Keen On… Bruce Sterling: “Network Society Isn’t Compatible With Democracy” (TCTV)

Andrew Keen

Andrew Keen is an Anglo-American entrepreneur, writer, broadcaster and public speaker. He is the author of the international hit “Cult of the Amateur: How the Internet is Killing our Culture” which has been published in 17 different languages and was short-listed for the Higham’s Business Technology Book of the Year award. As a pioneering Silicon Valley based Internet entrepreneur,... → Learn More

Thursday, March 17th, 2011

Appropriately, Bruce Sterling closed SXSW this year. It’s appropriate because after Bruce, there really isn’t much to say. He’s just about the smartest and funniest historical science fictional writer in the business. And the edgiest too – even though he’s built a professorial façade to disguise the punk in him.

So it was a huge honor to catch the darkly euphoric Bruce in Austin where he talked to me about his upcoming new book Gothic High Tech and Favella Chic, on why “hactivism” isn’t democracy and why he finds Sarah Palin “super interesting.”

And stay tuned for tomorrow when Bruce tells us what comes after the future.

Gothic high tech and favela chic

Has hacking become old fashioned?

Why “hacktivism” isn’t democracy

Person: Bruce Sterling
Companies:

Sterling is, along with William Gibson, Rudy Rucker, John Shirley, Lewis Shiner, and Pat Cadigan, one of the founders of the cyberpunk movement in science fiction, as well as its chief ideological promulgator, and one whose polemics on the topic earned him the nickname “Chairman Bruce”. He was also one of the first organizers of the Turkey City Writer’s Workshop, and is a frequent attendee at the Sycamore Hill Writer’s Workshop. He won Hugo Awards for his novelettes Bicycle...

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