Futurism

So one thing I was thinking about lately was electronic devices and the effect they would have on society, and really what approach we as humans would have to information, what tools we would use to access information.

It seems to me like there are maybe three sets of devices that aren't going way. There is the large of screen, such as your television or a really large computer monitor or set of monitors. Perhaps large projection mechanisms such as movie screens. We are always going to want screens to view certain bits of information in a very large format, because sometimes we will just want that type of immersion experience. So that's not going anywhere. Then there are laptop devices, basically small portable screens with access to a variety of functions. And then the small handheld device, which is increasing taking on a whole plethora of functions, from phones to music storage to accessing the Internet. In ways it's more functional than a laptop, just be virtue of being smaller, and it can provide for most of the functions of a laptop. But pressing small buttons on a tiny screen would get maddening for any long-term, serious work. I can't imagine someone writing a novel or short story or computer code or term paper for hours on end on a tiny handheld device, or even watching certain types of videos with any degree of comfort. A laptop device with always be a necessity for a certain type of professional, although I can actually see certain classes opting to go without them for only the iphone device. And of course there might be some type of desire for a midsized device, like a kindle, something for the reading of long-format works, but that might just be a stop-gap device until people get over their cultural attachment to the codex form, and I can't see anyone opting for such a size when the other options allow for a greater variety of function and ease, especially if the mid-size device, like the kindle, remains confined to only a narrow range of uses. (Computers could be turned into cellphones as easily as cellphones have been turned into computers.)

So I think that those devices will remain around for quite some time. What I am curious about, though, it what the further advances will be made in terms of information access. I saw some video somewhere about some kind of wearable device that would give access to a whole array of information through the use of a camera around the neck. And what would happen if we finally developed technology that would allow a direct electronic chip, brain interface, like the kind of technology we see Neuromancer or the Matrix? Would we be able to download information, surf the Internet, write documents, answer phone calls, all inside our heads? How would this change our culture, the way we interact with information?

This would obviously require some form of surgery. So would our culture split between those who have access to external devices and those who have direct mental access to electronic processors, creating an additional class, capable of affording the elective surgery, creating a third class of technology users. William Gibson has said that the future is here, it just isn't spread out evenly. Right now there are those with access to electronic devices, and those too destitute to afford them. Then of course there are those that are that live without access to any form of electronic technology at all, your present day hunter-gatherers. I wonder how long they are for this world. I wonder, perhaps, if technology developed that allowed for such electronic/organic interfaces, if such technology is even possible (does the nature of human consciousness really allow for such a thing?) there might be some type of socio-political movement to make it widespread available, maybe to enforce government subsidization of the surgical process, so that it's existence doesn't lead the creation of an impermeable overclass, and not of political/economic movers and shakers, your Bush's, Clinton's, Senators, World Leaders and Businessmen, but an actual, leisure class in possession of advanced wealth and capabilities, more like Metropolis than any cyberpunk setting. I suppose it depends on how far along in social democratization we are. And I don't just mean in terms of the U.S., although it's possible we could have such split occur here too, especially if the technology occurs in a setting without Single Payer Healthcare or strong unionization, but in First World/Third World terms, too. I mean, I could see us having a West hardwired into the Internet at all times, completely against an East and South America that exists without such trappings, and thus getting continually outpaced in technology by leaps and bounds. What would such distance in wealth and information bring about? Is such a thing not already, happening? Would we see the widespread rejection of materialism, a move towards spiritual concerns? Contentment of being left out? Surely there would be those who would see the injustice of the situation, if not wanting to be hardwired, at least in terms of the material comfort such technologies, allowed (I can also see a rejection of such elective surgeries occurring among religious conservatives and animal rights activists, environmentalist, and the anti-corporate movement on the left*) and would respond with violence and terrorism, perhaps causing some kind of environmental, biological or nuclear catastrophe. That would set up your post-apocalyptic setting right there.

*I think Gibson actually portrayed such characters in "Johnny Mnemonic." And Neuromancer features evangelicals as terrorists.

Finished?

The Christmas before last, in 2006, My mom got me, at my urging, the box set of the first three volumes of Edward Gibbons Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: the Everyman edition, in hardcover. Though I started reading it that very day, it was an off and on affair, and I just finished it today. Yay! I have read the first three volumes (out of six) of Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire!

Or did I? See, after finishing reading the book, I wanted to know what happened next. So after checking out a used book store, I went to the Library and checked out the lamentably abridged version of the whole work, and I was suprised to find that this volume includes chapters 36 and 37 as part of Volume III. But my Everyman edition ends on chapter 35! So, did I miss out on two chapters? Did Everyman gyp me? If so, for shame, Everyman! On the other hand, maybe there is no clear consensus on the division between the Volumes. So now I have the abirdged version checked out, which does not excite me the way the unabirged version does. It seems to basically just be Gibbon, and it's nice that it interposes the dates of events that happen, something that Gibbon doesn't actually bother to do, so you have to keep checking the table of contents or just allowing events to floating in an etherous solution of possible years. But it baiscailly condenses by just leaving huge chunks of texts out, and I see the brackets denoting the omissions and think, I would like to read that! The Everyman edition is selling for 45 dollars or so on Amazon, which is kind of a pretty penny. But it's just hard to work myself up over an abridgement.

On the other hand, at the used bookstore I splurged and spent 17 bucks on four William Gibson novels, just because they were there and I haven't read them. Gibson is right now the only author other than Joyce (A few nights ago I read the first ten pages of Finnegans Wake out loud to myself. It's actually becoming more and more clear wat's supposed to be going on, which is both kind of cool and kind of scary) that I like to read just for the texture of the prose, and not having fresh, new Gibson around to read is kind of stifling, so I wanted to have the books here, as a kind of rainy day type of thing. This means I am now only missing two Gibson books, All Tomarrow's Parties and Spook Country. And I have listened to the audiobook of Spook Country. Need to get that one. I really like Hollis, but the narrator's voice gets in the way, I feel. He does this deep breathy voice whenever he does her dialogue, which sounds off, and the intonation is also all wrong. Really, audiobooks are annoying if it's not the author. Gibson in particular, seemed to really nail Neuromancer the one time I heard him read the opening. It sounded perfectly realized and evoked, even thoughGibson sounds nothing like the characters. He just has the emphasis in the sentences all right.

And sometimes audiobooks just seem to comepletely miss the point. I kind of wanted to hear the audiobook for Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, but I found the authorial voice of the novel so feminine, somehow, that I didn't want to listen to it read by a male voice. I mean, sure, most of the characters are men, but it seemed important that most of the men be funneled through a feminine voice; it seemed like the narrator's humourous tone towards the male character was very much the things women find funny about men, not the things men find funny about men. Whenever I read it, I always hear a woman's voice. But maybe that's just knowledge of the "author" playing with me. I know the writer is named Susanna, I hear a voice that could come from someone named Susanna.

Funny, I don't feel like a hear a specific voice whenever I read male author's. I don't feel like that is a tone of voice in books written by men at all.