William Gibsons Technopolitics

Amazon's new series 'Peripherals' premiered over the weekend, a sleek sci-fi thriller in the vein of HBO's smash hit 'Westworld', but with a little more guts for those serious about the future.

The Peripheral is an adaptation of the 2014 bestseller of the same name by William Gibson, the author best known for coining the term "cyberspace" in 1982. Gibson coined the term before the advent of the World Wide Web, which l 'cemented as a visionary.

In today's high-tech world, science fiction isn't just a distraction, it can be a driving force. Mark Zuckerberg named his entire company after a term coined by writer Neil Stephenson . Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos' obsession with science fiction is well documented.

Gibson is a little different from other speculative writers. Speaking to The New Yorker in 2019, he described his creative process as a kind of advanced engineering: observing current trends and consciously transforming them into the future. He once told PC Magazine that he "never cared about the computer itself. I don't see it, I see how people act around them. It's complicated because everything is 'around'" (this was in 2007, before smartphones took over the world, mind you).

This approach is evident in The Peripheral, both in the book and in the series. Like this newsletter, Gibson's work examines how technology and governance intersect to create the rules that govern our daily lives.

But Gibson, for example, comes from a direction that is the opposite of tech journalism or even entrepreneurship. Politicians and business leaders tend to imagine that they write the rules. In Gibson's future, it's clear that technology is also writing its own rules by which we all live.

Without getting into plotlines and spoilers, suffice it to say that The Peripheral offers a disturbing vision of how different trends - virtual reality, immersive gaming, quantum computing and evolving social stratification - will eventually build a future that no one questions. .. anybody. at

It's not a dystopia. It's more... pure.

Many political observers took a keen interest in Gibson after the release of The Peripheral, and not just because it fit with his restless liberal politics. (His very active Twitter feed is filled with agitprop, and he places his next novel in an alternate timeline, where Hillary Clinton won the 2016 election.)

The world in which the series' protagonist lives is very similar to "Trump Country", which Gibson imagined with incredible precision before it even appeared as a political concept. What gives the series its compelling sci-fi appeal is that the heroes are professional Appalachian gamers, while the villains are the world's cosmopolitan elite. The future depicted in Peripheral, where ordinary society (and much of nature) is simply destroyed as technology advances, is an ominous, and not entirely alien, social and political vision. range

Of course, he won't hesitate, even though the vision of a slow-moving apocalypse caused by climate change, political unrest and pandemics may seem uncomfortable. Given his track record - and his stubborn persistence that continues to inspire sci-fi fantasy and reflect genuine advances in technology - one has to consider what he says about where technology is really taking us.

Discover the crypto lobby

Crypto has invested heavily in DC in recent years and is hiring top staff as part of its push for more lenient industry regulation .

Now several leading Democrats are pointing to him as a potential new revolving door in the capital.

The group, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan), extended its appeal to key regulators in a group letter sent yesterday. asking for details on what they were doing to mark the phenomenon. their lobbies - who can risk capturing the same regulations that politicians criticize in sectors ranging from defense to pharmaceuticals to "powerful interests on Wall Street"?

Of course, that puts crypto in the company of nearly every major American industry, not the image that aspiring revolutionaries in the field are trying to project.

bite the apple

On Monday , Apple announced that it would allow NFT purchases through apps sold in the App Store. This is an unwarranted win for cryptocurrencies, isn't it?

It's a little more difficult. By channeling it through the App Store, Apple is introducing a series of features very similar to crypto in NFT sales. The thing is, like any transaction done under the App Store umbrella, they charge a commission that is much laughed at today. There is also the fact that you cannot use cryptocurrency to make payments. for them, because Apple does not accept payments in cryptocurrency.

Our sister site Protocol suggests that the biggest impact of the rule change could drive NFT developers away from the Apple platform: "While NFT is used more in iOS apps, some developers may prefer to keep it in web browsers," says Tomio. . Geron wrote today, "Or they can limit their iOS app to avoid App Store fees of up to 30% of transactions." With rebellious technologies like Web3.

The future in 5 links

Stay in touch with the whole team: Ben Schrekinger ([email protected]); Derek Robertson ( [email protected] ); Steve Hueser ([email protected]); and Benton Ives ([email protected]). Follow us @DigitalFuture on Twitter.