| It's time for the +Bruce Sterling vs +Jon Lebkowsky vs +Cory Doctorow "State Of The World 2015". It's on The Well so you can't really participate if you're not a Well subscriber except via moderated email. This seems curiously old fashioned in 2015. It may be good for moderation and noise control but feels like a conference with worthies up on the stage talking to themselves while a cast of thousands look on. You can't even heckle! So maybe we should start a reddit or a G+ community or something to have the meta discussion of just how full of bullshit or truthiness they are being. This year I'm going to try really hard to bite my tongue as Bruce's usually inciteful glocal comments about the world get diverted into yet another discussion about the USA. That lasted about as long as it took to get to Jon's opening paragraphs. Oh well. The view from Austin or Silicon Valley is interesting but we get to do that all the time. I was hoping for more of a global perspective. It being "State of the * World *", and all. ---- Bruce has a phrase he uses often about the near future as seen from 2015. "old people in big cities afraid of the sky." I'm curious about this. I suspect that the global average age of people in cities is nearer 20 than 70. Perhaps it should be "old people afraid of young people in big cities who are afraid of the sky". I'm picturing Sao Paolo, Shanghai, Mumbai here not Tokyo, Prague, Chicago. ---- I think we need to marinate on this next bit for a while as well. It fits right in with thoughts about 2030 no longer being the far future; 2050 being on our door step; and as an antidote to Post-Millenial-Tension. Seriously, let's look forward to 2100 not back to 1967. But speaking of the influence of William Gibson, he said something very striking last year; that in the 20th century, everyone spoke with reverence of the 21st, while here, deep into the 21st, the 22nd century never gets a look-in. Of course he's right, but this problem seems like honest work to me. A child born in 2015 will be 85 in the Twenty-Second Century: it's within the reach of a normal, average human life span. So, the 22nd Century: I'm determined to make it our friend. I've resolved to talk more and more about it. Let it be the buzzword, let it become the watchword. The 22nd Century, the #22C : whatever the hell it is, it's getting closer every day. http://www.well.com/conf/inkwell.vue/topics/478/Bruce-Sterling-Cory-Doctorow-Jon-page01.html Bonus link: 2014, Hottest Year Evah! http://www.climatecentral.org/news/record-2014-hottest-year-18502  The WELL: Bruce Sterling, Cory Doctorow & Jon Lebkowsky: State Of The World 2015 »The WELL: Bruce Sterling, Cory Doctorow & Jon Lebkowsky: State Of The World 2015 [from: Google+ Posts] |
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[ 06-Jan-15 2:50pm ]
