Tomorrow Now: Envisioning the Next 50 Years

Bruce Sterling's latest non-fiction volume is a collection of soundbites, a tome of techno-gossip glimpsed from reading, conferences and talks with corporate futurists, scientists and major figures. Interesting ideas, summarised in unattractive prose woven in a series of meandering chapters stitched together by the most flimiest of premises, yes, a hint of literary pretension as Sterling attempted to shoehorn the seven disparate themes together by utilising Shakespeare!

My friend, Wilson, had wanted to ask Bruce Sterling when he was town last year why his novels always started out promising, I guess the premises are always brilliant*, but ended up 'sucky'. Brian, Colin and I laughed when Wilson said that. Wilson didn't managed to ask that question. Oh well. Bland prose notwithstanding, what counts is the intriguing ideas explained and explored through awful soundbites, 'Tomorrow Now' is a good read, sorta like reading the less well-written Wired articles strung together.

A prevading theme that Sterling has emphasised is the New World Disorder which is nothing more than his name soundbite for the low intensity conflicts that has been a dominant feature before and after the Great World Wars of the twentieth century. Total war is an anomaly as it is well understood by historians and social scientists. There is really nothing 'New' about this New World Disorder.

Another theme Sterling harped on was that of biotechnology and genetic engineering which he explored in an interesting chapter prefacing the book.

Here are some interesting ideas in the form of Sterling soundbites:

In Stage 6: The Pantaloon:

'The secret sting in Stewart's famous aphorism "Information wants to be free" is in the part that got clipped off when the slogan become popularised. The full quote ran: "Information wants to be free; information also wants to be expensive." It's only when you hold both of these principles in your head at once that you become a true information-economy adept. If you focus exclusively on one half or the other, you will spend most of your time profoundly lost, in a thrashing state of hapless resentment.'

There are truisms abound and also kooky ideas.

In Stage 5: Justice:

'This political movement is likely to be proglobal and multilateralist. It's unlikely to base itself within a single nation-state, since national governments are severely bottled up up and appeals to local patriotism are self-limiting.

It will need some physical strongholds and some model polities. Nation states don't seem particularly promising, at least not at first. A likelier candidate is big cities. The government of cities can be captured by small upstart groups of enthusiasts, and the best such candidates would likely be multiethnic cities, heavily involved in global trade and populated by diasporas. Brussels might be quite good. Singapore. Perhaps New York City, Amsterdam or Hong Kong.'

I wish Sterling would explore more on the sustainable technologies that he has been espousing in his talk and his blog if I recall.

There are few pop futurist volumes out there. Most social science books are not popular tomes for the masses. 'Tomorrow Now' is just about the only volume there attempting to explore the near future in a social context and a lot of credit must be given for that. I think this is a very worthwhile read despite the prose and soundbites.

Presently, I am reading 'Histories of the Future' which is a collection of essays edited by Daniel Rosenberg and Susan Harding. This volume 'foregrounds everyday attitudes, images, stories, performances, debris, movement, lifestyles, and work.' from an academic view.

*I have read a lot of Bruce Sterling novels. I like them and I have bought every one but I find the prose and plotting to be dreadfully unexciting. The ideas, however, are another matter. Sterling explores social change.