Bruce Sterling speaks wise

Sci-fi author laments state of world | CNET News.com:

"'This is the year of Web 2.0,' Sterling said. 'This is the hottest period of invention since the invention of the browser...Flickr is not a copy of anything else, it is not a hippie knock off a commercial product, (and) Wikipedia is not a copy of anything else... The Net community is no longer hanging on the coattails of Gates.'

But Sterling is also clearly unhappy with the state of American political and governmental affairs and the way he says the Bush administration and others in power are stifling innovation with unimaginative policies. These words were well-received by most of the audience--many of whom come from either the San Francisco Bay Area or Austin itself, one of the few liberal enclaves in Texas.

'Our people in Washington are drinking their own bath water,' Sterling charged. 'They have forgotten how to build anything...it looks like the Soviet Union.'

He talked at length about society in Belgrade, where he is living with his wife, a 'Serbian feminist peacenik dissident.' And he explained that Serbian society is even more troubled than America's and that much of the vitality there comes from the strength of writers, philosophers and other social thinkers toughened by years of war.

'If I've learned anything from hanging out with the Eastern European dissident crowd,' he said, 'it's make no decision out of fear.'"