Sterling

Bruce Sterling’s ‘State of the World’ address is always a bit of a trip. Here are some choice selections culled from my notes and the twit-blogos-book-sphere-thingy.

The eurpoeanization of America would be a best case scenario. Worst case would be the Argentinaization of America.

We got more going on than we think. We could do a few things to create a 21st century we could be proud of.

The elderly are going to be the backbone of a noncommercial social web….they’re not too weak to push enter…

Its bad thing to get practical political advice from a science fiction writer – leaves you open to mocking counterattack.

Hanging out in places like Sarajevo, you realize this potluck supper thing becomes the cement of the universe.

Why should i keep up authorly appearances in front of the people formerly known as ‘the audience’?
(he proceeded to crack open a shiner at the lectern at this point).

The Kindle is like a plug-in cassette for an Atari 400. None of the 25 year olds here will be reading it when they’re my age.

The reason we’re not clawing at each other in the face of global struggles is that we have connected via social media.

The poorest people on the planet are densely connected…Poor people love cell phones. They are getting cataclysmatically cheap in what was used to be known as the third world.

And that’s just the tip of the mildly insane-iceberg.