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I enjoy Stephenson's writing, and I think he must be a really smart guy. Which is why I'm puzzled by this reasoning: 1) Science and engineering aren't chasing

I enjoy Stephenson's writing, and I think he must be a really smart guy. Which is why I'm puzzled by this reasoning: 1) Science and engineering aren't chasing anything audacious and world-changing anymore. 2) The blame lies partly with the fact that we're living in a world changed by pervasive, cheap communications and networking technology that would have seemed unthinkably audacious just a generation ago. There is an irony here that I would have expected him to see through instantly, but he seems entirely oblivious to it. Science fiction famously anticipated some real-world 20th century innovations like atomic power, communication satellites, waldos, etc. But it's had a much worse track record with communications. There are no cell phones (or cell-phone-like devices) in Neuromancer. Stephenson's own Snow Crash features an international computer network with a virtual-reality interface that seems incredibly cumbersome and inconvenient compared compared to the actual web. I think it must be harder to imagine how any given piece of technology will interact with the larger society than it is to make predictions about what the development of a technology will make possible. A VR type interface to the web wouldn't be much of a challenge (technically) by now, but nobody wants one. Second Life is withering on the vine. The video telephone that has been so long predicted by SF is possible now, but it turns out to be more trouble than it's worth except in exceptional circumstances. And when you make it available to just anyone, it turns into a TV show about penises.

feral 15y ago
"But it's had a much worse track record with communications. There are no cell phones (or cell-phone-like devices) in Neuromancer." There is the matrix though, which isn't a bad vision of the Internet; its global, all the big databanks are connected to it, commerce (banks etc) is transacted on it. I think that was doing a pretty good job at predicting future communications in 1984. You are right about the lack of cell phones - there's a scene with payphones in Istanbul that seems really out of place in 'the future' now. "Stephenson's own Snow Crash features an international computer network with a virtual-reality interface that seems incredibly cumbersome and inconvenient compared compared to the actual web." I think this is a little unfair. I always thought the point of the Metaverse in Snow Crash was for real time human interaction; Hiro has his virtual office, librarian, and 'Earth' as interfaces for high speed information retrieval. The metaverse, as described, is limited, in some ways, but that's by design. I'm reminded of the bit in Snow Crash where Stephenson talks about Juanita building the software that maps real life facial expressions onto avatar facial expressions, and how important that is for business. This is something that's still unsolved. Humans have a lot of hardware that allows high bandwidth face to face communication; we pick up on very subtle facial cues, for example. But no one has really cracked the problem of such 'high emotional bandwidth' Internet hangouts. We see things like the Google+ hangout feature - but they don't really work, as hangouts. Where do you go online if you want to hang out, and communicate with other humans? Yahoo chat? Facebook? Are these really optimal forms of human communication? I don't personally believe so. I think Stephenson sketched his metaverse as a virtual reality interface that's solving human communication problems that the web still hasn't come close to solving.

feral 15y ago

"But it's had a much worse track record with communications. There are no cell phones (or cell-phone-like devices) in Neuromancer." There is the matrix though, which isn't a bad vision of the Internet; its global, all the big databanks are connected to it, commerce (banks etc) is transacted on it. I think that was doing a pretty good job at predicting future communications in 1984. You are right about the lack of cell phones - there's a scene with payphones in Istanbul that seems really out of place in 'the future' now. "Stephenson's own Snow Crash features an international computer network with a virtual-reality interface that seems incredibly cumbersome and inconvenient compared compared to the actual web." I think this is a little unfair. I always thought the point of the Metaverse in Snow Crash was for real time human interaction; Hiro has his virtual office, librarian, and 'Earth' as interfaces for high speed information retrieval. The metaverse, as described, is limited, in some ways, but that's by design. I'm reminded of the bit in Snow Crash where Stephenson talks about Juanita building the software that maps real life facial expressions onto avatar facial expressions, and how important that is for business. This is something that's still unsolved. Humans have a lot of hardware that allows high bandwidth face to face communication; we pick up on very subtle facial cues, for example. But no one has really cracked the problem of such 'high emotional bandwidth' Internet hangouts. We see things like the Google+ hangout feature - but they don't really work, as hangouts. Where do you go online if you want to hang out, and communicate with other humans? Yahoo chat? Facebook? Are these really optimal forms of human communication? I don't personally believe so. I think Stephenson sketched his metaverse as a virtual reality interface that's solving human communication problems that the web still hasn't come close to solving.