We monitor many frequencies. We listen always. Came a voice, out of the babel of tongues, speaking to us. It played us a mighty dub.
Interpretation
This quote reflects the idea of being attuned to various forms of communication in a complex world.
William Gibson's quote emphasizes the importance of being attentive and responsive to the multitude of signals and messages that surround us in an increasingly complex and noisy world. The metaphor of listening amidst the 'babel of tongues' suggests that, despite the chaos, there are significant and powerful voices that can resonate and create impactful experiences, akin to the way music moves us.
In practice
This quote could be used in a technology conference to highlight how important communication is in tech development.
She knows, now, absolutely, hearing the white noise that is London, that Damien's theory of jet lag is correct: that her mortal soul is leagues behind her, being reeled in on some ghostly umbilical down the vanished wake of the plane that brought her here, hundreds of thousands of feet above the Atlantic. Souls can't move that quickly, and are left behind, and must be awaited, upon arrival, like lost luggage.
If you've read a lot of vintage science fiction, as I have at one time or another in my life, you can't help but realise how wrong we get it. I have gotten it wrong more times than I've gotten it right. But I knew that when I started; I knew that before I wrote a word of science fiction.
I think I'd probably tell you that it's easier to desire and pursue the attention of tens of millions of total strangers than it is to accept the love and loyalty of the people closest to us.
As a writer of fiction who deals with technology, I necessarily deal with the history of technology and the history of technologically induced social change. I roam up and down it in a kind of special way because I roam down it into history, which is invariably itself a speculative affair.
His eyes were eggs of unstable crystal, vibrating with a frequency whose name was rain and the sound of trains, suddenly sprouting a humming forest of hair-fine glass spines.
I don't have to write about the future. For most people, the present is enough like the future to be pretty scary.
If every sector of business and society will be driven by software - how does that get enabled? By highly-paid computer scientists funded by risk capital in Silicon Valley? Or by lots of engineers who can build it themselves?
I wrote an ad for Apple Computer: "Macintosh - We might not get everything right, but at least we knew the century was going to end".
Our social networks, our news, our mundane existence and our important moments are all mediated by algorithms, whose proprietary, profit-driven, ad-financed nature seeps into every small micro-interaction.
We should set a national goal of making computers and Internet access available for every American . . . we must help all Americans gain the skills they need to make the most of the connection.
Technological discoveries are the spermatozoa of social change.
I think it is inevitable that people program poorly. Training will not substantially help matters. We have to learn to live with it.
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