 William Gibson's opinion of Shadowrun, ...ouch... |
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 May 10 2004, 05:08 PM
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#51
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Moving Target  Group: Members Posts: 188 Joined: 16-June 03 From: Da Burgh, PA Member No.: 4,751  |
I'm noticing a trend in this thread in regards to people bashing Gibson's literary works. They generally can't use proper english gramar. :D
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May 10 2004, 05:10 PM
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#52
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,616 Joined: 15-March 04 Member No.: 6,158 |
I've also noticed a trend in people who bash other people for their writing style while failing to do something as simple as capitalize a proper noun like "English." Or, Hell, even spell "grammar" correctly. Hypocrisy. Gotta love it. |
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May 10 2004, 05:25 PM
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#53
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 475 Joined: 17-June 02 From: Concord University, Athens, WV Member No.: 2,880 |
Or that you weren't even old enough to walk before it ended? |
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May 10 2004, 05:57 PM
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#54
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,718 Joined: 14-September 02 Member No.: 3,263 |
If that is the -only- negative thing Gibson has to say about SR that's pretty good. ;)
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May 10 2004, 06:51 PM
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#55
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,632 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Portland Oregon, USA Member No.: 1,304 |
I hated the idea too. After Gibson, Sterling and Dick, Elves in my postmodern soup had me sending the bowl back to the chef (how's that for metaphore?)
When I saw the cover of SR1, that's as far as I got. I laughed it off right there. I'm sure that's where Gibson is. If he were to read the intro story in the main book, he'd probably see more to like about it, but he's no more required to do that than I am to try yet another version of Guacamole (which I always hate, but everyone insists that their's is different). |
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May 10 2004, 08:03 PM
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#56
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 973 Joined: 3-October 03 Member No.: 5,677 |
...That too. :P |
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May 11 2004, 02:53 AM
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#57
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,013 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Unless he went to a particularly well-endowed elementary school, odds are all the maps still showed the USSR when he was there. I know ours certainly did.
~J |
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May 11 2004, 03:04 AM
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#58
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,028 Joined: 9-November 02 From: The Republic of Vermont Member No.: 3,581 |
You kids are making me feel old. Quit it.
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May 11 2004, 05:24 AM
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#59
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 103 Joined: 2-September 03 From: San Antonio Member No.: 5,571 |
My most vived memory of my childhood wasn't so much the fall of the Wall, but of Cobra Commander in clamshell bondage. Geezus...
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May 11 2004, 05:45 AM
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#60
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 830 Joined: 3-April 04 From: Columbus, Ohio Member No.: 6,215 |
Our school was so crappy that with all the teachers in it, I was still the only one who had heard of Yeltsin before the coup. I was 9! I wish I'd spent my elementary school years learning how to spell Golobulus, though, because he definitely came up in conversation a whole lot more. Man, that movie was great.
But in an effort to conclude a post relatively on topic after reflections on GI Joe, I think it's wonderful that the description the 1st ed. book gives of the demise of the USSR is in essence what actually happened, with just an elongated timetable and more actual blood. |
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| Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_* |
May 11 2004, 06:35 AM
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#61
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Guests |
Yeah, it's a good thing we took care of that one quickly. |
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May 11 2004, 06:45 AM
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#62
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,616 Joined: 15-March 04 Member No.: 6,158 |
Yep. 'Cause the paranoid insanity from the 80's is still around. Everyone is running around with face masks, scared to death of touching anyone, and the entire world is crumbling around us because of it. Yessir. AIDS has proven to be the downfall of humanity all right. <thumbs up>
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May 11 2004, 07:23 AM
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#63
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 475 Joined: 17-June 02 From: Concord University, Athens, WV Member No.: 2,880 |
I still have that movie. It's setting on a bookshelf in my room back home. |
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May 11 2004, 07:36 AM
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#64
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 100 Joined: 21-November 03 Member No.: 5,836 |
Give it 5 years and it will be a pretty major factor in the politics and economies of most nations in the world... |
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May 11 2004, 08:28 AM
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#65
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,901 Joined: 19-June 03 Member No.: 4,775 |
Major political and economic factor? Yes.
New Black Plague that sweeps the Earth clean? No. In the 80s, when little was known, there was a period where it was seen as the latter, though people around my age were pretty much too young to remember. Was it seen as such in 1989 when SR was published? Not so much. It's hard to say whether it was written out of sheer ignorance at a later date or a part of the story written to parallel AIDS at a time long before SR's initial publication, and simply left that way because Mulvihill liked it. |
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May 11 2004, 12:41 PM
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#66
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 117 Joined: 29-April 04 Member No.: 6,291 |
OMG gibson is soo stpuid, he cant perdict teh futar!!!1 haha, what a lozer. lets point nad laugh @ hsi stupdi glasses!!1
C'mon guys. Give the guy a break. Sure, you can discredit the man for not being accurate of his predictions, but that's a pretty shitty thing to do seeing as how he had NO WAY OF KNOWING OTHERWISE. Hell, I'm still scared shit of AIDS, worldwide pandemic or not. Technically it is, thousands die in Africa every day from it. That's ridiculous. |
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May 11 2004, 01:02 PM
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#67
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,889 Joined: 3-August 03 From: A CPI rank 1 country Member No.: 5,222 |
A bit over 8,000 die every day of AIDS. And that number is only going to grow for the time being. The bubonic plague killed about 30 million Europeans in the middle ages, and at its worst it killed 2 million per year. At the end of 1999, UNAIDS and WHO estimated that AIDS had killed 18.8 million -- adding 3 million per year to that, AIDS has overtaken the bubonic plague as a cause of death already. Even if you're really optimistic about things, you can expect at least 120 million more AIDS deaths during the next 60 years, unless someone can come up with a cheap cure for it. And no, I'm not particularly hyped about AIDS. Doesn't touch my life in the least. I don't even have a clue about how severe AIDS has been made out to be in 80s sci-fi, I haven't read that stuff. But let's get one thing absolutely straight: Hundreds of millions of casualties can happen and have happened, and all it takes is a bit of bad luck. The bird flu could rack up a 9-digit death toll easily, if it mutated to transfer directly from person to person. |
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May 11 2004, 01:10 PM
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#68
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 6,748 Joined: 5-July 02 Member No.: 2,935 |
Fuck the Black Death, does AIDS compare to the Spanish Flu yet?
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May 11 2004, 01:12 PM
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#69
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Canon Companion Group: Members Posts: 8,021 Joined: 2-March 03 From: The Morgue, Singapore LTG Member No.: 4,187 |
Well, as long as the birth rate exceeds the death rate, I would not give a damn who dies of what. Those millions of people can die of SARS after laughing too hard for all I care.
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May 11 2004, 01:17 PM
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#70
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,889 Joined: 3-August 03 From: A CPI rank 1 country Member No.: 5,222 |
In other words, it certainly compares. It's really hard to say whether AIDS has killed more than the Spanish Flu Epidemic, because Spanish Flu killed between 21 and 40 and AIDS has killed between ~26-35 million.
That doesn't have to be the case, however. If an extremely deadly epidemic hit China, for example, its population would drop fast. If there's no immediate way to stop the AIDS from spreading in some of the worst areas, we might be seeing population decreasing in countries like Zimbabwe in the near future. We'd need several of such epidemics hitting all over the place to cause the global population to fall, but it could happen. The worst case scenario for bird flu could be several hundred million deaths in the span of a few years, which would certainly dent population figures. Add a few other epidemics on top of that... Not saying it's likely, but it could happen. This post has been edited by Austere Emancipator: May 11 2004, 01:23 PM |
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May 11 2004, 01:22 PM
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#71
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,138 Joined: 10-June 03 From: Tennessee Member No.: 4,706 |
Numbers aren't as important as population percentages. A 5% population hit vs. a 1% population hit is a big difference, and really what determines the secondary effects of a epedemic (ie, are there enough people left for x, y, z). 20 million is still only about 0.5% of the world population.
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May 11 2004, 01:27 PM
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#72
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,889 Joined: 3-August 03 From: A CPI rank 1 country Member No.: 5,222 |
In today's India, the Spanish Flu would have managed quite a lot more kills, that's for sure.
The population of the world was 1.8 billion in 1918. That means AIDS needs about 30 more years to get to the same percentage of people killed globally, assuming we can keep it well under control. |
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May 11 2004, 01:40 PM
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#73
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,138 Joined: 10-June 03 From: Tennessee Member No.: 4,706 |
Unless an alternate vector developes, there's no reason to think AIDs will run out of control. It's primarily spread by preventable actions.
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May 11 2004, 01:51 PM
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#74
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 117 Joined: 29-April 04 Member No.: 6,291 |
Do keep in mind that AIDS spreads in the way that our human race reproduces, and worse than that, humanity's #1 bar none, no close second, unparalleled recreational activity. Almost everyone has sex, and a vast majority of THAT have sex quite a lot over the course of their lives. Personally, yeah, I think AIDS could spin out of control.
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May 11 2004, 01:54 PM
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#75
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,889 Joined: 3-August 03 From: A CPI rank 1 country Member No.: 5,222 |
It won't run out of control in the civilized world, that's for sure. What I meant by keeping it under control is keeping it from spreading all over the sub-saharan African. Currently, it doesn't seem they give a shit about spreading it, and if they do, they don't know what the hell to do about it. Maybe we can keep it at the 3 million/year level, if global aid keeps working. That's not a given, however, with the amount of influence religion has around those parts, and the bouts of Telling People About Condoms Is Evil leaders of the Western world get every now and then.
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