2 ms·
I personally find it only superficially dated. A few specifics, like the pay phones, maybe, but... We've got viruses to attack physical infrastructure, a Beiji
by api 12y ago
I personally find it only superficially dated. A few specifics, like the pay phones, maybe, but...
We've got viruses to attack physical infrastructure, a Beijing that looks not unlike Gibson's Tokyo, billionaires beginning to create their orbital empires, and even the 'trodes. Search for TDCS. It's not an interface technology, but it's close enough.
The politics are also dead on. This is looking more and more like Gibson's post nation state "criminal age," with elite criminality and corrupt intelligence agencies mixing with corporate power to form a global postmodern nihilistic meta-state.
- wiz21 12y agoLet's think about this once more : "global postmodern nihilistic meta-state" ouch ! stF
- api 12y agoStraining to describe something for which there isn't a good word. We have socialism, capitalism, etc. but no good term for this.
- neltnerb 12y agoThe Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson used the description "transnational" and "metanational" to describe the corporations that have arisen as nearly state-actors in power and influence. Today Goldman-Sachs and BP (among many others) probably significantly exceed the international influence of many countries. Just a matter of waiting for them to coalesce into entities big enough to stop pretending to be under any kind of control and it'll be a perfect analogy...
- cryoshon 12y agoAnother couple of aspects of the government you describe are transparency and passivity. Nobody feels inclined to hide or dispute the blatantly corporate government; relatively inconsequential people know the intimate details of corporate corruption. There are no real "politics" as they relate to most people, merely figures of power moving pieces on a chessboard in full view for those who care to watch.