Sterling and Steffen's SXSW keynote

Cory Doctorow 7:09 am Thu Mar 17, 2005

Yesterday Bruce Sterling gave his traditional closing keynote at the SXSW interactive festival, with WorldChanging's Alex Steffen. Here's a summary/report of the event:

Bruce looked at three approaches to making objects sustainable:

1. Neobiology and biomimetics: when you lose it, it rots.

2. Build monuments for the ages. Abandon fashion. It'll be artsy and craftsy, roughhewn and honest – but you don't get to change your mind about it.

3. Label everything in the environment and digitally track it. Give everything a unique identity, and make the bar code searchable. Track it throughout its lifetime, from manufacture to disassembly and material recovery. When it breaks, push a button and somebody picks it up. This is the Internet of Things. It would require plenty of bandwidth, tracking, extensive databases, and (of course) a remake of the entire social, legal, and economic system, "which happens all the time".

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