William Gibson: Technology, Science Fiction & the Apocalypse

00:11
you're famously quoted often as saying
00:15
the future is already here it's just not
00:17
very evenly distributed this perpetual
00:20
toggling between nothing new you say
00:22
Under the Sun and everything having very
00:25
recently changed absolutely is perhaps
00:27
the central driving tension of my work I
00:30
don't know if you remember saying that
00:32
can you expand on that well I have that
00:45
you know as a sort of ordinary sense of
00:49
my waking waking day that you know I
00:54
mean I'm in the eternal world that
01:00
humans have been living in almost
01:04
forever and we're not we don't seem to
01:10
be that terribly advanced in terms of
01:14
how we deal with one another we were
01:17
still doing appalling things variously
01:21
around the world every every day and
01:26
simultaneously I'm waking up in the
01:29
morning
01:30
and poking at my iPad Mini and seeing
01:35
that someone in London has just remarked
01:38
on the weather and posted a photograph
01:41
of the sky so I suddenly have this this
01:44
and they that they did it the minute I
01:47
woke up so I'm suddenly looking at the
01:50
sky in London that some stranger
01:52
stranger took and described in a in
01:56
another poetic way and it's all
01:59
instantaneous and people never did that
02:02
before and that's all happening at top
02:07
that's all happening very near the apex
02:10
of a pyramid of once emergent
02:13
technologies that might have say at the
02:17
bottom you'd have have growing cereal
02:20
and above that you would have cities
02:25
which you can't do unless you could grow
02:27
and store cereal and above that you have
02:30
sewers without which your city died of
02:33
above a certain population of of cholera
02:37
and dysentery so we're up at the apex if
02:41
any of those other layers below win out
02:43
on us we don't die we forget that that
02:48
we're at the peak of peak of something
02:51
but we're supported by older
02:53
technologies that we no longer even
02:55
think of us as technologies so and I
03:01
think maybe professionally I have some
03:04
awareness of that every day or I try to
03:10
have are you frightened by that one I'm
03:17
anxious by Nature
03:21
you know I'm one of those there's sort
03:26
of hyper-vigilant people except when I'm
03:31
on those on those occasions when I'm
03:35
when I'm relaxed
03:37
but it's a bit scary but so is life and
03:42
it's it's it is what it is what it is
03:48
I think of what I do as a species of
03:52
naturalism not that it's not that it's
03:59
predictive or or trying to be prescient
04:04
but that I'm simply trying to describe a
04:06
sometimes the incomprehensible present
04:10
with the tool kits of science fiction
04:14
and futurology which seem totally
04:17
appropriate to this particular present
04:20
yeah I think we're on a Speedway of
04:26
Technology now and I don't know if
04:29
that's going to continue but it has been
04:31
for the past maybe ten years for me that
04:33
you you don't have anything you can play
04:36
anything on anymore you know and it
04:40
makes small bits of trouble for
04:42
novelists because in Victorian novels
04:46
the calling card falls behind the bureau
04:50
somebody's life is ruined and you could
04:53
write that for all your life and now if
04:55
you I had a student who had everybody
04:59
had flip phones in her novel by the time
05:01
it came out those were like antiques
05:04
might as well have them playing records
05:06
on gramophones yeah can I have a lot of
05:11
sympathy with that I think if I if a 12
05:15
year old reading Neuromancer today she'd
05:18
get to page 20 and go okay the whole
05:22
plot hinges around what happened to all
05:24
the cell phones
05:28
not press it yeah I remember you saying
05:35
that in some interview that you it was a
05:37
real oversight but who could have
05:40
predicted that that we walk around and
05:42
be available to everybody anytime there
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was no no one but more more
05:47
interestingly I think is for a thought
05:51
account of difficult thought experiment
05:55
spend some time trying to imagine what
06:00
it would have been like if somehow
06:02
someone back in 1963 some science
06:06
fiction writer had received in her sleep
06:09
a completely accurate vision of our
06:14
state of cellular telephony today and
06:18
she wrote a novel that incorporated that
06:22
vision and took it to a publisher the
06:25
publisher said are you insane the
06:28
characters in this book spend all their
06:30
time looking at these tiny and tiny
06:33
television radios things in their
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pockets and writing letters on them and
06:38
playing Angry Birds and they're never
06:41
alone no one is ever loved what will
06:44
people make I wonder we have been
06:48
wondering quite a lot recently what will
06:51
people make in 20 years of all the
06:53
fiction ever written in which people are
06:55
mostly alone most of their lives yeah
07:00
that the the the solitude will be
07:04
incomprehensible
07:06
I remember the year I don't know which
07:09
year it was in in London when the
07:11
solitude went away I I went to London in
07:17
the fall and I remember standing on
07:20
standing on a platform somewhere in
07:24
Kensington waiting for the Train and
07:26
looking at the English people not
07:29
speaking to one another and not making
07:32
eye contact
07:33
that's was there what from time
07:35
immemorial and I went away and I came
07:38
back a month later and they were all on
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cell phones it just changed overnight
07:43
that solitude above London flew away and
07:47
I thought that was the moment the
07:50
extraordinary thing for me was that I
07:53
had actually seen it seeing it happen
07:56
no no one now remembers the night that
07:59
they turned on the broadcast television
08:01
in New York City but you know it changed
08:04
everything and it's never changed but do
08:10
you think cell phones will I mean you
08:11
didn't predict them can you produce
08:13
their demise I think that they will you
08:19
know assuming that if this goes on you
08:22
know I think we'll probably internalize
08:25
them as the the characters in the
08:30
further future have done in the in in
08:33
the peripheral they have them implanted
08:38
they don't know exactly where that sort
08:40
of the technology is distributed and
08:42
they experience them as a sort of
08:46
internalized head-up display where you
08:50
see you see who's calling in you you see
08:54
their sigil but I actually had to
08:57
develop that technology because when I
09:01
started the book I developed a much more
09:04
fully realized idea of fully
09:08
internalized cellular telephony that
09:13
makes that look really primitive but
09:15
what I found was it was so distracting
09:18
and took the took the readers so far
09:22
away from the narrative that it was just
09:24
impossible to use it so I deliberately
09:27
cranked their technology back I figured
09:31
it was about thirty years in order to
09:35
have something recognizable to
09:39
to a reader today I remember and and I
09:45
never could figure out how it worked
09:47
from Twitter first came out I think it
09:49
was in zero history were they have they
09:57
set up a private Twitter account that's
09:59
that was the first time I thought that
10:01
it has a kind of a lock nobody else can
10:03
join do you remember this
10:05
yes it's actually easy you could you
10:07
could you could do that any any Twitter
10:11
account can be set set to private so
10:17
that that no one can no one can follow
10:19
you unless you okay them if two people
10:23
do that mutually to the exclusion of
10:26
everything else and sir private life
10:28
yeah it's a it's a private line I
10:31
thought that was cool I still have both
10:35
of those accounts the accounts they is
10:38
because I knew that people would open
10:40
them if I - yeah yeah well your new
10:44
novel which you know you're here on your
10:47
tour the peripheral doesn't end run
10:51
around the blur between the president
10:53
future by taking place in your future
10:55
and a farther one a connection is
10:59
established between the two basically
11:02
through a wormhole in a video game
11:05
anyway is that would you had a describe
11:12
that is as correct and video games are
11:15
such that wealthy people have players
11:18
play them for them yes well I've to to
11:25
as you say there there are two two
11:30
futures that it's like a double scoop of
11:34
that whole science fiction and one is
11:39
one is a near future which is basically
11:42
winters
11:44
with better smartphones or justified
11:48
with more drones and then there's the
11:53
further one which is my take on on how
12:03
badly human beings could manage to mess
12:07
up the the so called singularity so I
12:12
guess it's a very screwed up singularity
12:15
and it's on the far side of an
12:22
apocalyptic event of sorts although
12:27
while I was working on that is something
12:30
that the strut that I struck me that I'd
12:33
never noticed before
12:34
is that our cultural model of of the
12:38
apocalypse is unique causal and a very
12:41
brief duration so Triffids come world
12:45
ends post apocalypse the United States
12:52
and USSR nuke each other to mutual
12:55
destruction post apocalypse they'd like
12:59
it it's one thing it happens and I saw
13:03
what if the what if the apocalypse were
13:09
multi causal complexly systemic it took
13:14
40 or 50 years but actually I initially
13:19
thought what if it took 400 years or 500
13:22
years but that was too much time for my
13:27
story so I got it down to four I got it
13:30
down to 40 there's another reason why
13:33
that wouldn't happen then I can see it
13:37
actually is a lot more likely than a
13:40
brief uni causal event but we I don't
13:45
think we have the cultural equipment to
13:49
hold that idea readily in
13:52
heads it's not part of our mythology in
13:56
spite of the possibility that we might
13:59
now already be living in it and that
14:04
that fact might account for those creepy
14:08
feelings that some of you have been
14:12
having myself included and you call that
14:19
the jackpot in the book heads
14:21
it's the jackpot yes the jerk the
14:24
jackpot and when the survivors of the
14:31
jackpot have tended to be able to afford
14:35
it when they come out after I won't go
14:41
into it what saves their bacon but when
14:45
they come out and see the dog that many
14:48
people left there they sort of say wow
14:51
man we dodged the bullet that was really
14:54
close and the bullet they dodged was was
14:59
Malthusian in nature them simply that
15:02
there were too many people on the planet
15:05
to continue operating that way and I
15:11
think that's the way the survivors of
15:14
that sort of apocalypse would likely
15:17
likely view it like shoo that was tragic
15:21
but here we are given given human nature
15:30
yeah I I think what you're I think what
15:33
you're saying is is more likely to
15:35
happen and that it's already begun you
15:38
know we're just the frog in the water
15:40
and the water is getting heated up but I
15:44
wanted this I head for the rum but I
15:46
want to ask you now you and I are about
15:50
the same age or my brother's age and we
15:53
grew up on the same tropes about the
15:55
future gleaming kitchens and mama rails
15:58
for public transportation help as we're
16:00
all going to have a helicopter on the
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roof but it'd all be deaf
16:03
and then somewhere in the late seventies
16:07
around
16:08
I remember that bar scene in Star Wars
16:10
and Mad Max the vision the the kind of
16:14
pop entertainment vision went from
16:18
utopian to dystopian and particularly
16:22
techno dystopian machines gone bad girls
16:28
gone wild machines gone bad hell what do
16:32
you think a counter for that shift
16:34
oh well it's come you know culturally
16:40
its complex like the excuse me the the
16:46
first Star Wars film came out in 1977
16:51
so it was confirming us with the Sex
16:55
Pistols and it was like a big to me this
17:01
this guy quit appallingly retrograde
17:07
nostalgia retro retro future it was
17:12
everything I didn't want science fiction
17:16
to be in spite of the cantina scene and
17:21
it was riffing it was riffing on the
17:25
1930s Buck Rogers serials that ran every
17:28
day after school on television when I
17:30
was when I was like four years old I'm
17:35
hope we're in time Tom Corbett it's so
17:42
and I wasn't you know I went to I went
17:46
to it but I came out I wasn't an
17:48
ecstatic the way my friends were it's
17:50
like I wanted to listen to The Clash
17:52
this is like this is that I want to
17:55
write so I want there to be science
17:57
fiction that's like listening to the
17:59
listening to the clash so that was
18:02
happening and at this same time Blade
18:07
Runner
18:08
in the wings and was and was going to be
18:14
made so I think they were there were two
18:16
at least two different modalities of pop
18:24
futurism abroad then and probably
18:28
probably considerably more it it hasn't
18:32
been it hasn't ever really been a
18:37
monolithic thing the gleaming kitchens
18:40
and the monorail and the flying cars and
18:44
all of that in the 1950s coexisted with
18:50
a strain of left-leaning
18:56
American socio-politically aware prose
19:02
science fiction which was being
19:05
published in contrast to its political
19:08
opposite the political opposite was
19:11
called astounding stories and the
19:14
liberal sci-fi magazine was called
19:16
galaxies and the writers there was a
19:20
little bit of crossover and they would
19:23
drink together when they went to science
19:26
fiction conventions but otherwise they
19:28
didn't they didn't have much to do with
19:31
one another and if you look at the
19:33
stories that were being published in
19:36
galaxies the quiet dystopian and and
19:41
grid grittier and more more naturalistic
19:45
and to my mind altogether more
19:47
intelligent but that's sort of a matter
19:50
of taste
19:51
so it's never all one one scenario we
19:58
though we tend to we tend to remember it
20:01
that way I do think there was a time
20:04
when we thought things are getting
20:06
better and and that evolved into a
20:10
belief that things are kind of getting
20:12
worse and I don't know that
20:16
if that attached itself to to science
20:19
fiction or not but I sort of think it
20:22
has now you know you're viewed as a guru
20:29
you know that that sure if readers view
20:33
you as a guide to the future but a
20:36
signpost that keeps changing as the
20:38
world morphs into its future because you
20:40
know we've had you know about 30 years
20:43
of present that turned him future that
20:45
turned it in present since you've been
20:47
writing as one reviewer put at writing
20:51
about the trajectory of Neuromancer of
20:53
course the future was going to be filled
20:55
with mirror shades and black leather
20:57
jackets and the film of blood on a wet
20:59
razor why because William Gibson said it
21:03
would be but in the years since you
21:06
created that future even though it
21:07
hasn't happened yet you've already
21:09
revised and refined the vision and as
21:11
one reader puts it it is no longer the
21:14
sprawl no longer Neo Tokyo no longer
21:17
jacked in drugged-up surviving in stitch
21:20
Punk colonies on a broken bridge or
21:24
lounging in the edgiest of designer
21:26
clubs but Gibson had found it hiding
21:28
becoming here and there in our midst and
21:30
written one of those who walked away
21:33
those unseen paths just out of sight of
21:36
our daily commute you know the broken
21:40
bridge in this quote makes me think of
21:43
of New Orleans after Katrina where all
21:47
those people were left on an on an
21:49
overpass which is pretty apocalyptic for
21:52
them hmm well I'm not ready to take the
21:58
rap for for all of that when I began to
22:04
write write science fiction
22:07
I knew that imaginary when I began to
22:10
write I began to write
22:12
as it happened I began to write science
22:14
fiction but I had a bachelor's degree in
22:17
comparative literary critical
22:20
methodology and I read a lot of a lot of
22:23
modern novels and as a kid I'd read a
22:26
great deal of science science fiction so
22:29
I took the the contents of my otherwise
22:32
fairly useless
22:34
undergraduate degree and applied it to
22:37
what I knew of the history of science
22:41
fiction and one thing one thing that
22:46
allowed me to see is that when people
22:49
write imaginary futures they never about
22:52
the future they are in they can only be
22:58
about the moment in which they were
22:59
written and the history known history
23:02
before that we don't have anything else
23:05
we have no access to the future we can
23:09
we can try to extrapolate and we can
23:13
spend scenarios and try to make future
23:19
histories that that seem intriguingly
23:23
logical but they aren't going to be
23:25
anything like what really happens now
23:29
when someone someone predicts something
23:35
that really happens more or less and I
23:39
would say that that arthur c clarke
23:41
predicted community orbiting
23:45
communication satellites much more
23:48
accurately than i ever predicted the
23:53
world wide web but in both cases we tend
23:58
to our culture tends to overestimate the
24:03
hit but yes he's prescient yes he's a
24:07
prophet no they're all the misses this
24:11
one hinting and they're all that all the
24:13
misses that the same the same right are
24:17
made now I've never had that heart to go
24:19
through arthur c clarke and find
24:21
all the stuff that he got wrong but he
24:24
was human and he could only he could
24:26
only get a lot of it get a lot of it
24:29
wrong and unfortunately or maybe
24:35
fortunately I don't know for my having
24:38
been able to make a living
24:42
people who write about imaginary futures
24:45
if they get a few hits are marketed as
24:49
though they were Sears or shaman and
24:59
when we're not as my colleague Bruce
25:02
Sterling used to like to say rather
25:04
smugly were charlatans we've joined the
25:08
circus and you're throwing money at us
25:13
because our shells the public and their
25:18
publicists present us as people who
25:22
could predict the future and yet we're
25:27
we're not and should you ever meet a
25:32
science fiction writer or a futurist
25:36
to tell you that he or she can predict
25:41
the future run because you've got a live
25:45
one and you don't want to go there do
25:50
you remember anything you predicted that
25:53
didn't happen well every time I don't
26:00
often reread my own own work I could not
26:05
for instance to save my life write a
26:09
precis of the plot of count zero I
26:13
remember a few scenes I'm pretty good
26:16
with Neuromancer because I've had to
26:18
revisit it very frequently when when
26:22
whenever anyone attempts to make one of
26:26
the
26:26
abortive attempts at realizing it as a
26:30
feature film and so from going back to
26:33
you from going back to the Durham answer
26:36
I I did you know there's a scene in
26:39
Neuromancer where case is really you
26:43
know he really you've it's very far in
26:48
the book and and you know the crunch has
26:50
really come and he needs to communicate
26:53
really quick so he says somebody get me
26:57
a modem I can tell you I can tell you
27:04
now is this is humiliating you know this
27:08
is really embarrassing but when I wrote
27:10
that I didn't know what a modem was it
27:14
was just this word that I had heard
27:16
computer people use and it had something
27:20
to do with with communicating
27:24
communication between computers so it
27:27
makes absolutely no sense in in the
27:32
context of the imaginary world world of
27:37
that book but I was working from the
27:41
poetics of an emergent language of
27:48
around around the digital and honestly
27:54
the the first time I heard anyone use
27:57
interface as a verb i fairly swooned at
28:03
how that's so hot just incredible and I
28:10
went right home when I put it historian
28:12
another time I was standing beside two
28:16
former WAC Women's Army Corps keypunch
28:21
operators who had worked at the Pentagon
28:24
they had to wear sweaters remember that
28:26
because it was cold in the rows yeah I
28:29
imagine these these women had worn or
28:32
sweaters and they were reminiscing with
28:35
one another and I was eavesdropping and
28:40
one of them said yeah they had the guys
28:42
with that cart that came around in the
28:44
morning and they took off those games
28:47
that people would put on put on our
28:50
UNIVAC or whatever it was and the other
28:53
one said yeah but what they were really
28:56
after was those viruses and I got broke
29:00
my neck oh wow sorry I said excuse me
29:04
but what viruses and she said all
29:08
computers can be infected by viruses
29:10
they're not really they just call them
29:12
that they're their little tired things
29:15
that sort of behave like viruses within
29:18
the information and the computer and
29:21
that was the first time I ever heard of
29:24
that and you know something probably
29:27
nobody else in that whole science
29:29
fiction convention had ever ever ever
29:32
heard of that so I was like I think I'm
29:34
leaving the Condor Lee I've got some
29:36
Ryan writing to do because I wanted to
29:40
get that down before anybody anybody
29:44
else heard about it and it was about
29:49
well when Neuromancer came out the idea
29:52
of of computer viruses was still pretty
29:57
pretty esoteric and for that matter when
30:02
Neuromancer came out the idea that that
30:05
Japan was about to own the whole world
30:09
was really a really esoteric but it was
30:14
there that's another way that I didn't
30:19
get it right but I don't really care I
30:23
kind of I treasure our tech science
30:28
fiction for those very flaws it makes it
30:35
charming and deeply it makes it charming
30:39
and deeply strange it demonstrates that
30:43
it is
30:44
an artifact of the very moment in which
30:48
it was made which is really all it can
30:51
be you can't get really off the hook of
30:53
having and vented the trim cyberspace
30:56
you're just gonna have to live with that
30:58
right well I did you know I I how I came
31:04
to to coin that the word word cyberspace
31:09
which is I think I think of cyberspace
31:14
as a piece of heritage terminology and
31:21
it wasn't when I wrote Neuromancer but I
31:26
think that cyberspace is heritage
31:29
terminology in the same way that the
31:32
real world quote is heritage terminology
31:37
the difference between the world into
31:41
which neuroma Neuromancer was published
31:45
and the world in which we live tonight
31:48
is that in Neuromancer z-- day in the
31:55
day of the actual publication of the
31:57
book there was cyberspace this other
32:02
realm and the real and the real world
32:05
and what's happened what's happened
32:12
actually it's presented that way in the
32:15
book even though it's like something
32:17
like i assumed 2035 in the book people
32:21
still go okay is the real world here in
32:24
the sprawl but they're in cyberspace
32:26
leaving beyond the duh so that's gone
32:31
and what's happened is that cyberspace
32:33
has colonized the real world and the
32:36
distinction the distinction is what's
32:40
going to make us look like Hicks to our
32:43
great-grandchildren that we even think
32:46
there could be a distinction it's
32:50
they're not I don't you know we keep
32:52
going the way we're going out on
32:54
there'll be a distinction there's less
32:56
of a distinction now than there was last
32:58
year and are you disappointed at all in
33:03
the web no no I um it isn't it's it's
33:13
sort of part of the marketing which you
33:19
know it this isn't it isn't that I've
33:21
only now come to say oh no the marketing
33:24
is raw you shouldn't you know you should
33:28
regard me as a prophet I've said that
33:32
more over the course of 30 years than
33:35
I've said anything else I've did
33:40
remorselessly on topic with that since
33:45
since the very beginning is that weird
33:49
anthology of every interview I ever did
33:52
that has been recently published
33:55
apparently indicates someone who
33:58
actually went through it all says so you
34:02
certainly repeat yourself and quite a
34:06
lot of it is me saying nope I'm not
34:09
prescient and I and I didn't
34:11
particularly I didn't particularly
34:14
expect to be but I keep watching this
34:19
stuff as it changes and the distinction
34:26
between between the digital and the
34:30
so-called real or the so-called digital
34:33
and so-called real is is going it's just
34:39
going away and assuming that we keep
34:45
being able to make these gadgets and
34:48
systems I think it will continue it will
34:51
it will continue to to go away
34:55
and those who grow up with that will
35:01
regard us with some puzzlement
35:04
as transitional creatures between
35:08
themselves and whole world before
35:13
television that they were they were all
35:16
struggle to comprehend much as we
35:21
struggle if we seriously try to
35:23
comprehend the lives of our ancestors in
35:28
the savannas yeah you know I have two
35:31
more pages of questions but I'm not
35:33
going to get to ask them because we want
35:36
to turn this over to the audience after
35:39
I ask you a question I've been holding
35:41
bed but I'm sure you have an opinion
35:44
that is what do you think happened to
35:48
Malaysia air 370 I'm still on it I think
35:57
I think of that as a demonstration of
36:04
the extent to which we are not yet truly
36:09
post geographical I think that that's a
36:14
demonstration of the brute beingness of
36:24
geography and if I if I had to guess I
36:30
would say that it's very very deep
36:34
somewhere in India probably in the
36:39
Indian Ocean but that the Indian Ocean
36:42
is so damn big and so damn deep that it
36:46
will be a long time before we find it
36:50
and even when we find it we may not know
36:52
exactly what unfortunate story that it
36:56
than it to be there but I think it would
36:59
it was I think of it as a rupture in our
37:05
fantastic membrane of hubris about
37:09
inside we imagine our technology as
37:13
being like like actually cooler
37:16
that it is when we run into running when
37:21
we run into a situation in which our our
37:24
best techies say to us there's nothing
37:28
we can do we could just keep looking it
37:30
may take forever it's down in the bottom
37:34
of the ocean it's too deep to find and
37:38
it's hard for us too it's become hard
37:42
for us to get our heads around that you
37:47
don't think it's in Kazakhstan come on I
37:51
would be Syd I would be super
37:54
I would actually would be surprised but
37:57
it's the thing about this thing about
38:04
conspiracy theories is that in order to
38:10
propagate you have to be able to
38:11
describe them over a maximum of two
38:15
pints of beer now and that means that
38:21
they won't by nature be be very complex
38:26
and they may but neither
38:30
interestingly will they be very
38:33
frightening even even if they involve
38:36
the Reptoid Illuminati I haven't got
38:40
that their actual their actual function
38:43
in in that simplicity is to protect us
38:46
from the really terrifying realities
38:51
which are inherently vastly complex so
38:57
it's it's actually that scary to think
39:00
that that that plane is in Kazakhstan
39:03
than it is to think that it's at the
39:06
bottom of the ocean as a result of some
39:10
human that we may never
39:13
understand that's scarier based on your
39:18
books and on your Twitter feed you have
39:20
a big interest in fashion I actually
39:22
bought a pair of outlier chinos based on
39:24
your recommendation
39:27
but what specifically interests you
39:29
about fashion well it isn't I don't
39:34
actually like to think about it as
39:36
fashion because I think of fashion as a
39:39
kind of artificial marketing structure
39:43
where at the turn of every season they
39:46
jump up and say oh you need new pants
39:49
but I am interested I'm interested in
39:56
clothing and haircuts and things like
39:59
things that we think of as fashion I'm
40:02
interested in it as a language and
40:08
sometimes the localized language and
40:10
some sometimes now a global a global
40:16
language and we all communicate to some
40:21
extent with what we with what we wear
40:26
some of us pride ourselves on not doing
40:29
that but that's not really true if you
40:32
see someone who's making an actually
40:34
utterly incoherent closing statement
40:38
you cross the street it's even those of
40:43
us who think of ourselves as resolutely
40:45
anti fashion and not interested in any
40:48
of that are not getting it that wrong so
40:53
I'm interested in that I'm interested in
40:56
how people identify with with
41:02
counterculture I'm interested in counter
41:05
cultural identification through garments
41:08
I'm interested in the fact that there is
41:10
apparently always one breeding pair of
41:14
rockers in the United Kingdom and and at
41:18
least one of classic mods and and Goths
41:24
seem utterly established and never go
41:27
away and those are all modalities
41:33
identification
41:35
I've been sitting with him for a couple
41:38
hours now and everything he's wearing is
41:41
cool you're you're not up close enough
41:43
to see it but his pants are cool jacket
41:46
totally cool with this snaps shoes I
41:49
didn't notice somebody came out here and
41:50
I got a gander at those socks ordinary
41:53
but everything else I was actually I
41:58
shouldn't this will haunt me but I have
42:01
to I have to admit it because I think
42:03
it's funny I was a branding consultant
42:06
on the line of clothing that these pants
42:12
in this jacket are a harlow but I can't
42:16
say what it was because had to sign a
42:19
nondisclosure agreement so I can't tell
42:24
you what Brad did is I actually was and
42:28
that was where that was where I learned
42:30
that all the stuff in in Xero history
42:34
that people think I've made up about
42:37
about the the the hybridization of the
42:43
military industrial complex and the
42:46
skateboard clothing complex so that that
42:51
was really good that was really going on
42:53
and if I if I hadn't have been
42:56
researching that I would never have
42:58
gotten but God's a gig very strange do
43:04
spend in fiction writers are poor when
43:08
it comes to research and cutting-edge
43:10
knowledge in history I think that our
43:15
mail has gotten shorter and shorter and
43:19
shorter and I think our now when I was
43:23
about five years old was maybe a
43:27
presidential term or half of one and how
43:33
now today is is like a fraction of a
43:37
news cycle if that it's been it's been
43:42
shrinking so back
43:44
back in the 50s Robert Heinlein's say
43:48
writing writing some pretty carefully
43:53
extrapolated speculative fiction had
43:57
this big flat now to work on and he
44:01
could sort of arrange the bits but
44:04
that's been getting smaller so that the
44:06
thing that was the size of two Olympic
44:09
tennis courts is now like like a quarter
44:12
of what used to be called the postage
44:15
stamp
44:15
but now itself is kind of on the verge
44:18
of verge of extinction and writers today
44:22
don't have the real estate of now in
44:29
which to plant their stuff because
44:31
everything is changing changing very
44:34
quickly and and that creates different
44:37
problems in in speculative fiction and
44:43
people have to come up with with
44:46
different solutions and one of my
44:48
solutions is just to accept that what I
44:53
write is is obsoleting it's it's if it
44:58
were an ice cream cone it would be
45:01
melting as I tried to take it home
45:03
it's obsoleting as I write it somebody's
45:06
inventing something right now that will
45:09
make make my novel ridiculous except
45:13
well if I if I'm really serious about
45:18
writing a novel that stuff won't matter
45:20
and my novel won't become ridiculous
45:23
because its intent will have been in the
45:26
end quite serious um my question is sort
45:32
of sort of carries on a little bit with
45:34
we were just saying about the not the
45:35
present and you mentioned earlier that
45:37
you think that science fiction tells you
45:42
about the moment in which it occurred in
45:44
the moment that in which it was
45:45
published and I'm curious what you think
45:47
that science fiction being written and
45:49
published today tells us about the
45:52
current moment well I should be careful
45:57
about science fiction being published
45:59
today because I don't actually read that
46:02
much of it myself so I'm actually very
46:08
out of touch with the genre as a
46:15
marketing thing and as a marketing
46:19
mechanism and when I if I go into a
46:23
science fiction specialty shop I'm just
46:26
overwhelmed by the the number of titles
46:29
and the variety of that I rely on the
46:34
sort of personal network / filtering
46:39
operation that one develops over the
46:43
course of a literary life or if
46:45
something happens that a sufficient
46:48
number of my friends find interesting
46:51
enough to bring to one another's
46:52
attention it sort of bumps along until
46:55
it gets to me and I'll go home I might I
46:59
might I might read that but I did
47:03
something I went to a science fiction
47:05
convention in Vancouver and I had been
47:08
to a convention that's enough convention
47:11
in about 20 years a little over 20 years
47:14
and so I went and I was I was doing a
47:20
conversation something like this they're
47:23
less wide-ranging in front of us a
47:26
smaller audience and and so I said here
47:31
these are three writers somebody asked
47:33
me that I was interested in and I saw
47:34
other these three writers and I said how
47:37
many people have heard of her and two
47:40
people raised their hands and of him and
47:43
one raised the head and of him nobody
47:46
raised their hands so I realized I was
47:48
sort of walking around in some kind of
47:50
Internet consensus bubble and I had no
47:54
idea what these people were reading and
47:56
then almost none of them were reading
47:58
there the writers I I thought were
48:02
are really interesting right now we're
48:04
just getting into it I think it's fair
48:07
to say that there's a lot a strong vein
48:10
of warning in this new navi novel and
48:12
when other people write these books with
48:14
these strong warnings in them they're
48:16
very bad things happen in them but my
48:19
question is why are you so nice to your
48:21
characters compared to your peers
48:23
it's a d2 final the two final chapters
48:28
are a sort of litmus test for
48:30
socio-political sophistication if you
48:35
think a woman's okay because she's
48:36
married pregnant and has a lot of money
48:42
look there's a lot of is a lot of you
48:46
know a happy ending is about when you
48:48
roll the credit there's a lot of bad
48:50
hovering around both those both
48:54
those chapters and particularly well one
49:02
of it one of the characters in the 10th
49:05
ultimate next to last chapter
49:09
essentially has the last word of the
49:12
book and she looks out she looks out
49:18
over the City of London and says human
49:21
all too human because she and that's her
49:25
answer to being asked why the people in
49:29
that the good guys in that chapter why
49:32
they might not inadvertently be creating
49:35
exactly what they think they're escaping
49:38
from which if you think about it when I
49:43
get it's too spoilery for me to get into
49:47
but if you read it again which I
49:51
actually recommend with this book
49:53
because it works completely differently
49:56
the second time is you I guarantee
49:59
you'll see a lot of things you missed
50:01
the first time particularly in the first
50:03
hundred pages it does I think those two
50:10
final chapters of the
50:11
Jarius thing I have ever written the
50:14
creepiest thing I've ever written and
50:17
I've already seen reviews that accused
50:20
me of going beyond my known penchant for
50:24
absurdly happy endings so in your
50:32
collection distrusts that particular
50:34
flavor
50:35
you mentioned the term prosthetic memory
50:38
and from my understanding you're the
50:42
recall in that memory it could be
50:44
distant or nearby and these are kind of
50:48
determined by algorithms like search
50:50
algorithms or things on the phone and
50:52
whatever what may have you do you have
50:55
any thoughts on that or personal opinion
50:58
I have a pocket full of prosthetic
51:02
memory right right here I've got you
51:07
know I don't know how far back the email
51:10
record I can access on this this phone
51:14
goes but that's prosthetic memory this
51:18
phone when I'm in a building other than
51:21
this one can can access Google and
51:24
that's prosthetic memory
51:27
it probably prosthetic memory is not
51:31
like like a chip from whatever
51:34
RadioShack is now called if it even
51:36
still exists it's it's this entire
51:40
system where we're connected to and as
51:43
someone said on on Twitter last last
51:47
month --is said someone said I'm getting
51:51
tired of not being able to lose track of
51:54
anyone I thought that was somehow like
52:00
the core statement of the entire year
52:06
for BRE yeah and that's prosthetic
52:10
memory that prosthetic memory is like
52:14
every everything you ever did in social
52:19
media just stay
52:21
being there for the rest of your life
52:23
but it's we we live in this vast
52:29
mechanism of prosthetic memory that
52:32
relatively speaking scarcely existed 50
52:36
50 years ago we have been creating forms
52:41
of prosthetic memory forever you know
52:46
painting on cave walls working at you
52:50
know notching bones working all of those
52:53
things that animals don't do that we've
52:58
always done culminate now and then
53:01
whatever the hell this is that we're
53:04
doing which I tend to assume the
53:09
endpoint would just be a single digital
53:14
now it would be like a spherical retina
53:20
looking in in itself and some kind of
53:24
some weird kind of digital board DC and
53:28
Alpha Omega thing and you know we may we
53:35
may not get to find out but one day is
53:37
someone might there was a there was a
53:40
piece you wrote the Bible interview my
53:42
MP she wrote in Wired in the 90s when
53:45
someone said like you've been accused of
53:47
creating dystopias and you said well it
53:49
depends who you are because if you're
53:51
like a slum blower in Bangladesh on a
53:53
site of a high-tech Bangladesh or
53:54
whatever yeah that's that's peeling and
53:56
so you still think that this apocalyptic
53:59
sense things are getting worse is kind
54:01
of a luxury of us at the top and that
54:04
actually no actually mostly the vans are
54:05
helping most of humanity so we just
54:07
better chill out just accept that other
54:09
people are well I mean it is in a way
54:13
the anxiety about having too much
54:18
anxiety about the apocalypse is perhaps
54:20
the the ultimate first world problem
54:24
yeah I think people people are trying to
54:28
you know get get food on the table to
54:32
keep their children from
54:33
they're not like they're not stressing
54:36
the apocalypse there they're very much
54:39
in the but they're very much in the
54:41
moment and I do think that they're
54:48
plenty I think they're probably a lot of
54:50
people in say Mogadishu who offered that
54:53
offered the chance to immigrate to
54:56
Neuromancer would be there in a flash if
55:00
they if they could and they'd be doing
55:02
they'd be doing they'd be doing better
55:05
one of the the kind of secrets I guess
55:09
that the sort of very simple moves I
55:14
discovered early on in my career which
55:17
I'm only sort of becoming willing to
55:20
talk about thee these days is that what
55:23
I would do what I would do for these
55:26
futures what I would just take take the
55:29
conditions of the third world transfer
55:35
them to say Chicago and just run them
55:39
you know just run it straight through
55:41
and people would go oh how could and yet
55:45
they're probably you know there are
55:47
parts of Chicago where that you could
55:51
zero in on and go well that's pretty
55:53
close indeed it's true so the people who
55:57
have the the the holy that scary
56:02
react reaction to to Neuromancer tend to
56:08
be very privileged people one one way or
56:12
another and and that was part of my
56:16
program and I was hoping that in some
56:22
way I could maybe change that a little
56:25
bit by showing it people this stuff in a
56:28
different way thank you