But from another, deeper perspective: we shouldn't involve outselves in lines of development where the ultimate victory condition is emulating dead people. There's no appeal in that. It's bad for us. That kind of inherent mournfulness is just not a good way to be human.

Privacy under what circumstance? Privacy at home under what circumstances? You have more privacy if everyone's illiterate, but you wouldn't really call that privacy. That's ignorance.

I haven't had that good a time in ages. Since September 11, really. I just felt so happy, it was like the sun came out of the clouds for me. I love Italy.

I like to get paid for doing basic research, so it's pleasant to write some nonfiction about it.

I do have two data identities. I have my name, Bruce Sterling, which is my public name under which I write novels. I also have my other name, which is my legal name under which I own property and vote.

The future is a process, not a destination. Richard Stallman is a guy my age. I sympathize with Richard rather more than I sympathize with Richard's open-source ideas, but the guy's a mortal human being and so is his social movement. Open-source is a means of production.

Obsolescence and death, the reign of the archaic, the abandoned, and the corny: Really, if you saw Windows 3.0 on the sidewalk outside the building, would you bend over and pick it up?!?