"Simpsons did it."
Apr. 25th, 2006 04:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
f4f3Just hepped by this article
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1759802,00.html
to
this speech http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199900/ldhansrd/pdvn/lds06/text/60420-18.htm#60420-18_spopq0
I really must get better at inserting links.
As the journalist says, not the sort of speech we see in the commons too often.
Reading both, I was struck by the degree to which ideas that used to be the preserve of writers like Phillip K Dick, and later of cyberpunks like Bruce Sterling are becoming part of everyday life. In 20 years a gap has opened between us "of the Twentieth Century" (a chilling phrase, too) and our children in terms of how we learn the world (apologies to Ken McCleod), and I can't imagine how wide that gulf will be by the time our grandchildren make it on the scene.
At school we used to talk about the possibility of comprehensible allusion (well, when we weren't trying to hit each other with paperclips, and how this was one of the main glues for culture. In those days the allusions we referred to were books, history, the classics - these seem to have been replaced with allusions to tv programs, net events (events which, to misquote Alan Moore, are so small and happen so quickly they can scarcely be said to have happened at all), memes... I'm not going to say that these are any less valuable than those of a previous generation, but they are all distinguished by their brevity - an allusion made today might be dated by next week, or tomorrow, or in an hour. I'm not saying a society can't be built on these connectives, but it will seem a very strange place to us.
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1759802,00.html
to
this speech http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199900/ldhansrd/pdvn/lds06/text/60420-18.htm#60420-18_spopq0
I really must get better at inserting links.
As the journalist says, not the sort of speech we see in the commons too often.
Reading both, I was struck by the degree to which ideas that used to be the preserve of writers like Phillip K Dick, and later of cyberpunks like Bruce Sterling are becoming part of everyday life. In 20 years a gap has opened between us "of the Twentieth Century" (a chilling phrase, too) and our children in terms of how we learn the world (apologies to Ken McCleod), and I can't imagine how wide that gulf will be by the time our grandchildren make it on the scene.
At school we used to talk about the possibility of comprehensible allusion (well, when we weren't trying to hit each other with paperclips, and how this was one of the main glues for culture. In those days the allusions we referred to were books, history, the classics - these seem to have been replaced with allusions to tv programs, net events (events which, to misquote Alan Moore, are so small and happen so quickly they can scarcely be said to have happened at all), memes... I'm not going to say that these are any less valuable than those of a previous generation, but they are all distinguished by their brevity - an allusion made today might be dated by next week, or tomorrow, or in an hour. I'm not saying a society can't be built on these connectives, but it will seem a very strange place to us.
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Date: 2006-04-25 03:53 pm (UTC)On second thoughts, I'm inclined to agree with it. Your example of comics as being a previous example of brain rotters is particularly to the point: anyone who reads The Beano (the Victor having fallen by the wayside, unfortunately) has 80 or 100 years of Beano history to refer to, and will be understood by anyone who read it as a youth: Beryl the Peril may have gone, but she has a linear descendant in Sid the Sexist (sorry, different comic). Anyone who reads the X-Men has a sub-creative mythology which runs to millions of pages, all capable of being referred to and understood. I'm constantly surprised by how many people know who Cal Rankin was, or Cain Marko (yes, I run in very geeky circles).
The transitory nature of the Net, of text messages and e-mails, makes it dificult to build complex, enduring structures being built from them. The exceptions that come to mind are mostly based around classical models - Wikipedia - or are community based - games players, or livejournal/myspace.
I've a feeling the change is more qualitative than quantatative this time - I'm not saying the world will come to an end, but I do think there's a real chance that we're on the edge of the end of the world as we know it.
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Date: 2006-04-25 03:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 03:59 pm (UTC)