There’s something direly mean spirited and ungenerous about inventing a language and then renting it out to other people to speak. There’s something unprecedented and sinister in this process of creeping commodification of data and knowledge. A computer is something too close to the human brain for me to rest entirely content with someone patenting or copyrighting the process of its thought … I don’t think democracy will thrive in a milieu where vast empires of data are encrypted, restricted, proprietary, confidential, top-secret, and sensitive. I fear for the stability of a society that builds sand castles out of databits and tries to stop a real-world tide with royal commands.
Predictor: Sterling, Bruce
Prediction, in context:In a 1994 essay that is included on the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Web site as a reprint from Science Fiction Eye #10, author and cyberspace commentator Bruce Sterling writes: ”There’s something wrong with the Information Society. There’s something wrong with the idea that ‘information’ is a commodity like a desk or a chair. There’s something wrong with patenting software algorithms. There’s something direly mean spirited and ungenerous about inventing a language and then renting it out to other people to speak. There’s something unprecedented and sinister in this process of creeping commodification of data and knowledge. A computer is something too close to the human brain for me to rest entirely content with someone patenting or copyrighting the process of its thought. There’s something sick and unworkable about an economic system which has already spewed forth such a vast black market. I don’t think democracy will thrive in a milieu where vast empires of data are encrypted, restricted, proprietary, confidential, top-secret, and sensitive. I fear for the stability of a society that builds sand castles out of databits and tries to stop a real-world tide with royal commands.”
Biography:Bruce Sterling, a writer, consultant and science fiction enthusiast, wrote or co-wrote “Schismatrix,” “The Hacker Crackdown” and “The Difference Engine” and edited “Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology.” In the 1990s, he wrote tech articles for Fortune, Harper’s, Details, Whole Earth Review and Wired, where he was a contributing writer from its founding. He published the nonfiction book “Tomorrow Now: Envisioning the Next Fifty Years” in 2002. (Author/Editor/Journalist.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Global Relationships/Politics
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Title, headline, chapter name: A Statement of Principle
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.cosy.sbg.ac.at/doc/eegtti/eeg_266.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Uhlfelder, Evelyn C.