You don't get to cut that chain of evidence and start over. You're always going to be pursued by your data shadow, which is forming from thousands and thousands of little leaks and tributaries of information.
Interpretation
Our past digital actions continuously influence our future, as all information leaves traces behind.
This quote emphasizes the concept that our digital footprint is inescapable and accumulates over time from numerous sources of data. Bruce Sterling vividly illustrates that no matter how much we may want to forget or restart, the information we generate is like a shadow that accompanies us, composed of countless bits of data that reveal our habits, decisions, and identities.
In practice
In a talk on digital privacy, you might quote this to stress the importance of understanding our online actions.
If 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.
Anything that can be done to a rat can be done to a human being. And we can do most anything to rats. This is a hard thing to think about, but it's the truth. It won't go away because we cover our eyes. THAT is cyberpunk.
When you can’t imagine how things are going to change, that doesn’t mean that nothing will change. It means that things will change in ways that are unimaginable.
I've been to so many manufacturing plants. I've yet to walk into one where I did not think AI solutions wouldn't help.
Software is a great combination between artistry and engineering. When you finally get done and get to appreciate what you have done it is like a part of yourself that you've put together. I think a lot of the people here feel that way.
There's so much innovation going on, and there are lots of people funding that innovation, but there's very little innovation on that infrastructure for innovation itself, so we like to do that ourselves to help companies create more tech companies.
The will to mastery becomes all the more urgent the more technology threatens to slip from human control
Give ordinary people the right tools, and they will design and build the most extraordinary things.
We cannot idealize technology. Technology is only and always the reflection of our own imagination, and its uses must be conditioned by our own values. Technology can help cure diseases, but we can prevent a lot of diseases by old-fashioned changes in behavior.
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