William Gibson says today’s internet is nothing like what he envisioned • Hacker News Board

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

#131

Post by anoraca » Tue, Apr 14, 2020, 7:26 PM UTC

_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…

Gibson's novel is an extrapolation of current events mixed with science. Your proposal is an extrapolation of conspiracy theories.

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

#132

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Apr 14, 2020, 7:29 PM UTC

anoraca wrote: post #131

_red wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Gibson's novel is an extrapolation of current events mixed with science. Your proposal is an extrapolation of conspiracy theories.

[deleted]

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

#133

Post by _emacsomancer_ » Tue, Apr 14, 2020, 7:30 PM UTC

HONEST_ANNIE wrote: post #24

> I realized that the world in which Hillary won wouldn't be a happy world either. Because all of the drivers of the stress we feel today — minus one — would still be very much be present." TV show The Good Fight Season 4, Episode 1 "The Gang Deals with Alternate Reality has brilliant dark humor take on alternate reality where Hillary Clinton won the election. spoiler alert --- (spoiler: Liberal lawyer Diane wakes up…

> (spoiler: Liberal lawyer Diane wakes up in alternate reality where Trump lost, but #MeeToo did not happen. She is representing Harvey Weinstein who is big donor for liberal causes and connections to the WH)

that's eerily close to current reality. (#MeToo only when politically expedient; Weinstein's damage control advisor is now a senior campaign adviser to a 'liberal' contender for the WH)

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

#134

Post by spiritplumber » Tue, Apr 14, 2020, 7:38 PM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #49

metabagel wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

It was a close election, there's probably a lot of single things that could have changed it. One side or the other winning a close election shouldn't fundamentally change your worldview.

3 million isn't that close.

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

#135

Post by umvi » Tue, Apr 14, 2020, 7:48 PM UTC

gfodor wrote: post #66

Why does one assume the Internet is in its final form? I'm about 99% certain the phase we are in is a transitional phase. Upon the arrival of ubiquitous immersive computing, it will go through what may be its final phase shift, but right now it'll be looked back upon similar to the previous eras.

Its final form is an ultra-regulated space where you need to apply to the government in order to put up a website, etc, and your website-permit can be revoked if you violate the law (i.e. copyright strikes)

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

#136

Post by dralley » Tue, Apr 14, 2020, 7:55 PM UTC

spiritplumber wrote: post #134

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a close election, there's probably a lot of single things that could have changed it. One side or the other winning a close election shouldn't fundamentally change your worldview.

3 million isn't that close.

Unfortunately it isn't the popular vote that counts.

Hillary won by 3 million votes, but she lost by only ~80,000 votes in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

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

#137

Post by Uhhrrr » Tue, Apr 14, 2020, 8:14 PM UTC

pharke wrote: post #19

I'm still holding out hope that we'll get that "mysterious and sexy place" at some point. The current generation of VR seems like the first halting steps into that world. Progress towards realtime raytracing and massively online social worlds look like the next steps. The lofty goals of brain machine interface companies whisper faint possibilities of "jacking in" at some distant date.

We're not jacking in and penetrating black ice with tech stolen from a corporation-state, but I still think the Internet is mysterious and, if not "sexy", at least endlessly fascinating. Both because you usually never know what device you're actually accessing and where it is, and because it's not uncommon to have no idea who put it there or why.

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

#138

Post by jerf » Tue, Apr 14, 2020, 8:14 PM UTC

danharaj wrote: post #73

_red wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

> Or would it strike you as pathetic attempt of me shoehorning politics into my work? We're talking about William Fucking Gibson here. Next you'll tell me you hate it when Ursula Leguin 'shoehorned politics' into her work.

Generally speaking, it is good for literature to address political topics, and perhaps even take particular positions on them, but it is a bad idea for literature to address specific real people or specific real instances of those topics, if for no other reason than the specific instance is going to be yesterday's news by the time your book comes out. And addressing specific people is almost always a very petty look; even if you are superficially in the choir being preached at and cheering along in the heat of the moment, the work is almost certainly failing to touch you deeply and you probably won't remember it in a month.

(Even when taking positions, the really good stuff will still make sure than the people on the wrong side have some sort of insight applied to them and some effort to understand them on their own terms, rather than just crafting strawmen of bad people who are bad, who deserve to lose, because they are bad.)

I think if you look back at the good political work, you'll find most of them fit this pattern. I'm sure exceptions exist, but they are not common.

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

#139

Post by Animats » Tue, Apr 14, 2020, 8:14 PM UTC

"Gibson says his favorite type of science fiction requires time and effort to understand."

Yes, that's Gibson's new book, "Agency". It's complicated because it's contrived, not because the subject matter is complicated. Probably his worst book to date.

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

#140

Post by phaemon » Tue, Apr 14, 2020, 8:18 PM UTC

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…

> Honestly, if you were deeply, dramatically surprised by Trump's election, you weren't paying enough attention

I guess I wasn't. Because I distinctly remember when Trump was just one of the Republican hopefuls, I saw that the odds of him becoming President were 1000 to 1 and I recall thinking I should put a £100 bet on it, but thought it would just be a waste of money.

I guess you're retired through your foresight though? Or, wait...let me guess... you don't bet? It would be the fourth time I'd heard that. Is there some future restriction on betting that stops you time travellers with perfect knowledge of the future from cashing in?