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William Gibson on Why He Loves Twitter
- kyleniemeyer 16y agoi love reading interviews with william gibson- particularly his take on the tea party movement in this one.
- deutronium 16y agoYou might like this http://www.dshed.net/william-gibson http://www.dshed.net/william-gibson It's a talk he gave on his new book Zero History. I found it really cool hearing his opinions on how fast technology is advancing.
- kyleniemeyer 16y agothanks! I hadn't seen that before
- mgunes 16y agoHere he is talking to Richard Metzger (Twitter comes up too): http://vimeo.com/14918761 http://vimeo.com/14918761
- orangecat 16y ago"The tea party is a bunch of racists" is not an especially original, insightful, or accurate take.
- euroclydon 16y agoIt is effective though.
- mkramlich 16y agohe didn't say they all were. just implied that a significant subset were, at least in part. and I think based on the documented evidence any reasonable person would say that's accurate.
- irq 16y agoThe title does the contents a disservice - his views on global culture are far more interesting and make up a much larger bulk of the article than why he loves twitter.
- nikster 16y agoI agree - but his view on Twitter is pretty interesting as well, namely the fact that Twitter is countless parallel groups and cultures that have little or nothing to do with each other. I am using Twitter to follow friends - though, sadly, most of them don't use it anymore - and as a news aggregator. For the latter, it's brilliant. Following William Gibson now.
- Qz 16y agoI actively disliked Twitter, but I've started using it recently solely for an online collaborative competiton I'm involved with (not programming/HN related). It's fairly useable for that since signing up is very easy, but there are plenty of times when a basic chat room would be better.
- RtodaAV 16y agoSorry but twitter is way to ghetto.
- Gianteye 16y agoI had no idea William Gibson was so insightful and urbane. I suppose I might have read Necromancer without any appreciation of how early it came in the timeline of cyberpunk literature, but I was never able to get into it. After reading this interview, I feel pretty compelled to give Zero History a look.
- LiveTheDream 16y agoNeuromancer?
- Gianteye 16y agoOh my yes. Where's my head at. Neuromancer.
- mblakele 16y agoGibson does seem like a rewarding conversationalist. I wish I liked his last book more than I did. Everything Gibson said in this interview was interesting and worthwhile. But I found Spook Country mediocre and I am unlikely to read Zero History. I'm trying to come to grips with that. On the surface, I can say that I found it much easier to empathize with Chia or Cayce than with Holly. My best distillation so far is that he used to write about people, technologies, and their relationships, with some peripheral stuff about brands. Now he writes about brands - and people and technologies have become a means to that end. Also the brands used to be fictional, which helped avoid the Spook Country feeling of reading some company's ad copy. Perhaps as a result of the emphasis on brands, his character are less sympathetic. They have always been out of control of their own lives, but they used to try to take control now and then. In Spook Country they seemed more abject, victims of forces far beyond their ken or control. I have no doubt that he has a valid point of view, and he is somewhat upfront about that shift, in this interview. But his interests no longer match mine.
- psawaya 16y agoThere's also the William Gibson documentary, No Maps for These Territories. It's very conversational, actually mostly just him talking. You can find it on Youtube.
- mkramlich 16y agoI loved Gibson's remarks about the Tea Party. I think he nailed at least a part of why it exists and got so many folks into it. ps. Please fix the "Unknown or expired link" quirk when submitting comments on HN. So counter-intuitive.
- Qz 16y agoAnd that’s why somebody phones in after every bomb and says, “It was us, the Situationist Liberation Army. We blew up that mall.” That’s branding.
- defen 16y agoWilliam Gibson is an insightful observer of social trends and a fantastic writer, but I was a little disappointed to see that politically he is a pretty standard liberal transnational elitist.
- avk 16y agoI asked William Gibson if I could help with the fact that following 87 people is more than he can take in (http://twitter.com/#!/artvankilmer/status/9127501972381696 http://twitter.com/#!/artvankilmer/status/9127501972381696). Just wanted to extend that offer to everyone here as well. I too have the overload problem and am passionate about the value of Twitter, which is why I'm building something that will help. Happy to share & discuss further: http://slipstre.am/ http://slipstre.am/