Bruce Sterling interviewed by Shapeways

Don’t miss Bruce Sterling in full-on grumpy zen master mode, busting out futuristic koans in this interview with Shapeways, the 3D printing people:

Joris Peels: If everyone had replicators would people that were able to speak quicker be happier than those that spoke slower?

Bruce Sterling: Look, “everyone” is never going to have anything. The human race includes infants, the senile, the mentally retarded, the disabled, people in clinics and prisons, the illiterate, the totally broke, dropouts of all descriptions, refuseniks… This is like asking what happens when “everybody has a car.” Everybody’s not gonna have a car, even in an imaginary world where cars cost less than nothing. If replicators were as cheap as cellphones we wouldn’t be any “happier.” Are guys who yak really fast on cellphones any happier than the rest of us? Hardly.

Joris Peels: How long will it take for someone to develop the first prank disease?

Bruce Sterling: You mean besides “smallpox blankets?” Maybe massive lethality on entire populations doesn’t count as “pranks.”

Shapeways interviews Bruce Sterling