Words for Webstock – Bruce Sterling
Like a lot of science fiction writers, I love grand futuristic schemes. A grand scheme of this kind answers the simple question “What’s the future all about?”
We science fiction writers naturally prefer the future to be about one big thing. That’s easy to describe, understand and sell to a publisher. “My new book’s about a Martian invasion. They’re super-scientific and highly evolved, but they forgot about simple old germs.”
You page through WAR OF THE WORLDS, and the dramatic tension has you on the edge of your seat. You never pause to ask HG Wells any modern, Webstock-geek questions about the situation he portrays.
For instance: “Did the Martians rehearse this launch with a beta-pre-release to work the bugs out?” (Obviously not). “How do the Martians plan to monetize their expensive interplanetary invasion? Where does their mesh- network of world-smashing tripods store the backups for their data? Do those tripods have any urban-mapping services so they know which human cities to fry first? Are those open-source heat-rays, or are they fully-patented heat rays?”
We unthinkingly shelve those issues, because a Martian invasion is so high-concept. We just don’t go there, mentally. The Martians are burning up everything! Go for it! We accept this because it’s the future.
However, now consider the past. Ask the big question: “What was the past all about?”
That ought to be easy, right? It already happened, so we don’t have to make anything up. Let’s consider the Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453). The big story back then? The English invade France, and they burn up everything including Joan of Arc. The population of France gets cut by two thirds. It’s much worse than a Martian invasion because it lasts much longer, and the epidemics kill off the humans.
The complexities are deep and they ramble on endlessly. The guys living “the Hundred Years War” had no idea they were in one. Four generations of “war” isn’t a “war,” it’s a lifestyle. And by now everybody’s forgotten all about it.
So: what does this have to do with Webstock? Well, let’s consider some consensus notions for the future of glamorous Webland. I totally dote on these, for a host of good reason. There are zillions of ’em, stuff like mobile robots, 3d printers, online video, locative tech, quantum computing, social networks. With an almighty effort, maybe we can concentrate on five.
The Cloud! Web Squared! The Internet of Screens! The Internet of Things! Augmented Reality!
Any serious futurist willing to log the hours typing could write a decent book about any of these topics. I already wrote a nonfiction book about #4 there, and my new novel has got oodles of #5. I’m a major fan of number two, while number one is a fogbank of hype that could overwhelm anything. Number five is adorable. A science fiction writer who can’t like Augmented Reality is, seriously, dead inside. You like science fiction but you don’t like Augmented Reality? Come on, you must have lost the will to live!
I can cheerily talk, write, blog and tweet all day about 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. And I do. But there’s a troubling aspect to this effort, because although it’s easy to talk about grand ideas in an abstract way, there is no practical way to pull these grand concepts apart in the real world.
We’re not going to get a future Cloud World as somehow opposed to a future Augmented Reality World. It can’t happen. The ideas can be clearly distinguished, but ideas about technology, labels for technology, predictions and suppositions about technology, they don’t map onto actual real-world technology. Human culture doesn’t work like a logical argument. Distinguishing and describing 1,2,3,4 and 5 is like trying to staple and saw melting ice-cubes.
Here’s what it sounds like: 1+2+3+4+5. When it’s not futuristic. When it’s normal. When it’s banal.
She poured a coffee, then touched the breakfast table. “Where are my shoes?” “Your sister borrowed them.” “Again? Where is Susan?” “She’s downtown now.” “Susan! Why did you swipe my favorite shoes again?” “Look at this dress.” “Oooh, that dress is darling.” “It would look even better on you.” “You’re right. Get it for me. You can’t have it.” “Trade you for these shoes.” “Let me check that with Henry. Yeah, okay.” Karen had another sip of fair-trade coffee. It tasted weird, but it was still hot.
They’re all in that paragraph. All five. They’re phantom far-out notions gobbled up by the real world. They packed in there so deep that nobody notices them. So, yes, I can write about it. It’s just: it doesn’t look futuristic. It looks way too real.
Why isn’t it grand? Why isn’t it as fantastically grand as the spectrum of all possibility? Well, why isn’t today grand? Why didn’t we wake up this morning in direct confrontation with the entirety of past and future? The present day is the only day we’re ever given.
Yes!!
IT must be invisible, who cares about the gubbings!
🙂
Thank you from France for this piece of humour,
excellent.
And the short paragraph is really good for !5 🙂
H.
Wow, I have no idea what Bruce’s point is here. Incredible rambling going on. I seriously need help, this is how I am seeing it:
Grand futuristic schemes for science fiction answering the question, What is the future about?
War of the Worlds and the lack of critical interpretation in the “Webstock-geek” vein.
Contrast of lack of criticism of futuristic visions in science-fiction with historical criticism.
What does this have to with Webstock and fundamental notions related to the future of computing.
Five notions.
Problem of practical separation of notions.
Problem of mapping notions onto current technologies.
Everyday interpretation of five notions.
Paragraph illustrating the interpretation.
Problem of why the notions are no longer “grand”.
Okay, but so what? Why was any of this said? Am I missing context here?
Quick question: I’m not familiar with the term ‘Internet of Screens’. Can anybody enligthen me on what’s it all about?
Er, so you deliberately chose boring uses of technology, and then extrapolated that to all uses of technology will be boring. Back to your logic class, Mr Sterling.
Heh. I was pondering the simplification of language with these concepts. The “Replicating Pantograph” (Heinlein), the “Matter Compiler” (Stevenson) and the “Printer” (Doctorow) are all essentially the same thing, but with increasingly mundane names.
Sure, easier words make for much broader accessability, but they don’t sound half as exciting – and I’m pretty sure I read someplace that we should be excited about the future!
The problem, assuming for the moment that there is one, is that these concepts are all at this moment in time organized along a linear flatland continuum. 1+2+3+4+5 moves you farther out on the line but gives no sense dimensionality. Perhaps it’s the case that communication itself has been singularized: omnipresent and therefore trivial. Having another modality provides no new color or necessity of provocative thought.
Dear Mr. Sterling, Can I read the story around which your 5-points-of-future-tech paragraph happens? 😉
The tech doesn’t make the stories – I think that’s where people miss the point.
The grand stories of SF are those which examine how we will likely change in the face of our self-wrought evolution, the predictive insertion of our present mind into the environs of another time or place that inevitably demands our adaptation in order for us to survive, and the consequences which erupt from the resulting clash with our all-too-human natures.
The banal may be a true vision of our future yet even within banality there is always rich material to be mined in telling stories about human beings. We’re such fucked up monkeys, no matter what shoes we’re wearing. They oughta sell tickets.
Cheers.
“Er, so you deliberately chose boring uses of technology, and then extrapolated that to all uses of technology will be boring. Back to your logic class, Mr Sterling.”
Let me direct you to this rant by Louis CK that backs up Mr. Sterling: “Everything’s Amazing and Nobody’s Happy”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXStPqhLmIk
All technological advances are filtered through human experience. While there are many who can understanding these amazing inventions, for most people, they are tools, and our lives take precedence over our appreciation of these tools.
To that woman, the location of her shoes are more important than the fact she can ask a machine that knows where her shoes are.
Robbo: They oughta sell tickets
I’ve seen a few science fiction stories based on that idea too! 😉 Not to mention FailBlog….
MarkHB #13: Not to mention “horseless carriage” & “automobile”-> “car” & “auto”. Common things get short words.
Indeed, it’s wondrous how our world is changing — but remember that the change is throttled by how much people can absorb!
I would love to hard copy this thoughticle but my Replicating Pantograph is out of Ferro-Styrene Emulsion Powders.
bruce
good job!you are a man of many names and talents.