Author, Futurist and Technologist Bruce Sterling just getting warmed up before disrupting the SXSWi crowd.
As I left the final session at SXSW Interactive I ran into a woman who was about my age from San Francisco. She clearly had been crying and was somewhere in the range between panic and shock. SXSWi can have this effect on people, especially after an address by noted technologist, futurist, blogger and science fiction writer Bruce Sterling. Bruce is a fixture at SXSWi and each year the unenviable task of standing 30,000 feet above this madness and somehow pulling it all together falls to him. In his unique, creative, synthetic and prophetic way he delivers every time, leaving some of us in shock, others in tears and all of us with something to chew on.
Sterling took the highly talented, technically savvy, young, aggressive, disruptive SXSW crowd to task over the cavalier ways that we presume the worlds of business and politics work. Given the record of disruption driven by the Internet over the past 20 years or so and the powerful economic position of companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon and other tech giants, it should be apparent to everyone that the tech industry calls the shots. Or does it?
Documents released by Snowden demonstrated how the National Security Administration and its contractors secretly used these tech giants as pathways for mass surveillance at home and abroad. The fact that Snowden was broadcasting from Russia through a series of encrypted proxy servers so as not to be located was certainly not lost on Sterling. He also mentioned that Julian Assange virtually joined SXSW this year from his exile in an Ecuadorian library in London. Why were these two people only “sort of here?” Both figures are examples of tech disruption running up against the “principalities and powers,” to borrow a phrase from the Christian Scriptures, of the world. Their situations exemplify the response of genuine, actual, powerful political forces coming down on arrogant technocrats trying to buck the System.
Sterling then mentioned a list of people who should be at SXSW, but could not be for one reason or another. These people look and act just like many among the Interactive crowd: Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet (NKM) of France, Gianroberto Casaleggio of Italy, Barrett Brown from Dallas, Cody Wilson of Austin and Ross William Ulbricht from Austin. What do these figures all have in common? They are technically savvy people engaged in leveraging the Internet for varied purposes that have either been or are going to be crushed by traditional, old world, political and/or legal forces. Like Snowden, Assange and others, they are learning that the appearance of power is not actual power. They are finding that those in business who have deep relationships with politicians (and vice-versa) hold the actual social, financial and political reins in the US, the UK and around the globe. As it turns out, the traditionally wealthy and politically powerful around the globe who have been at the top of the heap for some time now are weary of disruption. Some disruption was necessary and, frankly, good for the world economy. But now, the disruptiveness of hackers stealing financial data and breaches shaking the confidence in governments may have gone too far. And now these powers are responding. The giant beast that tolerated this little creature called the Internet for a time is on its last nerve and is beginning to bite back, threatening to devour.
But the resurgence of these traditional, powerful, political forces should not be the only concern for the SXSWi crowd. Climate change is now undeniable in light of Katrina, Sandy and the other “superstorms” that recently ravaged the planet and its people. Climatologists for decades have indicated that storms like these (and worse) would occur if industrialized nations did not work to curtail the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Now we are experiencing these sorts of storms along with a severe drought that has California in its grips, which is another warning sign articulated by geologists for decades. On top of these climate shifts, we are also facing two additional global shifts: increased urbanization and a population gradually increasing in average age. Could it be possible that maybe there are much bigger fish to fry than Likes, Followers, SEO, ROI and the next area of economic or societal disruption?
Sterling’s challenge to the SXSWi crowd was prophetic and, for the careful listener, clear: There are forces bigger than we can imagine surrounding us that it would be good to at least acknowledge in the process of innovation and disruption. It is no wonder the woman I encountered was in shock. I was (and am) as well. Maybe a recognition of these forces would cause us to be a bit more humble, change our operational horizons and fine tune our perspectives. Or, maybe better yet, abandon some of our disruptive ventures to apply creativity to solutions to the larger, coming problems surrounding the phenomenon Sterling called “old people in big cities afraid of the sky.” He promised to be working on some alternative solutions in the face of these forces and quietly invited us all to join him.
I’ve always said that we should listen carefully to our artists. Bruce Sterling is an artist, and he paints a very stark picture of a future that brings me back to the realization in my prior post that the party of the past 20 years may be over. But the fact that this party is drawing to a close does not mean innovation and creativity stop. It simply means they find different, and maybe better, ends. This is a sobering thought; one that should trouble us and inspire us to get creative. As Sterling concluded, “I have motive and opportunity, and I’m feeling kind of restless.” Maybe that’s not a bad starting point for scrapping our current dreams that may be grounded outside of reality and chart a new course for the new era of the Internet.