University, as institutions, pre-date the information economy by many centuries and are not for-profit cultural entities, whose reason of existence (purportedly) is to discover truth, codify it through techniques of scholarship, and then teach it. Universities are meant to pass the torch of civilization not just download data into student skulls.
Bruce SterlingIf politics and business fail us, of course the military will be called in. In the developing world, the massive and repeated ecological disasters are quite commonly met by the military.
Bruce SterlingDon't become a well rounded person. Well rounded people are smooth and ull. Become a thoroughly spiky person.
Bruce SterlingWar as Napoleon knew it just not possible any more. However, we're very unlikely to accept or recognize "world peace" even when we get it.
Bruce SterlingIf poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world, science fiction writers are its court jesters. We are Wise Fools who can leap, caper, utter prophecies, and scratch ourselves in public. We can play with Big Ideas because the garish motley of our pulp origins make us seem harmless.
Bruce Sterling