getting elected because 80% of the population had bee…

Maybe, but SciFi has always been great at discussing what happens at the time of writing.

Re: William Gibson says today’s internet is nothing like what he envisioned

#40

Post by ceilingcorner »

pjc50 wrote: post #37
ceilingcorner wrote: post #23

"And then I woke up the morning after the election, looked at my computer, and realized that the manuscript I'd been working on was actually set in 2017, but it had become a 2017 that no longer existed," he says. "And it was so organic, and so fractally complete a change that it just crushed me. I thought 'that's dead, that whole thing I'm working on.'" Honestly, if you were deeply, dramatically surprised by Trump's…

> The causes of working-class angst against globalism and coastal centers of power goes back to at least the late 70s, with the offshoring of jobs and the subsequent death of thousands of towns in the now-called Rust Belt. So .. how's that working out? > the realization that your model of history was so flawed that a new, surprising event wasn't actually unpredictable, but merely based on data you were ignorant of. I…

> So .. how's that working out?

How's what working out? I'm not in that demographic and I didn't vote for Trump, nor am I a Republican. I'm just detailing a phenomenon. The jury still seems to be out on whether Trump's Rust Belt base is benefiting from his policies, but the coronavirus may end up being more influential in returning jobs to the U.S. than anything the president could do.

> Iain M Banks calls this an "outside context problem" in Excession.

Cool, I will look into that.

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