Responsibility of power

Reading more in this Digital Delirium book.... Found an excellent essay by science fiction writer, Bruce Sterling, in which he explores the possibilities, limitations, myths and powers of cyberspace and cyberculture. And being a writer, he can come up with some very biting, pithy and humourous observations.

Examples:

The liberating powers of the Internet:

"We might learn a lot of truth about a lot of things off the Internet, or at least access a lot of data about a lot of weird junk, but does that mean that evil vanishes? Is our technology really a panacea for our bad politics? I don't see how. We can't wave a floppy disk like a bag of garlic and expect every vampire in history to vanish." [p.36]

Its apparently transformative powers:

"Cyberspace isn't a world all its own like Jupiter or Pluto, it's a funhouse mirror of the society that breeds it. Like most mirrors it shows whatever it's given: on any day, that's mostly human banality. Cyberspace is not a fairy realm of magical transformations. It's a realm of transformations all right, but since human beings aren't magical fairies, you can pretty well scratch the magic and the fairy parts."[p.36]

What is power?

"A power that was only the power to do good would not be power at all. Real power is a genuine trial. Real power is a grave responsibility and a grave temptation which often causes people to go mad. Technical power is power. When you deal with power you have to fear the consequences of a bad decision before you can find any satisfaction in a good one. Real power means real decisions, real action with real consequences."[pp.36-37]

What are humans' metaphysical responsibilities? Sterling states that they shouldn't be centred around some magical notion of perfection or infinity, he says because "infinity and eternity are not our problem" [p.37]. Instead, they should be about judging and knowing, acting and living.

Sounds good to me!