Worrying about a large institution, especially when it has computers, is like worrying about a large gorilla, especially when it's on fire. Bruce Sterling More Quotes by Bruce Sterling More Quotes From Bruce Sterling Everybody has a different Internet. Bruce Sterling free-speech internet different The future is unwritten. Cyberspace is the funhouse mirror of our own society, reflects our values and our faults, sometimes in terrifying exaggerations. It doesn't matter who you are today, if you don't show up in that mirror you are just not going to matter very much. Our kids have to show up in the mirror. Bruce Sterling cyberspace mirrors kids Competence doesn't seem like a big deal until you are forced to realize that your own government has none. Bruce Sterling realizing bigs government Maybe we're about to radically change the operating system of the human condition. If so, then this would be a really good time to make backups of our civilization. Bruce Sterling good-times would-be civilization I think our grandparents were Victor Frankenstein. I basically am the kind of deeply unnatural creature that Mrs Shelley instinctively dreaded. I not only eat her sacred cows but I eat them with ketchup. While I take her point, I think that transgressive monstrosity and tampering with the life force are both a lot more fun than she suspected. Bruce Sterling grandparent fun thinking Okay, are you really 'experimenting'? How do you know if you're really experimenting? You're working on it methodically and you're publishing the results! It's not an experiment if you don't publish the results in some verifiable and falsifiable form, okay? Bruce Sterling okay results form Information wants you to give me a dollar. Bruce Sterling dollars want giving The past is a kind of future that has already happened. Bruce Sterling happened kind past But from another, deeper perspective: we shouldn't involve outselves in lines of development where the ultimate victory condition is emulating dead people. There's no appeal in that. It's bad for us. That kind of inherent mournfulness is just not a good way to be human. Bruce Sterling victory perspective people You don't get to cut that chain of evidence and start over. You're always going to be pursued by your data shadow, which is forming from thousands and thousands of little leaks and tributaries of information. Bruce Sterling starting-over data cutting It's going to be really interesting to see what the heroin market does in the next two years or so. One thing you can be pretty sure of. The Afghan peasants who grow poppies won't get rich. The money will end up in places like Dubai. Bruce Sterling dubai two years There's no victory-condition for being human. Bruce Sterling victory being-human humans I'm an entertainer in the military-entertainment complex. Bruce Sterling entertainers entertainment military I like to get paid for doing basic research, so it's pleasant to write some nonfiction about it. Bruce Sterling fiction-and-nonfiction research writing Saying you have a political solution is like saying you can write a pop song that's going to stay at the top of the list forever. I don't have many illusions about this, but I'm not cynical about it. Bruce Sterling cynical writing song My dream appliance circa 2050 has one big dial on it, and when I twist it to the right, my IQ goes up to 450. Bruce Sterling twists technology dream If politics and business fail us, of course the military will be called in. In the developing world, the massive and repeated ecological disasters are quite commonly met by the military. Bruce Sterling politics military world I wouldn't describe that "position" as "parasitic." I'd describe that experience as "edifying." I don't merely write from a critical intellectual distance. I actually live around here. Bruce Sterling distance intellectual writing We may yet work up to some serious shooting war, or maybe some acts of urban genocide committed with rogue nuclear weapons. But if that were the case, why would we call that "9/11"? If Washington disappeared in a mushroom cloud, we'd give that huge event a different name. Bruce Sterling mushrooms clouds war My idea of an amusement park story is getting adventurers to go tour environmental disaster areas. After all, if the entire Great Barrier Reef gets killed, which seems like an extremely lively possibility, what are you going to do with all that rotting limestone? Bruce Sterling environmental parks ideas
