I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by Google
By Bruce Sterling
And Shakespeare. I used to hate Shakespeare, because the teachers would park us in front of the webcam terminals, turn on the Shakespeare lessons and leave the building. But then, somehow, they showed us Macbeth, a play which actually MEANS something to us. Grown-ups don’t understand that (or they wouldn’t be teaching it) but Macbeth is the true authentic story of my generation. This is Macbeth’s world, and us teenagers just live in it. Dig this: those “Three Weird Sisters”, who mysteriously know everything? They can foretell anything, instantly, like Google? Plus, the witches make it all sound really great – only, in real life, it totally sucks? Well, those “Three Weird Sisters” are the “Internet of Things”, they’re “Ubiquitous Computation”, they’re “Ambient Findability”. The truth is written all over the page (or the screen – my school can’t afford to give us any “pages”). Just read that awesome part where they’re boiling pseudocode in their witch-cauldron! They talk like web designers!
Also: If “religion is the opiate of the people”, then immersive multiplayer 3D virtual worlds are hard-core Afghani heroin.
If my experience with contemporary MMORPG’s is any indicator, hook me up to The Entertainment right now, baby. I don’t have all day to start feeling good.
That one of the lamest posts in a long time, good sir. That dude’s a retard, and the analogy sucks.
Hey Brandon. I’ve noticed that just about the only thing you have done in the last 4 months is go around calling things lame, and usually you are way, way off. Clearly in this case you have no idea what you are talking about.
Apparently the Wikipedia link is supposed to show me that I’m wrong. Your argument sees to be “Because this dude’s a famous scifi writer, what he says isn’t lame.” You have the implicit premise: “If you’re a famous scifi writer, then what you say can’t be lame.” Of course, most scifi writers (and most scifi for that matter) are extremely lame. I think you would have no problem agreeing to that. So your implicit premise, which your argument hangs on as you’ve provided no real evidence or reasons beyond trans-Internet ostention, is false. Also, I have induction on my side, good sir. “Most scifi writers are lame. P is a scifi writer. Therefore, P is probably lame.” God, I hate you.
Wow, you still suck at logic too. I was not making any general claims about sci fi writers, and I can easily grant that sci fi writers are lame in general. But I was pointing to a particular case, and asserting that in this case, Sterling is awesome. Which he is.
Note that I’ve talked about Sterling before.
I agree with the dizzle, this post and excerpt and sterling all suck hairy donkey balls