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Maybe it's just the stuff people end up linking, but Stross's blog always seems so negative. It's a bit of a drag.

mcguire 12y ago
I'm a little unclear on the point of this article. Is it that the future is here, but it's way different from you thought it would be, or that universal surveillance is universal?
- jschwartzi 12y ago
  I think it's the sudden realization that utopia and dystopia are ideals, and that reality is always some combination of the two.
herendin 12y ago
Yes. The content is sometimes interesting, but he so enjoys having a good erudite rant, that I fear accuracy takes second place. It's his own personal blog, and a fan echo chamber. So that's fair enough. But it's tiresome.
- digi_owl 12y ago
  Not limited to his blog. There is a video of a recent con panel on the topic of Cyberpunk where he goes on a rant of some kind.
- BugBrother 12y ago
  Reality checks are valuable. It is better to get the depressing stuff from a good writer. But sure, there is some spin. You might note about e.g. the Netscape browser example that Microsoft got into legal boiling hot water. And the shuttle abomination, which gave NASA a motivation to use its heavy influence to stop cheap space launch, delayed real space projects by decades; if it end up with humanity extinct because we lack ways to stop a new dinosaur killer, we deserve it. And so on.
digi_owl 12y ago
Either it is the Scottish weather, or it is his way of dealing with a serious case of tech burnout, from being in the thick of the 90s Internet boom in UK.
- cstross 12y ago
  Also: older and more cynical this decade. (Although I have a soft spot for Elon Musk's projects: both Tesla and SpaceX seem poised to go the distance, and they're both potentially huge game-changers in their respective fields.)
  - digi_owl 12y ago
    Heh, the net sure is a small world. (and yep, egg on my face for not looking at the link poster)
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    It's a hard trap to avoid. I suffer from the same and I notice many other people that are still active and getting older have this too. (For instance, Richard Dawkins). I attribute this to a very simple thing: We had these youthful dreams and we realize that we are probably not going to be around to see them realized.
javert 12y ago
Speaking as an American, he seems to have that stereotypical European pessimism about human nature, which is a big turn off to me. (I realize these stereotypes are just stereotypes... I mention them here because they seem to fit well.)
- jacquesm 12y ago
  Wow. You've managed to generalize across 300 million people in one go. Congratulations, that has to be a record. If you're aware that your stereotypes are just stereotypes could you try a little harder next time? Nothing worse than being aware of the failings of your arguments but using them anyway.
  - arethuza 12y ago
    Out of interest - where did you get 300 million from? I believe its about 742 million for Europe as a whole and about 507 million for the EU. Or was there some Eurostat poll I missed and we really do have 300 million cynical people here.... :-)
    - Roboprog 12y ago
      There's about 300 million in the US. And of course, we're all super optimistic :-) Of course, what we call Reaganism in the US, they would call Thatcherism in the UK/Scotland. So much for progress, hail stupidity and greed forever!
  - javert 12y ago
    I did NOT generalize across 300 million people. That is precisely what I did NOT do. I am not sure if you misread, or you just don't understand what I said. Your comment is not only wrong, it's rude. I'm disappointed and a bit alarmed. I'm getting tired of this hateful bashing here on HN. I'm really sorry to see it from the old guard. You've been here a long time, so have I.
justincormack 12y ago
Dystopia has always been a glorious part of our culture, in the UK and in Europe more generally. From Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, through HG Wells, Joseph Conrad (the Machine Stops), Orwell, JG Ballard, not to mention Pink Floyd, Chris Morris and When the Wind Blows. We love it, the discordance between what might have been and the plastic shittiness of what is, and we hate that Hollywood happy ending bollocks where everyone is going to live for even and ever and everything will be quite super.
- cpeterso 12y ago
  An antidote to dystopian futures, Kevin Kelly's "A Desirable-Future Haiku: The coming hundred years, in one hundred words". On the chance that desirable futures ARE possible, we need to imagine them. https://medium.com/message/a-desirable-future-haiku-ff01d63c93c6 https://medium.com/message/a-desirable-future-haiku-ff01d63c...
- EdwardCoffin 12y ago
  Regarding The Machine Stops, I think you mean E. M. Forster: http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/prajlich/forster.html http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/prajlich/forster.html
  - justincormack 12y ago
    Yes, of course.
jacquesm 12y ago
This comment too, is negative and a bit of a drag. It's a very hard trap to avoid. Try harder! (cue meta meta comment...). I have to really force myself to see the positive side of how all this technology that we have is being used. The tools we have built to exchange information are being used to track us both by industry and governments, the software development environments are getting more and more complex and frankly ridiculous (compatibility testing for well over 25 browsers in order to make sure your documents can be read by others in the way you intended?), coffeemakers and printers with DRM and so on. But then I remind myself to look at: - wikipedia - the Khan Academy (though they've started spamming!) - Google search (you can keep the rest) - Open Access journals - Linux And a whole raft of good stuff and I feel better again.
- DanielBMarkham 12y ago
  I think the trick here is _cautious optimism_. Yes, bunch of things suck really badly, and there is serious danger lurking on the horizon. But we're also increasing the power of the individual to rise above all sorts of problems with pervasive learning and commerce opportunities. You help a billion people live ten years longer and receive a decent education? You've done probably more good than allowing some western countries to become police states. It's all relative. As an artist, I find it much more important to keep finding flaws in my work and improving, but I can't do that to the extent of missing out on smelling the roses. Or -- yeah bud, but things still suck! :)

I'm a little unclear on the point of this article. Is it that the future is here, but it's way different from you thought it would be, or that universal surveillance is universal?

jschwartzi 12y ago
I think it's the sudden realization that utopia and dystopia are ideals, and that reality is always some combination of the two.

herendin 12y ago

Yes. The content is sometimes interesting, but he so enjoys having a good erudite rant, that I fear accuracy takes second place. It's his own personal blog, and a fan echo chamber. So that's fair enough. But it's tiresome.

digi_owl 12y ago
Not limited to his blog. There is a video of a recent con panel on the topic of Cyberpunk where he goes on a rant of some kind.
BugBrother 12y ago
Reality checks are valuable. It is better to get the depressing stuff from a good writer. But sure, there is some spin. You might note about e.g. the Netscape browser example that Microsoft got into legal boiling hot water. And the shuttle abomination, which gave NASA a motivation to use its heavy influence to stop cheap space launch, delayed real space projects by decades; if it end up with humanity extinct because we lack ways to stop a new dinosaur killer, we deserve it. And so on.

digi_owl 12y ago

Either it is the Scottish weather, or it is his way of dealing with a serious case of tech burnout, from being in the thick of the 90s Internet boom in UK.

cstross 12y ago
Also: older and more cynical this decade. (Although I have a soft spot for Elon Musk's projects: both Tesla and SpaceX seem poised to go the distance, and they're both potentially huge game-changers in their respective fields.)
- digi_owl 12y ago
  Heh, the net sure is a small world. (and yep, egg on my face for not looking at the link poster)
- jacquesm 12y ago
  It's a hard trap to avoid. I suffer from the same and I notice many other people that are still active and getting older have this too. (For instance, Richard Dawkins). I attribute this to a very simple thing: We had these youthful dreams and we realize that we are probably not going to be around to see them realized.

javert 12y ago

Speaking as an American, he seems to have that stereotypical European pessimism about human nature, which is a big turn off to me. (I realize these stereotypes are just stereotypes... I mention them here because they seem to fit well.)

jacquesm 12y ago
Wow. You've managed to generalize across 300 million people in one go. Congratulations, that has to be a record. If you're aware that your stereotypes are just stereotypes could you try a little harder next time? Nothing worse than being aware of the failings of your arguments but using them anyway.
- arethuza 12y ago
  Out of interest - where did you get 300 million from? I believe its about 742 million for Europe as a whole and about 507 million for the EU. Or was there some Eurostat poll I missed and we really do have 300 million cynical people here.... :-)
  - Roboprog 12y ago
    There's about 300 million in the US. And of course, we're all super optimistic :-) Of course, what we call Reaganism in the US, they would call Thatcherism in the UK/Scotland. So much for progress, hail stupidity and greed forever!
- javert 12y ago
  I did NOT generalize across 300 million people. That is precisely what I did NOT do. I am not sure if you misread, or you just don't understand what I said. Your comment is not only wrong, it's rude. I'm disappointed and a bit alarmed. I'm getting tired of this hateful bashing here on HN. I'm really sorry to see it from the old guard. You've been here a long time, so have I.

justincormack 12y ago

Dystopia has always been a glorious part of our culture, in the UK and in Europe more generally. From Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, through HG Wells, Joseph Conrad (the Machine Stops), Orwell, JG Ballard, not to mention Pink Floyd, Chris Morris and When the Wind Blows. We love it, the discordance between what might have been and the plastic shittiness of what is, and we hate that Hollywood happy ending bollocks where everyone is going to live for even and ever and everything will be quite super.

cpeterso 12y ago
An antidote to dystopian futures, Kevin Kelly's "A Desirable-Future Haiku: The coming hundred years, in one hundred words". On the chance that desirable futures ARE possible, we need to imagine them. https://medium.com/message/a-desirable-future-haiku-ff01d63c93c6 https://medium.com/message/a-desirable-future-haiku-ff01d63c...
EdwardCoffin 12y ago
Regarding The Machine Stops, I think you mean E. M. Forster: http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/prajlich/forster.html http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/prajlich/forster.html
- justincormack 12y ago
  Yes, of course.

jacquesm 12y ago

This comment too, is negative and a bit of a drag. It's a very hard trap to avoid. Try harder! (cue meta meta comment...). I have to really force myself to see the positive side of how all this technology that we have is being used. The tools we have built to exchange information are being used to track us both by industry and governments, the software development environments are getting more and more complex and frankly ridiculous (compatibility testing for well over 25 browsers in order to make sure your documents can be read by others in the way you intended?), coffeemakers and printers with DRM and so on. But then I remind myself to look at: - wikipedia - the Khan Academy (though they've started spamming!) - Google search (you can keep the rest) - Open Access journals - Linux And a whole raft of good stuff and I feel better again.

DanielBMarkham 12y ago
I think the trick here is _cautious optimism_. Yes, bunch of things suck really badly, and there is serious danger lurking on the horizon. But we're also increasing the power of the individual to rise above all sorts of problems with pervasive learning and commerce opportunities. You help a billion people live ten years longer and receive a decent education? You've done probably more good than allowing some western countries to become police states. It's all relative. As an artist, I find it much more important to keep finding flaws in my work and improving, but I can't do that to the extent of missing out on smelling the roses. Or -- yeah bud, but things still suck! :)