[Script Info]
Title: 
[Events]
Format: Layer, Start, End, Style, Name, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, Effect, Text
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,00:11\Nyou're famously quoted often as saying\N00:15\Nthe future is already here it's just not\N00:17\Nvery evenly distributed this perpetual\N00:20\Ntoggling between nothing new you say\N00:22\NUnder the Sun and everything having very\N00:25\Nrecently changed absolutely is perhaps\N00:27\Nthe central driving tension of my work I\N00:30\Ndon't know if you remember saying that\N00:32\Ncan you expand on that well I have that\N00:45\Nyou know as a sort of ordinary sense of\N00:49\Nmy waking waking day that you know I\N00:54\Nmean I'm in the eternal world that\N01:00\Nhumans have been living in almost\N01:04\Nforever and we're not we don't seem to\N01:10\Nbe that terribly advanced in terms of\N01:14\Nhow we deal with one another we were\N01:17\Nstill doing appalling things variously\N01:21\Naround the world every every day and\N01:26\Nsimultaneously I'm waking up in the\N01:29\Nmorning\N01:30\Nand poking at my iPad Mini and seeing\N01:35\Nthat someone in London has just remarked\N01:38\Non the weather and posted a photograph\N01:41\Nof the sky so I suddenly have this this\N01:44\Nand they that they did it the minute I\N01:47\Nwoke up so I'm suddenly looking at the\N01:50\Nsky in London that some stranger\N01:52\Nstranger took and described in a in\N01:56\Nanother poetic way and it's all\N01:59\Ninstantaneous and people never did that\N02:02\Nbefore and that's all happening at top\N02:07\Nthat's all happening very near the apex\N02:10\Nof a pyramid of once emergent\N02:13\Ntechnologies that might have say at the\N02:17\Nbottom you'd have have growing cereal\N02:20\Nand above that you would have cities\N02:25\Nwhich you can't do unless you could grow\N02:27\Nand store cereal and above that you have\N02:30\Nsewers without which your city died of\N02:33\Nabove a certain population of of cholera\N02:37\Nand dysentery so we're up at the apex if\N02:41\Nany of those other layers below win out\N02:43\Non us we don't die we forget that that\N02:48\Nwe're at the peak of peak of something\N02:51\Nbut we're supported by older\N02:53\Ntechnologies that we no longer even\N02:55\Nthink of us as technologies so and I\N03:01\Nthink maybe professionally I have some\N03:04\Nawareness of that every day or I try to\N03:10\Nhave are you frightened by that one I'm\N03:17\Nanxious by Nature\N03:21\Nyou know I'm one of those there's sort\N03:26\Nof hyper-vigilant people except when I'm\N03:31\Non those on those occasions when I'm\N03:35\Nwhen I'm relaxed\N03:37\Nbut it's a bit scary but so is life and\N03:42\Nit's it's it is what it is what it is\N03:48\NI think of what I do as a species of\N03:52\Nnaturalism not that it's not that it's\N03:59\Npredictive or or trying to be prescient\N04:04\Nbut that I'm simply trying to describe a\N04:06\Nsometimes the incomprehensible present\N04:10\Nwith the tool kits of science fiction\N04:14\Nand futurology which seem totally\N04:17\Nappropriate to this particular present\N04:20\Nyeah I think we're on a Speedway of\N04:26\NTechnology now and I don't know if\N04:29\Nthat's going to continue but it has been\N04:31\Nfor the past maybe ten years for me that\N04:33\Nyou you don't have anything you can play\N04:36\Nanything on anymore you know and it\N04:40\Nmakes small bits of trouble for\N04:42\Nnovelists because in Victorian novels\N04:46\Nthe calling card falls behind the bureau\N04:50\Nsomebody's life is ruined and you could\N04:53\Nwrite that for all your life and now if\N04:55\Nyou I had a student who had everybody\N04:59\Nhad flip phones in her novel by the time\N05:01\Nit came out those were like antiques\N05:04\Nmight as well have them playing records\N05:06\Non gramophones yeah can I have a lot of\N05:11\Nsympathy with that I think if I if a 12\N05:15\Nyear old reading Neuromancer today she'd\N05:18\Nget to page 20 and go okay the whole\N05:22\Nplot hinges around what happened to all\N05:24\Nthe cell phones\N05:28\Nnot press it yeah I remember you saying\N05:35\Nthat in some interview that you it was a\N05:37\Nreal oversight but who could have\N05:40\Npredicted that that we walk around and\N05:42\Nbe available to everybody anytime there\N05:45\Nwas no no one but more more\N05:47\Ninterestingly I think is for a thought\N05:51\Naccount of difficult thought experiment\N05:55\Nspend some time trying to imagine what\N06:00\Nit would have been like if somehow\N06:02\Nsomeone back in 1963 some science\N06:06\Nfiction writer had received in her sleep\N06:09\Na completely accurate vision of our\N06:14\Nstate of cellular telephony today and\N06:18\Nshe wrote a novel that incorporated that\N06:22\Nvision and took it to a publisher the\N06:25\Npublisher said are you insane the\N06:28\Ncharacters in this book spend all their\N06:30\Ntime looking at these tiny and tiny\N06:33\Ntelevision radios things in their\N06:35\Npockets and writing letters on them and\N06:38\Nplaying Angry Birds and they're never\N06:41\Nalone no one is ever loved what will\N06:44\Npeople make I wonder we have been\N06:48\Nwondering quite a lot recently what will\N06:51\Npeople make in 20 years of all the\N06:53\Nfiction ever written in which people are\N06:55\Nmostly alone most of their lives yeah\N07:00\Nthat the the the solitude will be\N07:04\Nincomprehensible\N07:06\NI remember the year I don't know which\N07:09\Nyear it was in in London when the\N07:11\Nsolitude went away I I went to London in\N07:17\Nthe fall and I remember standing on\N07:20\Nstanding on a platform somewhere in\N07:24\NKensington waiting for the Train and\N07:26\Nlooking at the English people not\N07:29\Nspeaking to one another and not making\N07:32\Neye contact\N07:33\Nthat's was there what from time\N07:35\Nimmemorial and I went away and I came\N07:38\Nback a month later and they were all on\N07:40\Ncell phones it just changed overnight\N07:43\Nthat solitude above London flew away and\N07:47\NI thought that was the moment the\N07:50\Nextraordinary thing for me was that I\N07:53\Nhad actually seen it seeing it happen\N07:56\Nno no one now remembers the night that\N07:59\Nthey turned on the broadcast television\N08:01\Nin New York City but you know it changed\N08:04\Neverything and it's never changed but do\N08:10\Nyou think cell phones will I mean you\N08:11\Ndidn't predict them can you produce\N08:13\Ntheir demise I think that they will you\N08:19\Nknow assuming that if this goes on you\N08:22\Nknow I think we'll probably internalize\N08:25\Nthem as the the characters in the\N08:30\Nfurther future have done in the in in\N08:33\Nthe peripheral they have them implanted\N08:38\Nthey don't know exactly where that sort\N08:40\Nof the technology is distributed and\N08:42\Nthey experience them as a sort of\N08:46\Ninternalized head-up display where you\N08:50\Nsee you see who's calling in you you see\N08:54\Ntheir sigil but I actually had to\N08:57\Ndevelop that technology because when I\N09:01\Nstarted the book I developed a much more\N09:04\Nfully realized idea of fully\N09:08\Ninternalized cellular telephony that\N09:13\Nmakes that look really primitive but\N09:15\Nwhat I found was it was so distracting\N09:18\Nand took the took the readers so far\N09:22\Naway from the narrative that it was just\N09:24\Nimpossible to use it so I deliberately\N09:27\Ncranked their technology back I figured\N09:31\Nit was about thirty years in order to\N09:35\Nhave something recognizable to\N09:39\Nto a reader today I remember and and I\N09:45\Nnever could figure out how it worked\N09:47\Nfrom Twitter first came out I think it\N09:49\Nwas in zero history were they have they\N09:57\Nset up a private Twitter account that's\N09:59\Nthat was the first time I thought that\N10:01\Nit has a kind of a lock nobody else can\N10:03\Njoin do you remember this\N10:05\Nyes it's actually easy you could you\N10:07\Ncould you could do that any any Twitter\N10:11\Naccount can be set set to private so\N10:17\Nthat that no one can no one can follow\N10:19\Nyou unless you okay them if two people\N10:23\Ndo that mutually to the exclusion of\N10:26\Neverything else and sir private life\N10:28\Nyeah it's a it's a private line I\N10:31\Nthought that was cool I still have both\N10:35\Nof those accounts the accounts they is\N10:38\Nbecause I knew that people would open\N10:40\Nthem if I - yeah yeah well your new\N10:44\Nnovel which you know you're here on your\N10:47\Ntour the peripheral doesn't end run\N10:51\Naround the blur between the president\N10:53\Nfuture by taking place in your future\N10:55\Nand a farther one a connection is\N10:59\Nestablished between the two basically\N11:02\Nthrough a wormhole in a video game\N11:05\Nanyway is that would you had a describe\N11:12\Nthat is as correct and video games are\N11:15\Nsuch that wealthy people have players\N11:18\Nplay them for them yes well I've to to\N11:25\Nas you say there there are two two\N11:30\Nfutures that it's like a double scoop of\N11:34\Nthat whole science fiction and one is\N11:39\None is a near future which is basically\N11:42\Nwinters\N11:44\Nwith better smartphones or justified\N11:48\Nwith more drones and then there's the\N11:53\Nfurther one which is my take on on how\N12:03\Nbadly human beings could manage to mess\N12:07\Nup the the so called singularity so I\N12:12\Nguess it's a very screwed up singularity\N12:15\Nand it's on the far side of an\N12:22\Napocalyptic event of sorts although\N12:27\Nwhile I was working on that is something\N12:30\Nthat the strut that I struck me that I'd\N12:33\Nnever noticed before\N12:34\Nis that our cultural model of of the\N12:38\Napocalypse is unique causal and a very\N12:41\Nbrief duration so Triffids come world\N12:45\Nends post apocalypse the United States\N12:52\Nand USSR nuke each other to mutual\N12:55\Ndestruction post apocalypse they'd like\N12:59\Nit it's one thing it happens and I saw\N13:03\Nwhat if the what if the apocalypse were\N13:09\Nmulti causal complexly systemic it took\N13:14\N40 or 50 years but actually I initially\N13:19\Nthought what if it took 400 years or 500\N13:22\Nyears but that was too much time for my\N13:27\Nstory so I got it down to four I got it\N13:30\Ndown to 40 there's another reason why\N13:33\Nthat wouldn't happen then I can see it\N13:37\Nactually is a lot more likely than a\N13:40\Nbrief uni causal event but we I don't\N13:45\Nthink we have the cultural equipment to\N13:49\Nhold that idea readily in\N13:52\Nheads it's not part of our mythology in\N13:56\Nspite of the possibility that we might\N13:59\Nnow already be living in it and that\N14:04\Nthat fact might account for those creepy\N14:08\Nfeelings that some of you have been\N14:12\Nhaving myself included and you call that\N14:19\Nthe jackpot in the book heads\N14:21\Nit's the jackpot yes the jerk the\N14:24\Njackpot and when the survivors of the\N14:31\Njackpot have tended to be able to afford\N14:35\Nit when they come out after I won't go\N14:41\Ninto it what saves their bacon but when\N14:45\Nthey come out and see the dog that many\N14:48\Npeople left there they sort of say wow\N14:51\Nman we dodged the bullet that was really\N14:54\Nclose and the bullet they dodged was was\N14:59\NMalthusian in nature them simply that\N15:02\Nthere were too many people on the planet\N15:05\Nto continue operating that way and I\N15:11\Nthink that's the way the survivors of\N15:14\Nthat sort of apocalypse would likely\N15:17\Nlikely view it like shoo that was tragic\N15:21\Nbut here we are given given human nature\N15:30\Nyeah I I think what you're I think what\N15:33\Nyou're saying is is more likely to\N15:35\Nhappen and that it's already begun you\N15:38\Nknow we're just the frog in the water\N15:40\Nand the water is getting heated up but I\N15:44\Nwanted this I head for the rum but I\N15:46\Nwant to ask you now you and I are about\N15:50\Nthe same age or my brother's age and we\N15:53\Ngrew up on the same tropes about the\N15:55\Nfuture gleaming kitchens and mama rails\N15:58\Nfor public transportation help as we're\N16:00\Nall going to have a helicopter on the\N16:01\Nroof but it'd all be deaf\N16:03\Nand then somewhere in the late seventies\N16:07\Naround\N16:08\NI remember that bar scene in Star Wars\N16:10\Nand Mad Max the vision the the kind of\N16:14\Npop entertainment vision went from\N16:18\Nutopian to dystopian and particularly\N16:22\Ntechno dystopian machines gone bad girls\N16:28\Ngone wild machines gone bad hell what do\N16:32\Nyou think a counter for that shift\N16:34\Noh well it's come you know culturally\N16:40\Nits complex like the excuse me the the\N16:46\Nfirst Star Wars film came out in 1977\N16:51\Nso it was confirming us with the Sex\N16:55\NPistols and it was like a big to me this\N17:01\Nthis guy quit appallingly retrograde\N17:07\Nnostalgia retro retro future it was\N17:12\Neverything I didn't want science fiction\N17:16\Nto be in spite of the cantina scene and\N17:21\Nit was riffing it was riffing on the\N17:25\N1930s Buck Rogers serials that ran every\N17:28\Nday after school on television when I\N17:30\Nwas when I was like four years old I'm\N17:35\Nhope we're in time Tom Corbett it's so\N17:42\Nand I wasn't you know I went to I went\N17:46\Nto it but I came out I wasn't an\N17:48\Necstatic the way my friends were it's\N17:50\Nlike I wanted to listen to The Clash\N17:52\Nthis is like this is that I want to\N17:55\Nwrite so I want there to be science\N17:57\Nfiction that's like listening to the\N17:59\Nlistening to the clash so that was\N18:02\Nhappening and at this same time Blade\N18:07\NRunner\N18:08\Nin the wings and was and was going to be\N18:14\Nmade so I think they were there were two\N18:16\Nat least two different modalities of pop\N18:24\Nfuturism abroad then and probably\N18:28\Nprobably considerably more it it hasn't\N18:32\Nbeen it hasn't ever really been a\N18:37\Nmonolithic thing the gleaming kitchens\N18:40\Nand the monorail and the flying cars and\N18:44\Nall of that in the 1950s coexisted with\N18:50\Na strain of left-leaning\N18:56\NAmerican socio-politically aware prose\N19:02\Nscience fiction which was being\N19:05\Npublished in contrast to its political\N19:08\Nopposite the political opposite was\N19:11\Ncalled astounding stories and the\N19:14\Nliberal sci-fi magazine was called\N19:16\Ngalaxies and the writers there was a\N19:20\Nlittle bit of crossover and they would\N19:23\Ndrink together when they went to science\N19:26\Nfiction conventions but otherwise they\N19:28\Ndidn't they didn't have much to do with\N19:31\None another and if you look at the\N19:33\Nstories that were being published in\N19:36\Ngalaxies the quiet dystopian and and\N19:41\Ngrid grittier and more more naturalistic\N19:45\Nand to my mind altogether more\N19:47\Nintelligent but that's sort of a matter\N19:50\Nof taste\N19:51\Nso it's never all one one scenario we\N19:58\Nthough we tend to we tend to remember it\N20:01\Nthat way I do think there was a time\N20:04\Nwhen we thought things are getting\N20:06\Nbetter and and that evolved into a\N20:10\Nbelief that things are kind of getting\N20:12\Nworse and I don't know that\N20:16\Nif that attached itself to to science\N20:19\Nfiction or not but I sort of think it\N20:22\Nhas now you know you're viewed as a guru\N20:29\Nyou know that that sure if readers view\N20:33\Nyou as a guide to the future but a\N20:36\Nsignpost that keeps changing as the\N20:38\Nworld morphs into its future because you\N20:40\Nknow we've had you know about 30 years\N20:43\Nof present that turned him future that\N20:45\Nturned it in present since you've been\N20:47\Nwriting as one reviewer put at writing\N20:51\Nabout the trajectory of Neuromancer of\N20:53\Ncourse the future was going to be filled\N20:55\Nwith mirror shades and black leather\N20:57\Njackets and the film of blood on a wet\N20:59\Nrazor why because William Gibson said it\N21:03\Nwould be but in the years since you\N21:06\Ncreated that future even though it\N21:07\Nhasn't happened yet you've already\N21:09\Nrevised and refined the vision and as\N21:11\None reader puts it it is no longer the\N21:14\Nsprawl no longer Neo Tokyo no longer\N21:17\Njacked in drugged-up surviving in stitch\N21:20\NPunk colonies on a broken bridge or\N21:24\Nlounging in the edgiest of designer\N21:26\Nclubs but Gibson had found it hiding\N21:28\Nbecoming here and there in our midst and\N21:30\Nwritten one of those who walked away\N21:33\Nthose unseen paths just out of sight of\N21:36\Nour daily commute you know the broken\N21:40\Nbridge in this quote makes me think of\N21:43\Nof New Orleans after Katrina where all\N21:47\Nthose people were left on an on an\N21:49\Noverpass which is pretty apocalyptic for\N21:52\Nthem hmm well I'm not ready to take the\N21:58\Nrap for for all of that when I began to\N22:04\Nwrite write science fiction\N22:07\NI knew that imaginary when I began to\N22:10\Nwrite I began to write\N22:12\Nas it happened I began to write science\N22:14\Nfiction but I had a bachelor's degree in\N22:17\Ncomparative literary critical\N22:20\Nmethodology and I read a lot of a lot of\N22:23\Nmodern novels and as a kid I'd read a\N22:26\Ngreat deal of science science fiction so\N22:29\NI took the the contents of my otherwise\N22:32\Nfairly useless\N22:34\Nundergraduate degree and applied it to\N22:37\Nwhat I knew of the history of science\N22:41\Nfiction and one thing one thing that\N22:46\Nallowed me to see is that when people\N22:49\Nwrite imaginary futures they never about\N22:52\Nthe future they are in they can only be\N22:58\Nabout the moment in which they were\N22:59\Nwritten and the history known history\N23:02\Nbefore that we don't have anything else\N23:05\Nwe have no access to the future we can\N23:09\Nwe can try to extrapolate and we can\N23:13\Nspend scenarios and try to make future\N23:19\Nhistories that that seem intriguingly\N23:23\Nlogical but they aren't going to be\N23:25\Nanything like what really happens now\N23:29\Nwhen someone someone predicts something\N23:35\Nthat really happens more or less and I\N23:39\Nwould say that that arthur c clarke\N23:41\Npredicted community orbiting\N23:45\Ncommunication satellites much more\N23:48\Naccurately than i ever predicted the\N23:53\Nworld wide web but in both cases we tend\N23:58\Nto our culture tends to overestimate the\N24:03\Nhit but yes he's prescient yes he's a\N24:07\Nprophet no they're all the misses this\N24:11\None hinting and they're all that all the\N24:13\Nmisses that the same the same right are\N24:17\Nmade now I've never had that heart to go\N24:19\Nthrough arthur c clarke and find\N24:21\Nall the stuff that he got wrong but he\N24:24\Nwas human and he could only he could\N24:26\Nonly get a lot of it get a lot of it\N24:29\Nwrong and unfortunately or maybe\N24:35\Nfortunately I don't know for my having\N24:38\Nbeen able to make a living\N24:42\Npeople who write about imaginary futures\N24:45\Nif they get a few hits are marketed as\N24:49\Nthough they were Sears or shaman and\N24:59\Nwhen we're not as my colleague Bruce\N25:02\NSterling used to like to say rather\N25:04\Nsmugly were charlatans we've joined the\N25:08\Ncircus and you're throwing money at us\N25:13\Nbecause our shells the public and their\N25:18\Npublicists present us as people who\N25:22\Ncould predict the future and yet we're\N25:27\Nwe're not and should you ever meet a\N25:32\Nscience fiction writer or a futurist\N25:36\Nto tell you that he or she can predict\N25:41\Nthe future run because you've got a live\N25:45\None and you don't want to go there do\N25:50\Nyou remember anything you predicted that\N25:53\Ndidn't happen well every time I don't\N26:00\Noften reread my own own work I could not\N26:05\Nfor instance to save my life write a\N26:09\Nprecis of the plot of count zero I\N26:13\Nremember a few scenes I'm pretty good\N26:16\Nwith Neuromancer because I've had to\N26:18\Nrevisit it very frequently when when\N26:22\Nwhenever anyone attempts to make one of\N26:26\Nthe\N26:26\Nabortive attempts at realizing it as a\N26:30\Nfeature film and so from going back to\N26:33\Nyou from going back to the Durham answer\N26:36\NI I did you know there's a scene in\N26:39\NNeuromancer where case is really you\N26:43\Nknow he really you've it's very far in\N26:48\Nthe book and and you know the crunch has\N26:50\Nreally come and he needs to communicate\N26:53\Nreally quick so he says somebody get me\N26:57\Na modem I can tell you I can tell you\N27:04\Nnow is this is humiliating you know this\N27:08\Nis really embarrassing but when I wrote\N27:10\Nthat I didn't know what a modem was it\N27:14\Nwas just this word that I had heard\N27:16\Ncomputer people use and it had something\N27:20\Nto do with with communicating\N27:24\Ncommunication between computers so it\N27:27\Nmakes absolutely no sense in in the\N27:32\Ncontext of the imaginary world world of\N27:37\Nthat book but I was working from the\N27:41\Npoetics of an emergent language of\N27:48\Naround around the digital and honestly\N27:54\Nthe the first time I heard anyone use\N27:57\Ninterface as a verb i fairly swooned at\N28:03\Nhow that's so hot just incredible and I\N28:10\Nwent right home when I put it historian\N28:12\Nanother time I was standing beside two\N28:16\Nformer WAC Women's Army Corps keypunch\N28:21\Noperators who had worked at the Pentagon\N28:24\Nthey had to wear sweaters remember that\N28:26\Nbecause it was cold in the rows yeah I\N28:29\Nimagine these these women had worn or\N28:32\Nsweaters and they were reminiscing with\N28:35\None another and I was eavesdropping and\N28:40\None of them said yeah they had the guys\N28:42\Nwith that cart that came around in the\N28:44\Nmorning and they took off those games\N28:47\Nthat people would put on put on our\N28:50\NUNIVAC or whatever it was and the other\N28:53\None said yeah but what they were really\N28:56\Nafter was those viruses and I got broke\N29:00\Nmy neck oh wow sorry I said excuse me\N29:04\Nbut what viruses and she said all\N29:08\Ncomputers can be infected by viruses\N29:10\Nthey're not really they just call them\N29:12\Nthat they're their little tired things\N29:15\Nthat sort of behave like viruses within\N29:18\Nthe information and the computer and\N29:21\Nthat was the first time I ever heard of\N29:24\Nthat and you know something probably\N29:27\Nnobody else in that whole science\N29:29\Nfiction convention had ever ever ever\N29:32\Nheard of that so I was like I think I'm\N29:34\Nleaving the Condor Lee I've got some\N29:36\NRyan writing to do because I wanted to\N29:40\Nget that down before anybody anybody\N29:44\Nelse heard about it and it was about\N29:49\Nwell when Neuromancer came out the idea\N29:52\Nof of computer viruses was still pretty\N29:57\Npretty esoteric and for that matter when\N30:02\NNeuromancer came out the idea that that\N30:05\NJapan was about to own the whole world\N30:09\Nwas really a really esoteric but it was\N30:14\Nthere that's another way that I didn't\N30:19\Nget it right but I don't really care I\N30:23\Nkind of I treasure our tech science\N30:28\Nfiction for those very flaws it makes it\N30:35\Ncharming and deeply it makes it charming\N30:39\Nand deeply strange it demonstrates that\N30:43\Nit is\N30:44\Nan artifact of the very moment in which\N30:48\Nit was made which is really all it can\N30:51\Nbe you can't get really off the hook of\N30:53\Nhaving and vented the trim cyberspace\N30:56\Nyou're just gonna have to live with that\N30:58\Nright well I did you know I I how I came\N31:04\Nto to coin that the word word cyberspace\N31:09\Nwhich is I think I think of cyberspace\N31:14\Nas a piece of heritage terminology and\N31:21\Nit wasn't when I wrote Neuromancer but I\N31:26\Nthink that cyberspace is heritage\N31:29\Nterminology in the same way that the\N31:32\Nreal world quote is heritage terminology\N31:37\Nthe difference between the world into\N31:41\Nwhich neuroma Neuromancer was published\N31:45\Nand the world in which we live tonight\N31:48\Nis that in Neuromancer z-- day in the\N31:55\Nday of the actual publication of the\N31:57\Nbook there was cyberspace this other\N32:02\Nrealm and the real and the real world\N32:05\Nand what's happened what's happened\N32:12\Nactually it's presented that way in the\N32:15\Nbook even though it's like something\N32:17\Nlike i assumed 2035 in the book people\N32:21\Nstill go okay is the real world here in\N32:24\Nthe sprawl but they're in cyberspace\N32:26\Nleaving beyond the duh so that's gone\N32:31\Nand what's happened is that cyberspace\N32:33\Nhas colonized the real world and the\N32:36\Ndistinction the distinction is what's\N32:40\Ngoing to make us look like Hicks to our\N32:43\Ngreat-grandchildren that we even think\N32:46\Nthere could be a distinction it's\N32:50\Nthey're not I don't you know we keep\N32:52\Ngoing the way we're going out on\N32:54\Nthere'll be a distinction there's less\N32:56\Nof a distinction now than there was last\N32:58\Nyear and are you disappointed at all in\N33:03\Nthe web no no I um it isn't it's it's\N33:13\Nsort of part of the marketing which you\N33:19\Nknow it this isn't it isn't that I've\N33:21\Nonly now come to say oh no the marketing\N33:24\Nis raw you shouldn't you know you should\N33:28\Nregard me as a prophet I've said that\N33:32\Nmore over the course of 30 years than\N33:35\NI've said anything else I've did\N33:40\Nremorselessly on topic with that since\N33:45\Nsince the very beginning is that weird\N33:49\Nanthology of every interview I ever did\N33:52\Nthat has been recently published\N33:55\Napparently indicates someone who\N33:58\Nactually went through it all says so you\N34:02\Ncertainly repeat yourself and quite a\N34:06\Nlot of it is me saying nope I'm not\N34:09\Nprescient and I and I didn't\N34:11\Nparticularly I didn't particularly\N34:14\Nexpect to be but I keep watching this\N34:19\Nstuff as it changes and the distinction\N34:26\Nbetween between the digital and the\N34:30\Nso-called real or the so-called digital\N34:33\Nand so-called real is is going it's just\N34:39\Ngoing away and assuming that we keep\N34:45\Nbeing able to make these gadgets and\N34:48\Nsystems I think it will continue it will\N34:51\Nit will continue to to go away\N34:55\Nand those who grow up with that will\N35:01\Nregard us with some puzzlement\N35:04\Nas transitional creatures between\N35:08\Nthemselves and whole world before\N35:13\Ntelevision that they were they were all\N35:16\Nstruggle to comprehend much as we\N35:21\Nstruggle if we seriously try to\N35:23\Ncomprehend the lives of our ancestors in\N35:28\Nthe savannas yeah you know I have two\N35:31\Nmore pages of questions but I'm not\N35:33\Ngoing to get to ask them because we want\N35:36\Nto turn this over to the audience after\N35:39\NI ask you a question I've been holding\N35:41\Nbed but I'm sure you have an opinion\N35:44\Nthat is what do you think happened to\N35:48\NMalaysia air 370 I'm still on it I think\N35:57\NI think of that as a demonstration of\N36:04\Nthe extent to which we are not yet truly\N36:09\Npost geographical I think that that's a\N36:14\Ndemonstration of the brute beingness of\N36:24\Ngeography and if I if I had to guess I\N36:30\Nwould say that it's very very deep\N36:34\Nsomewhere in India probably in the\N36:39\NIndian Ocean but that the Indian Ocean\N36:42\Nis so damn big and so damn deep that it\N36:46\Nwill be a long time before we find it\N36:50\Nand even when we find it we may not know\N36:52\Nexactly what unfortunate story that it\N36:56\Nthan it to be there but I think it would\N36:59\Nit was I think of it as a rupture in our\N37:05\Nfantastic membrane of hubris about\N37:09\Ninside we imagine our technology as\N37:13\Nbeing like like actually cooler\N37:16\Nthat it is when we run into running when\N37:21\Nwe run into a situation in which our our\N37:24\Nbest techies say to us there's nothing\N37:28\Nwe can do we could just keep looking it\N37:30\Nmay take forever it's down in the bottom\N37:34\Nof the ocean it's too deep to find and\N37:38\Nit's hard for us too it's become hard\N37:42\Nfor us to get our heads around that you\N37:47\Ndon't think it's in Kazakhstan come on I\N37:51\Nwould be Syd I would be super\N37:54\NI would actually would be surprised but\N37:57\Nit's the thing about this thing about\N38:04\Nconspiracy theories is that in order to\N38:10\Npropagate you have to be able to\N38:11\Ndescribe them over a maximum of two\N38:15\Npints of beer now and that means that\N38:21\Nthey won't by nature be be very complex\N38:26\Nand they may but neither\N38:30\Ninterestingly will they be very\N38:33\Nfrightening even even if they involve\N38:36\Nthe Reptoid Illuminati I haven't got\N38:40\Nthat their actual their actual function\N38:43\Nin in that simplicity is to protect us\N38:46\Nfrom the really terrifying realities\N38:51\Nwhich are inherently vastly complex so\N38:57\Nit's it's actually that scary to think\N39:00\Nthat that that plane is in Kazakhstan\N39:03\Nthan it is to think that it's at the\N39:06\Nbottom of the ocean as a result of some\N39:10\Nhuman that we may never\N39:13\Nunderstand that's scarier based on your\N39:18\Nbooks and on your Twitter feed you have\N39:20\Na big interest in fashion I actually\N39:22\Nbought a pair of outlier chinos based on\N39:24\Nyour recommendation\N39:27\Nbut what specifically interests you\N39:29\Nabout fashion well it isn't I don't\N39:34\Nactually like to think about it as\N39:36\Nfashion because I think of fashion as a\N39:39\Nkind of artificial marketing structure\N39:43\Nwhere at the turn of every season they\N39:46\Njump up and say oh you need new pants\N39:49\Nbut I am interested I'm interested in\N39:56\Nclothing and haircuts and things like\N39:59\Nthings that we think of as fashion I'm\N40:02\Ninterested in it as a language and\N40:08\Nsometimes the localized language and\N40:10\Nsome sometimes now a global a global\N40:16\Nlanguage and we all communicate to some\N40:21\Nextent with what we with what we wear\N40:26\Nsome of us pride ourselves on not doing\N40:29\Nthat but that's not really true if you\N40:32\Nsee someone who's making an actually\N40:34\Nutterly incoherent closing statement\N40:38\Nyou cross the street it's even those of\N40:43\Nus who think of ourselves as resolutely\N40:45\Nanti fashion and not interested in any\N40:48\Nof that are not getting it that wrong so\N40:53\NI'm interested in that I'm interested in\N40:56\Nhow people identify with with\N41:02\Ncounterculture I'm interested in counter\N41:05\Ncultural identification through garments\N41:08\NI'm interested in the fact that there is\N41:10\Napparently always one breeding pair of\N41:14\Nrockers in the United Kingdom and and at\N41:18\Nleast one of classic mods and and Goths\N41:24\Nseem utterly established and never go\N41:27\Naway and those are all modalities\N41:33\Nidentification\N41:35\NI've been sitting with him for a couple\N41:38\Nhours now and everything he's wearing is\N41:41\Ncool you're you're not up close enough\N41:43\Nto see it but his pants are cool jacket\N41:46\Ntotally cool with this snaps shoes I\N41:49\Ndidn't notice somebody came out here and\N41:50\NI got a gander at those socks ordinary\N41:53\Nbut everything else I was actually I\N41:58\Nshouldn't this will haunt me but I have\N42:01\Nto I have to admit it because I think\N42:03\Nit's funny I was a branding consultant\N42:06\Non the line of clothing that these pants\N42:12\Nin this jacket are a harlow but I can't\N42:16\Nsay what it was because had to sign a\N42:19\Nnondisclosure agreement so I can't tell\N42:24\Nyou what Brad did is I actually was and\N42:28\Nthat was where that was where I learned\N42:30\Nthat all the stuff in in Xero history\N42:34\Nthat people think I've made up about\N42:37\Nabout the the the hybridization of the\N42:43\Nmilitary industrial complex and the\N42:46\Nskateboard clothing complex so that that\N42:51\Nwas really good that was really going on\N42:53\Nand if I if I hadn't have been\N42:56\Nresearching that I would never have\N42:58\Ngotten but God's a gig very strange do\N43:04\Nspend in fiction writers are poor when\N43:08\Nit comes to research and cutting-edge\N43:10\Nknowledge in history I think that our\N43:15\Nmail has gotten shorter and shorter and\N43:19\Nshorter and I think our now when I was\N43:23\Nabout five years old was maybe a\N43:27\Npresidential term or half of one and how\N43:33\Nnow today is is like a fraction of a\N43:37\Nnews cycle if that it's been it's been\N43:42\Nshrinking so back\N43:44\Nback in the 50s Robert Heinlein's say\N43:48\Nwriting writing some pretty carefully\N43:53\Nextrapolated speculative fiction had\N43:57\Nthis big flat now to work on and he\N44:01\Ncould sort of arrange the bits but\N44:04\Nthat's been getting smaller so that the\N44:06\Nthing that was the size of two Olympic\N44:09\Ntennis courts is now like like a quarter\N44:12\Nof what used to be called the postage\N44:15\Nstamp\N44:15\Nbut now itself is kind of on the verge\N44:18\Nof verge of extinction and writers today\N44:22\Ndon't have the real estate of now in\N44:29\Nwhich to plant their stuff because\N44:31\Neverything is changing changing very\N44:34\Nquickly and and that creates different\N44:37\Nproblems in in speculative fiction and\N44:43\Npeople have to come up with with\N44:46\Ndifferent solutions and one of my\N44:48\Nsolutions is just to accept that what I\N44:53\Nwrite is is obsoleting it's it's if it\N44:58\Nwere an ice cream cone it would be\N45:01\Nmelting as I tried to take it home\N45:03\Nit's obsoleting as I write it somebody's\N45:06\Ninventing something right now that will\N45:09\Nmake make my novel ridiculous except\N45:13\Nwell if I if I'm really serious about\N45:18\Nwriting a novel that stuff won't matter\N45:20\Nand my novel won't become ridiculous\N45:23\Nbecause its intent will have been in the\N45:26\Nend quite serious um my question is sort\N45:32\Nof sort of carries on a little bit with\N45:34\Nwe were just saying about the not the\N45:35\Npresent and you mentioned earlier that\N45:37\Nyou think that science fiction tells you\N45:42\Nabout the moment in which it occurred in\N45:44\Nthe moment that in which it was\N45:45\Npublished and I'm curious what you think\N45:47\Nthat science fiction being written and\N45:49\Npublished today tells us about the\N45:52\Ncurrent moment well I should be careful\N45:57\Nabout science fiction being published\N45:59\Ntoday because I don't actually read that\N46:02\Nmuch of it myself so I'm actually very\N46:08\Nout of touch with the genre as a\N46:15\Nmarketing thing and as a marketing\N46:19\Nmechanism and when I if I go into a\N46:23\Nscience fiction specialty shop I'm just\N46:26\Noverwhelmed by the the number of titles\N46:29\Nand the variety of that I rely on the\N46:34\Nsort of personal network / filtering\N46:39\Noperation that one develops over the\N46:43\Ncourse of a literary life or if\N46:45\Nsomething happens that a sufficient\N46:48\Nnumber of my friends find interesting\N46:51\Nenough to bring to one another's\N46:52\Nattention it sort of bumps along until\N46:55\Nit gets to me and I'll go home I might I\N46:59\Nmight I might read that but I did\N47:03\Nsomething I went to a science fiction\N47:05\Nconvention in Vancouver and I had been\N47:08\Nto a convention that's enough convention\N47:11\Nin about 20 years a little over 20 years\N47:14\Nand so I went and I was I was doing a\N47:20\Nconversation something like this they're\N47:23\Nless wide-ranging in front of us a\N47:26\Nsmaller audience and and so I said here\N47:31\Nthese are three writers somebody asked\N47:33\Nme that I was interested in and I saw\N47:34\Nother these three writers and I said how\N47:37\Nmany people have heard of her and two\N47:40\Npeople raised their hands and of him and\N47:43\None raised the head and of him nobody\N47:46\Nraised their hands so I realized I was\N47:48\Nsort of walking around in some kind of\N47:50\NInternet consensus bubble and I had no\N47:54\Nidea what these people were reading and\N47:56\Nthen almost none of them were reading\N47:58\Nthere the writers I I thought were\N48:02\Nare really interesting right now we're\N48:04\Njust getting into it I think it's fair\N48:07\Nto say that there's a lot a strong vein\N48:10\Nof warning in this new navi novel and\N48:12\Nwhen other people write these books with\N48:14\Nthese strong warnings in them they're\N48:16\Nvery bad things happen in them but my\N48:19\Nquestion is why are you so nice to your\N48:21\Ncharacters compared to your peers\N48:23\Nit's a d2 final the two final chapters\N48:28\Nare a sort of litmus test for\N48:30\Nsocio-political sophistication if you\N48:35\Nthink a woman's okay because she's\N48:36\Nmarried pregnant and has a lot of money\N48:42\Nlook there's a lot of is a lot of you\N48:46\Nknow a happy ending is about when you\N48:48\Nroll the credit there's a lot of bad\N48:50\Nhovering around both those both\N48:54\Nthose chapters and particularly well one\N49:02\Nof it one of the characters in the 10th\N49:05\Nultimate next to last chapter\N49:09\Nessentially has the last word of the\N49:12\Nbook and she looks out she looks out\N49:18\Nover the City of London and says human\N49:21\Nall too human because she and that's her\N49:25\Nanswer to being asked why the people in\N49:29\Nthat the good guys in that chapter why\N49:32\Nthey might not inadvertently be creating\N49:35\Nexactly what they think they're escaping\N49:38\Nfrom which if you think about it when I\N49:43\Nget it's too spoilery for me to get into\N49:47\Nbut if you read it again which I\N49:51\Nactually recommend with this book\N49:53\Nbecause it works completely differently\N49:56\Nthe second time is you I guarantee\N49:59\Nyou'll see a lot of things you missed\N50:01\Nthe first time particularly in the first\N50:03\Nhundred pages it does I think those two\N50:10\Nfinal chapters of the\N50:11\NJarius thing I have ever written the\N50:14\Ncreepiest thing I've ever written and\N50:17\NI've already seen reviews that accused\N50:20\Nme of going beyond my known penchant for\N50:24\Nabsurdly happy endings so in your\N50:32\Ncollection distrusts that particular\N50:34\Nflavor\N50:35\Nyou mentioned the term prosthetic memory\N50:38\Nand from my understanding you're the\N50:42\Nrecall in that memory it could be\N50:44\Ndistant or nearby and these are kind of\N50:48\Ndetermined by algorithms like search\N50:50\Nalgorithms or things on the phone and\N50:52\Nwhatever what may have you do you have\N50:55\Nany thoughts on that or personal opinion\N50:58\NI have a pocket full of prosthetic\N51:02\Nmemory right right here I've got you\N51:07\Nknow I don't know how far back the email\N51:10\Nrecord I can access on this this phone\N51:14\Ngoes but that's prosthetic memory this\N51:18\Nphone when I'm in a building other than\N51:21\Nthis one can can access Google and\N51:24\Nthat's prosthetic memory\N51:27\Nit probably prosthetic memory is not\N51:31\Nlike like a chip from whatever\N51:34\NRadioShack is now called if it even\N51:36\Nstill exists it's it's this entire\N51:40\Nsystem where we're connected to and as\N51:43\Nsomeone said on on Twitter last last\N51:47\Nmonth --is said someone said I'm getting\N51:51\Ntired of not being able to lose track of\N51:54\Nanyone I thought that was somehow like\N52:00\Nthe core statement of the entire year\N52:06\Nfor BRE yeah and that's prosthetic\N52:10\Nmemory that prosthetic memory is like\N52:14\Nevery everything you ever did in social\N52:19\Nmedia just stay\N52:21\Nbeing there for the rest of your life\N52:23\Nbut it's we we live in this vast\N52:29\Nmechanism of prosthetic memory that\N52:32\Nrelatively speaking scarcely existed 50\N52:36\N50 years ago we have been creating forms\N52:41\Nof prosthetic memory forever you know\N52:46\Npainting on cave walls working at you\N52:50\Nknow notching bones working all of those\N52:53\Nthings that animals don't do that we've\N52:58\Nalways done culminate now and then\N53:01\Nwhatever the hell this is that we're\N53:04\Ndoing which I tend to assume the\N53:09\Nendpoint would just be a single digital\N53:14\Nnow it would be like a spherical retina\N53:20\Nlooking in in itself and some kind of\N53:24\Nsome weird kind of digital board DC and\N53:28\NAlpha Omega thing and you know we may we\N53:35\Nmay not get to find out but one day is\N53:37\Nsomeone might there was a there was a\N53:40\Npiece you wrote the Bible interview my\N53:42\NMP she wrote in Wired in the 90s when\N53:45\Nsomeone said like you've been accused of\N53:47\Ncreating dystopias and you said well it\N53:49\Ndepends who you are because if you're\N53:51\Nlike a slum blower in Bangladesh on a\N53:53\Nsite of a high-tech Bangladesh or\N53:54\Nwhatever yeah that's that's peeling and\N53:56\Nso you still think that this apocalyptic\N53:59\Nsense things are getting worse is kind\N54:01\Nof a luxury of us at the top and that\N54:04\Nactually no actually mostly the vans are\N54:05\Nhelping most of humanity so we just\N54:07\Nbetter chill out just accept that other\N54:09\Npeople are well I mean it is in a way\N54:13\Nthe anxiety about having too much\N54:18\Nanxiety about the apocalypse is perhaps\N54:20\Nthe the ultimate first world problem\N54:24\Nyeah I think people people are trying to\N54:28\Nyou know get get food on the table to\N54:32\Nkeep their children from\N54:33\Nthey're not like they're not stressing\N54:36\Nthe apocalypse there they're very much\N54:39\Nin the but they're very much in the\N54:41\Nmoment and I do think that they're\N54:48\Nplenty I think they're probably a lot of\N54:50\Npeople in say Mogadishu who offered that\N54:53\Noffered the chance to immigrate to\N54:56\NNeuromancer would be there in a flash if\N55:00\Nthey if they could and they'd be doing\N55:02\Nthey'd be doing they'd be doing better\N55:05\None of the the kind of secrets I guess\N55:09\Nthat the sort of very simple moves I\N55:14\Ndiscovered early on in my career which\N55:17\NI'm only sort of becoming willing to\N55:20\Ntalk about thee these days is that what\N55:23\NI would do what I would do for these\N55:26\Nfutures what I would just take take the\N55:29\Nconditions of the third world transfer\N55:35\Nthem to say Chicago and just run them\N55:39\Nyou know just run it straight through\N55:41\Nand people would go oh how could and yet\N55:45\Nthey're probably you know there are\N55:47\Nparts of Chicago where that you could\N55:51\Nzero in on and go well that's pretty\N55:53\Nclose indeed it's true so the people who\N55:57\Nhave the the the holy that scary\N56:02\Nreact reaction to to Neuromancer tend to\N56:08\Nbe very privileged people one one way or\N56:12\Nanother and and that was part of my\N56:16\Nprogram and I was hoping that in some\N56:22\Nway I could maybe change that a little\N56:25\Nbit by showing it people this stuff in a\N56:28\Ndifferent way thank you
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,