As ever, Bruce Sterling’s closing remarks to the SXSW Interactive festival were a barn-burner; in them, Sterling rattles off a list of people who should be in the room, either because they know something that is lost on mainstream geekdom, or because they serve as examples for what not to become — from GCHQ spies to Italian net-politics ninjas, from the Dread Pirate Roberts to Barrett Brown. Sterling dips into the future (“the future is full of cities full of old people who are scared of the sky”) and wonders where Silicon Valley will decamp to once California is destroyed by climate change.
It’s 45 minutes of funny, uncomfortable, storming invective, and a bracing way to pass the Ides of March. Here’s an unauthorized MP3 rip in case you want to listen on the go (warning, may not work very well!).