Bruce Sterling
Bruce Sterling
Michael Bruce Sterlingis an American science fiction author known for his novels and work on the Mirrorshades anthology. This work helped to define the cyberpunk genre...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth14 April 1954
CountryUnited States of America
civilization would-be good-times
Maybe we're about to radically change the operating system of the human condition. If so, then this would be a really good time to make backups of our civilization.
ignorance home privacy
Privacy under what circumstance? Privacy at home under what circumstances? You have more privacy if everyone's illiterate, but you wouldn't really call that privacy. That's ignorance.
dream technology twists
My dream appliance circa 2050 has one big dial on it, and when I twist it to the right, my IQ goes up to 450.
movie shoes actresses
The Bollywood distribution system is so corrupt that they have trouble making money off movies. So they sell shoes that an actress stepped in. If they turned up the amps some, maybe they could sell the actresses.
military world politics
If politics and business fail us, of course the military will be called in. In the developing world, the massive and repeated ecological disasters are quite commonly met by the military.
success jobs people
People in the Pentagon had colleagues killed and maimed by bin Laden. They're trying to find bin Laden and kill him and his cult. Naturally they consider that a legitimate thing to do, but they're having mixed success at the job.
fall party innocent
In a start-up society, huge sums can fall on innocent parties, almost by accident .
kids mirrors cyberspace
The future is unwritten. Cyberspace is the funhouse mirror of our own society, reflects our values and our faults, sometimes in terrifying exaggerations. It doesn't matter who you are today, if you don't show up in that mirror you are just not going to matter very much. Our kids have to show up in the mirror.
design inquiry stories
"Story-tellers" should listen seriously to design and architecture without getting all literary and imperial about that. Hackers are arrogant geek romantics. They lack the attentive spirit of inquiry.
fun thinking grandparent
I think our grandparents were Victor Frankenstein. I basically am the kind of deeply unnatural creature that Mrs Shelley instinctively dreaded. I not only eat her sacred cows but I eat them with ketchup. While I take her point, I think that transgressive monstrosity and tampering with the life force are both a lot more fun than she suspected.
mean mutation painful
I know that the human condition will be radically changed through technical means. Much of this change will be painful, monstrous and horrible. Most mutations are disgusting failures, most experiments are failures. I accept this and I don't find it frightening.
giving want information
Information wants you to give me a dollar.
past kind happened
The past is a kind of future that has already happened.
perspective people victory
But from another, deeper perspective: we shouldn't involve outselves in lines of development where the ultimate victory condition is emulating dead people. There's no appeal in that. It's bad for us. That kind of inherent mournfulness is just not a good way to be human.