http://blog.longnow.org/2008/08/03/bruce-sterlings-sharp-warning-8-years-later/
(((Give 'em this much: the cabal of gizmo obsessives seem to know how to pace themselves.)))
Link: The Long Now Blog » Blog Archive » Bruce Sterling’s Sharp Warning, 8 years later.
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“Hey man == the Long Now clock is dead.” “What happened to it?” “I guess it got too popular. No one went there any more. They had to shut it down.”
So, “Thank God, give me a cigarette,” you know? Thank God that this strange scheme of these dated New Age elders, these obsolete Silicon Valley digital Californians, is not going to be there any more, ticking, ticking, spinning, spinning, all through our own twenty-first century, like some kind of terrible reproach! If I’d known it would feel this good to have old Ruskin die, I’d have killed him myself!
So this is a serious threat, and if our beloved gizmo is going to survive it, it’s going to require some cultural realpolitik. This is not a monument or library == yet. If it comes into being, it will be generally perceived as a bizarre novelty built by a cabal of gizmo-obsessives. Visionary people, the kind of people who put up with science fiction writers as dinner entertainment....
