Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Bruce Sterling is a science fiction writer and more - he's also known for
his work as a journalist, public speaker, pop entertainer, and futurist.  
Bruce, a longtime denizen of the WELL, takes some time from his packed
schedule at the first of each year to discuss the state of the world and
his vision of the future.  This year's visit happens to coincide with the
release of his latest book, _Tomorrow Now_, a consideration of the next
fifty years using a framework loosely derived from Shakespeare's "seven
ages of man": - the infant, the student, the lover, the soldier, the
justice, the pantaloon and "mere oblivion" (death). Here's how Bruce
relates those seven ages to technology-focused speculations about the
future:

"Stage One: The Infant concerns genetics, reproduction, and microbiology.  
Stage Two: The Student is about information networks and new paradigms for
the scholar. Stage Three: The Lover takes its cue from _Pygmalion_; it is
about postindustrial design and our fiercely passionate relationship to our
own creations. Stage Four: The Soldier is a war story about the growing New
World Disorder, the new century's greatest security threat. Stage Five: The
Justice tackles media and politics. Stage Six: The Pantaloon is a primer on
twenty-first century information economics. Stage Seven: Mere Oblivion is
about our struggle with morality and our assault on human limits."

Jon Lebkowsky, a consultant, activist and writer also living in Austin,
leads the discussion.  Currently best known for his weblog at
http://www.weblogsky.com, Lebkowsky focuses on internet, web, and other
emergent technologies and their cultural impact. He is CEO of Austin's
Polycot Consulting and President of EFF-Austin.
  

    
Welcome back to inkwell.vue, Bruce! And welcome to all of our readers... 
those of you who are not members of the WELL but would like to participate 
in this discussion can send questions and comments to 
inkwell-hosts@well.com, and they'll be posted here pretty quickly.

Bruce, you're primarily a science fiction writer, but at times you're a
futurist, as in this latest nonfiction work, _Tomorrow Now_.  There seems
to be an inherent link between science fiction (at least *hard* science
fiction) and futurism ... but how do they differ? Doesn't the futurist have
specific ways of seeing and evaluating the future that is different from a
science-fiction approach? In writing _Tomorrow Now_, did you change your
way of thinking about the future?
  

    
It's all about the revenue stream, Jon.

Science fiction is a form of popular entertainment.
Heavy duty industrial futurism is stuff like
forecasting the demand curve for freon-free refrigerators
in the American Midwest, 28-34 demographic.  You
might get paid for it --lots -- the report alone
might cost nine hundred bucks -- but Jesus, who
wants to read that?  Nobody WANTS to read it.
Conceivably, somebody might HAVE to read it.

What really happens is that the CEO is gonna
do whatever he wants anyway about the refrigerators,
and if anybody on the board of directors dares to
cross him, he drops the 900-page futurist report
on their desk and dares them to read it.
  

    
On the other hand, every once in a while
it's a good idea to knock the moss and
algae off your received wisdom.

I knew a long time ago that when the
turn of the millennium came around I
would be a middle-aged guy.  I promised
myself I would take some time off then
and try to re-educate myself so I wouldn't
THINK SO MUCH like a middle-aged guy.

Unfortunately, I can't make myself think
like a young guy, because I know too much
and I've lost so much physical vitality, but on
the other hand, after writing this book TOMORROW NOW,
I think about the future like a middle-aged guy
who is VERY, VERY ENGAGED.
  

    
What was it about writing the book that helped you become more engaged? And 
what led you to Shakespeare's "seven ages" as a framework? Is that 
something you had in mind for a while, or did the concept evolve while you 
were researching and writing?
  

    
Email from Myles Byrne:

Did you get the idea to use the 7 Ages as the framework from Burning Man
2001, which used the Seven Ages as it's theme and even for street names? If
so, is _Tomorrow Now_ a book you see Black Rock Citizens using as a bible
for next-stage mass experiments after Burning Man? (We could use a more
parseable Ur-text than _Dhalgren_.)
 
Also, have you been influenced by other 'post-Jungian Futurisms' such as
Strauss & Howe's _Fourth Turning_ (which uses four archetypes) and
(Texas-born) Spiral Dynamics?
 
Could you speak to your intents and experiences using a 'post Jungian'
schema of archetypes for patterning _Tomorrow Now_? For instance, do you
believe a mythic structure like the 7 Ages can serve as a grassroots
rallying point?
 
Thanks,
Myles Byrne
  

    
What are the major technological advances that you see for the rest of 
your lifetime and how will they affect you personally?  
  

    
I can't believe I'm reduced to creeping onto the WELL
through a free AOL account.  I'm the slave of Case!
Is Steve even in business any more?  I actually feel sorry
for him.

The thing I liked best about that Shakespeare pitch
is that it's about the passage of time as a carnal
experience.  It's the future as something lived, in
the flesh. something tactile and visceral.  
I liked that preindustrial gutsiness there,
the lack of grand glittering abstractions.

I also liked it that he talks about the *hardware*
associated with various stages of life, stuff
like schoolboy's satchels and soldier's cannons.

The book is a series of linked essays about
major change drivers native to the 21st century,
but if you want people to read a book, you
can't just start riffing and go for 60,000
words.  You need some kind of framework.
A sense of propulsion and narrative traction.  
I felt that one might work, and it turns
out that it does.
  

    
Could you speak to your intents and experiences using a 'post Jungian'
schema of archetypes for patterning _Tomorrow Now_? For instance, do
you
believe a mythic structure like the 7 Ages can serve as a grassroots
rallying point?
 

*Myles, my man, I sense the fatal reek of newage here.  
There is just no way that Shakespeare is "post-Jungian."

*I've been to Burning Man and I had a pretty good time,
but that doesn't mean I abandoned all critical rationality
on the playa.  Okay, granted, at the geyser in the mudhole,
I abandoned critical rationality there for about an
hour and a half, but then I got it all back and became
the hardened reductionist atheist skeptic that I've been
for years.

*If I needed a "grassroots rallying point," the very
LAST place I would pick is a barren desert where everyone
is naked, in drag or on psychedelics.  A place with
some VOTING BOOTHS, dude,  and people who are, like
sober enough to punch out all the hanging chad, that's
what a pro would want.
  

    
In the first section - "The Infant" - you pretty much dismiss human cloning 
in favor of genome hacking to make, not children who are similar to their 
parents, but children who are superior. Cloning's a big deal lately, at 
least with UFO cults... do you think it's an inherent first step in 
manipulating genes?  (I'm tempted to imagine a vast army of Raelian 
superclones goose-stepping down Broadway....)
  

    
I think these Raelians (assuming that they didn't just make it all up)
are guilty of an unconscionable act of child abuse.  But I think
they've done us all a favor with this particular propaganda of the
deed.  It might have taken us years to figure out that cloning infants
is not a big deal, but a crazy aberration that only stupid cultists
would pull. 

Now it's gonna be obvious to anybody who bothers to think the
issue through.

Al Qaeda, Aum Shinri Kyo, Raelians, they're all wealthy 
multinational cults repurposing hardware invented by cleverer
people.  And they can't build anything.  They bring wrack
and ruin.  Those Raelians aren't pioneers of anything, they're
just going to bring the patchouli stench of lunacy over
everything from stem cells to fertility treatments.

I make an argument in TOMORROW NOW that if you want
to mess with DNA the ideal DNA is bacterial DNA, for
a lot of practical, industrial reasons.  It's an argument
against the grain, but I think time is going to bear me
out here.  
  

    
Hold the eugenics, pass the microbes. But are we in danger, then, of 
creating an accidental 'Andromeda strain'? That's a traditional science 
fiction argument, no? 
  

    
I wouldn't describe Andromeda Strain as an "argument."  I think
that's better described as a "dramatization."

Robots are a dramatization of automation.  "Hey look,
we don't need manual laborers.  They'll be replaced by
sophisticated machines.  They'll be like proletarians,
only more obedient. But WHAT IF ONE MARRIES YOUR DAUGHTER?
Aieee!"

But if the real issue is improving factory assembly, it makes
no commercial sense to build a two-legged artificial 
humanoid.  Real assembly robots, that make real money,
are basically one giant arm and a couple of videocams.

Humanoid robots are dramatization devices exclusively,
they are stars of stage and screen, or they're led around
by sexy booth-babes to do headline-grabbing demos.

So, yeah, we'll probably have all kinds of problems
with tame microbes, but it'll be like the problems
with microbes we already do have: spoilage, bad
yeast, dysentery, that kind of thing.  Having
one of them suddenly kill everybody in the whole
world, that's just a cheap way to stop thinking
about the real problem.
  

    
You talk about the "wailing, sleepless, septic mess" that is early
parenthood, and follow that with a paragraph about "seething DNA...furious
arguments, grim responsibility, ansious compromise, and seriously wrecked
routines." I.e. the future of genetics is messy, complicated, a little
nuts, and totally human. That made me think of the imagery of the Viridian
Design web site, suggesting both fertility and decay, an organic grunge,
something to offend sterile design sensibilities (too common on the web). 
Are you drawn to the messier aspects of human existence? Would you rather 
observe and appreciate these messier aspects of human existance than clean 
'em up? 
  

    

Yeah, the issue has got its aesthetic aspects and I
take a certain connoisseur's pleasure in them.  It
was running "Dead Media Project" and writing a
"steampunk" novel that made me aware of the
intense romance in defunct and rotting technologies.

But it's not a question of my personal preference.
Organic means of production are wet by their nature,
they are gooey and splattery and profligate.  You
can't approach them effectively with old-fashioned
mechanical engineering.

For instance, if you try to augment a broken human thighbone
with a steel brace screwed into the bone, it soon
fails because the rest of the bone wastes away.
A live thighbone is not just a weight-bearing
member, it is an ongoing organic process.  If you take
the stress off that bone, the calcium will
leach away into the body to serve other purposes.
You can still engineer bone, but you need a sophisticated
biomedical engineering that is aware of wet,
salty, hot metabolism inside the flesh. If
it's gooey and sticky, it's no use your flinching.
If you're going to do it at all, learn to do
it right.

One of "the messiest aspects of human existence"
is when we are a single-celled organism.  We've
never really gotten our heads around this aspect
of our own identity. 
  

    


From Tom Georgoulias:

Bruce:

I was wondering why you chose not to address the effect of patents on
future technology development.  You came sort of close to the topic in
"The Justice", but as that section was more about political and
government influence on the network it didn't really delve into just
what patents may do for/to us.  Recent articles in the "New Scientist,"
"MIT Technology Review", and "New York Times" have all pointed to a
increasing trend of locking up scientific knowledge with restrictive
patents, especially in the software and biotechnology fields.
--
Tom Georgoulias
  

    
*That's a good question.

*The next to last chapter of the book concerns itself
with intellectual property and business models.
This business of "locking up scientific knowledge"
is hugely interesting to me.  In fact I just wrote
a short article about that for an upcoming
WHOLE EARTH mag.

*We've got schools of thought, sometimes on the
same webpage, that postulate a total mindblowing superscience
Singularity breakthrough that renders all human
history moot overnight, and then at the same
time imagines this Orwellian numbed ADBUSTERS world
where the Carlyle Group patents the laws of physics
and Monsanto makes chemistry a trade secret.

*But we can't possibly have both of those worlds at
the same time, unless, you know, you read
SLASHDOT a lot.  They are in a dynamic tension
which is getting stupider and uglier by the day,
and something  big is gonna give.  

*Could well be the Internet. We may find ourselves in a
form of Soviet Capitalism where a new Patent
Securitate puts a Palladium serial number inside every
typewriter.  If your economic model is widely
derided and phony baloney, then that's the sort
of thing you've pretty much got to do.   You
'can always claim that the alternative is chaos --
and if you're really smart, you'll take some steps
to see that all the possible alternatives STAY chaos.

*Personally, I'm rather well-known as an
information-wants-to-be-free zealot,
but I'm one of these rare guys who takes
the trouble to make some of HIS OWN
information free.  
  

    
I find myself wondering whether the case for "free" has a future, though 
there are compelling arguments... "creative commons," free software, open 
source alternatives, that sort of thing. Surely profit's not the only 
incentive pushing innovation?
  

    

I just picked this up at Borders (shelved under Sociology, so it took a
database search to find it) and I just finished the Soldier chapter.  Bear
with me if I'm missing points made or summed-up later in the book, but it
seems in the Soldier chapter you focus very much on a particular type of
player in the recent conflicts in the world (Arkan, Catli, etc) and, well,
mostly on the events of the 90s.  Obviously I see your point in picking out
this advance threads you think will develop more, and the biographies are
really fascinating, but I wondered if that was most of your picture of the
next 50 or so years of warfare?

Also, the focus there is on the balkans, turkey, and the former USSR, but
what do you think about Africa (particularly west and central Africa) and
Southeast Asia?  In Africa in particular it seems like the former colonial
powers are getting involved again, and those conflict seem distinctly
different from the middle-east/central asian confrontations that rate more
attention right now, to me at least.
  

    

*Yeah, my chapter on the military is about warlords of the
1990s, but I hammer on that because I don't think people
get it yet.  They don't get it that large sections of
the "developing world" are not developing at all but
descending into armed narcoterror.  And that this,
not other states, is the major security threat in
the future.

Arkan and Catli are of particular interest because they
were both *anti* terrorists who tore civil society to
shreds while getting rich off state-supported death squads.
Now that you know how Abdullah Catli operated (and he
was pretty far from a household word in the USA) try
comparing the USA of 1998 to the USA of 2003.  Which
one would make Catli happier?  Which one wants to
hire and arm a lot of Catlis?  

Yes he is dead, but that guy isn't behind us -- he
is AHEAD OF US.

As for Basaev, he is not a 90s guy, he
is a major contemporary figure. He is very likely the guy who just
sent two suicide truck bombs into the core of
the Chechnyan puppet government and blew the
living daylights out of it.  He was also,
probably, one of the major planners of the
Moscow theater hostage seizure.  Basaev is
showing way more liveliness and initiative
than any other Moslem guerrilla.

As for Africa, it is just colossally awful.
Africa doesn't matter to any power broker who counts,
but it's really sort of amazing that such
a huge area of the planet can be cheerfully
abandoned to plague, looting, rapine and
savagery.  

If you blew up North Korea's junta with
a bunker-buster, the regime would likely
collapse like a house of cards, but try that
in Somalia.  The US military doesn't even
want to TALK about Somalia.  They don't
want to go anywhere near it.  They'd
rather come up with Axes of Evil so they
can have some states to blow up.  It's
like being a hammer when the house is on
fire, and looking around for some nails.
  

    
I find myself wondering whether the case for "free" has a future,
though 
there are compelling arguments... "creative commons," free software,
open source alternatives, that sort of thing. Surely profit's not the
only  incentive pushing innovation?

*Well, a lot of concepts sound great on paper or on a screen.
"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his
needs," that sounds cool and alternative.  But, you know, where's the
demo?


*There are plenty of incentives pushing innovation.
"Innovation" is a nice word, but innovation with some
staying power and some practical traction in daily life, that's
another matter.

*For instance, I've got "ThinkFree" office suite on my Mac,
but it's so clumsy, slow and badly designed that the thrill
of ideological correctness soon wore off.  A genuinely
successful technology can't carry that much of a cognitive
load.  It can't divorce itself from profit and try to
run forever on sublime feelings of moral superiority.  If there
is a "future for free," then free has to actually function and work,
unquestioned and below the level of conscious awareness.  Free would
just have to be the way things were.  And if you look at the way things
are where free is, it's interesting, but it's not all that great.

If you look at, say, Internet streaming media, you can
see that there is a lot of fun free stuff offered, but
it's almost all hobbyist stuff. It's free like hotel
matches are free.  Nobody has found a method yet to raise
50 million dollars, make GONE WITH THE WIND and give
that away online.  If you have a huge burn rate and no revenue stream,
well, you just can't keep it up.

The sort of artwork that thrives in the Internet
medium is stuff like that guy who makes those weird
little singing puppet cats.  The kittens that do
versions of other people's rock songs.  Note that
these are not even the artist's original songs.
It's a free-use parody, it's appropriated and cut-up.  
It's hysterically, and he gets blogged all over, 
but, you know, in terms of cinema, this is like 
a college student at a party doing 
karaoke with a lampshade over his head.

  
  

    <scribbled by jonl Wed 8 Jan 03 03:10>
  

    
Email from Tom Georgoulias:

Profit, at least in the monetary sense of the word, is not the only thing
pushing innovation.  I firmly believe that.

I'm typing this response on the demo of a concept of "from each according
to his abilities, to each according to his needs."  I have on my computer a
completely free operating system and slew of applications to go with it.  
The OS guts are ultra solid, my Internet tools (browser, mailer, etc) are
on par or exceed their commercial counterparts, and the GUI is easy to use.  
It isn't junk by any measurement.  I've seen my employer pay thousands of
dollars for software that is much worse that what I am using now, all of
which I got for nothing.  Zip.  Zero.  Nada.

I look at free software as a way of applying the scientific method to
programming.  Equations and theories are freely shared among scientists,
who trade them back and forth and do whatever they want with them in their
labs.  They report back what they find and the whole process repeats
itself.  Same with free software.  Programmers get parts they need from
other programmers, write code for the parts they're lacking, then pass
those along to even more programmers.  The stuff that works tends to stick
around, the stuff that doesn't dies off.  Just like theories.

Here's an example of free actually functioning:  the Apache web server.  
Something like half the servers on the Internet run Apache and it comes
bundled with servers sold by huge, profit driven computer companies neck
deep in the white knuckle race to stay in the game.  It doesn't require a
level of conscious awareness either, Apache just does the job it was
designed to do.  Profit didn't get it started either, it came from the
normal process of hackers sharing code with each other.

Perhaps it is better to say that the type of non-profit driven innovation
that thrives on the Internet is the stuff that hackers deal in.  Think of
it as hacker currency.  The hackers were there first, when money wasn't the
primary factor.  They were still there when the cash clowns tried to pull a
fast one and make the Internet a fountain of wealth.  They'll be there to
shut the place down too, if it ever comes to that.

Money doesn't run _everything_.
-- 
Tom Georgoulias
  

    
The question that has to be asked, of course, is "what are they doing
to feed and house themselves that allows them to spend hundreds of
hours making great software that they give away for free?"

I'd be willing to bet that not all of the code they write is given
away for free, and not just because (full disclosure) I work for the
Borg.  I share your distaste for the "cash clowns" (great term), but I
also don't think that charging for software is necessarily a bad thing.
  

    
In your second chapter, on "The Student," you dismiss "artificial 
intelligence," again in favor of what's messy, organic, and human. You say 
that "the aspects of ourselves that are least machinelike are the ones 
with the greatest technological promise." What are the implications for 
education? What should today's kids be thinking about, aside from Pokemon, 
Yugi-oh, and DragonBall-Z?
  

    
Email from Tom Georgoulias:

I don't think charging for software is a bad thing either.  I just wanted
to provide some concrete examples of where non-profit driven innovation is
more than just ideology, but actual working and useful technology.

A lot of free software is developed by people who are working somewhere and
use free software in that job, but not necessarily as the main product or
service of that company.  For example, chip designers who use gcc to
compile their designs and then share patches that fix compiler bugs they've
discovered.  Or it comes from academia, where it is a common chore for
departments to make a computers out of hardware junk heaps.  Or programmers
who don't find their day jobs mentally stimulating enough.  It seems there
are all sorts of reasons why people write free software.  I don't know all
of the reasons why, but the code is out there and gets better all the time.

I absolutely think there is a need for a "creative commons" that houses
fundamental modern science and technology for the benefit of everyone,
unencumbered by patents.  Patents are tools, and like most tools they can
be used for good and evil.  I think there is plenty of reason to be
concerned about how patents will affect us in the future.  It is an issue
that will require some careful consideration and an incredible balancing
act.

Bruce, care to share some of what you said in your upcoming Whole Earth
article?

 -- Tom Georgoulias