Warning: Undefined array key 0 in /home/digitald/public_html/courses/wp-content/plugins/radgeek-FWP---Add-Attribution-70acf52/add-attribution-feedwordpress.php on line 363
Novels like Neuromancer are rare. Not only does Neuromancer combine multiple unique predictions about the future of the world, more than 30 years later, in 2017, we can actually see that most of these predictions were quite on target. Of course, some of the predictions made in the book did not become reality…at least yet. Things like the super high speed train, or ways to travel into space and visit other colonies have not actually been made possible, however there are a few people that constantly emphasize the necessity of the word “yet” at the end of the previous sentence. Steve Jobs, Elon Mask, Mark Zuckerberg – these are just a few names of the many individuals that are known to be the visionaries behind some of the most impressive technological advances of our times.
When analyzing their success, the question that has always interested me is: where do these people find the inspiration for all these breakthroughs? Many famous philosophers claim that nobody can just come up with something completely new, and that everything out there is just an improved version of something that already exist. I agree with this opinion, and for that reason I really enjoyed reading Neuromancer. The importance of the novel is obvious, when you look around today and see how many beautiful things it inspired. And yes, as you might have already guessed by the title, I do believe that the reason why William Gibson was so accurate about his predictions, is ironically because his novel inspired people to move in the direction he suggested. Turns out, he was not guessing about the future, he was actually leading people into it. Personally, I think we need as much of such guidance as we can get.
Posted from DIG 101 Blog by Andriy M.