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Bruce Sterling on the State of the World, 2007

brucesinbw.jpgBruce Sterling has kicked off his annual "State of the World" conversation over at the public Inkwell conference at the Well. For the next ten days or so, Bruce will be interviewed by Jon Lebkowsky (an old friend of mine, and one of the first people we brought on to WorldChanging lo these many years ago), and open to questions from both Well members and the general public (the latter through an email link).

This is a great opportunity to see the Bruce Sterling Show in action. Here's a taste of what we've seen so far:

I love Worldchanging; those guys rock, but it may be time to stop throwing so much visionary spaghetti at the walls and try to converge on some set of notions that might become real solutions. That may not be a proper job for people with Worldchanging's considerable talents. It wouldn's surprise me much to see something seriously freaky emerging: a rich guy's Worldchanging, something like a covert, hugely wealthy, braniac, mogul-saturated Project for a New Atmospheric Century. You might see the occasional white-paper pop out, and the rest of it would just be... vast mechanical grinding.

Even in a world like that one, though, the visionary a-ha thing shouldn't be neglected or dismissed. It's honest work. It does matter. Doesn't take much of a budget... that's its drawback and its saving grace.

I've seen worse suggestions.

To give a sense of how this conversation can evolve, here are the links to Bruce's 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, and 2001 musings.

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