<story><title>William Gibson says today’s internet is nothing like what he envisioned</title><url>https://www.npr.org/2020/03/19/810570879/william-gibson-says-todays-internet-is-nothing-like-what-he-envisioned</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>mcv</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;the internet when he first conceived it, he thought it was a place that we would all leave the world and go to. Whereas in fact, it came here.&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Somehow this reminds me of the difference between various editions of &lt;i&gt;Shadowrun&lt;/i&gt;, a cyberpunk-fantasy rolepalying game in a dystopian near future where magic and dragons returned (though the magic is irrelevant to my point here).&lt;p&gt;In the earlier editions, from 1989 through the 1990s and early 2000s, the Matrix (their &amp;#x27;internet&amp;#x27;) was all virtual reality, and the &amp;#x27;Decker&amp;#x27; using it would disappear into that world and barely interact with the rest of the team.&lt;p&gt;In more recent editions, written after smartphones and wireless internet became common, &lt;i&gt;everything&lt;/i&gt; was connected. Everything is connected to the Matrix. In combat, a Decker can hack the opponents&amp;#x27; guns to disable them, for example. It&amp;#x27;s not a world to disappear into; that world has come to the physical world and merged with it.</text></comment>
<story><title>William Gibson says today’s internet is nothing like what he envisioned</title><url>https://www.npr.org/2020/03/19/810570879/william-gibson-says-todays-internet-is-nothing-like-what-he-envisioned</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>baryphonic</author><text>This article is odd. It gives a shallow treatment of the subject in the headline, and then takes a wild turn into talking about the 2016 election, his emotions around it and its hypothetical impact on a future climate change-induced apocalypse.</text></comment>