Lift08 – Opening Talk by Bruce Sterling

Notes on the run…

Sci-fi author Bruce Sterling was in charge of the opening talk at Lift08. He wanted his keynote to be “punchy” and “focused”.

He did mentioned Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, the US economic depression and Al-Quaeda, the global warming (quote: “Global Warming is a Way of Life”) since he probably felt compelled to, given the talk was supposed to be a review of 2007 and a prospective review for 2008, but of course that’s not what he focused on.

Instead he developed what he considers to be the essential: Carla Sarkozy, the “Madame du Barry of the French political renaissance”. His prospective scenarios were quite funny, including “the First Beaver of France”.

His point was about publicity, power, politics and money and their relationships and about the impredictibility of things. Could have been brilliant, but honestly I was a little disapointed, the argument deserved a better backup.

Favourite quotes:

Carla Sarkorzy is a Black Swan

2008 will be a Crappy Year

Global Warming is a Way of Life