At lunch, almost as we began to think about salt, I asked Stephenson how the party felt. He seemed a bit upset — and he told me a story that made me think that he wasn’t sure if the boys were joking. As he was writing Snow damage, Stephenson said, lives in Washington, DC. Riding on the Metro, they see a variety of middlemen heading to the Pentagon reading Tom Clancy’s. The Hunt for Red October. Although no one has cooked pots like Clancy, military and industrialists – who know best – felt like they were learning something from “things that irritate readers’ writings, such as, ‘Here’s a picture of the F / A. -18 system,'” says Stephenson. “It’s a useful idea of what fiction is supposed to do to its readers that is not uncommon for writers.”
That’s why Stephenson hates the idea of doing anything other than writing something meaningful – to be (as I expect, a little bit) providing a fictional engine to make Silicon Valley’s dream machines. I understand. It may seem like the obvious thing for a modern-day author to say, in effect, that he hopes to promote social change and human ingenuity. But I push back. This is sci-fi, after all. “Try a change” is written in the code, okay? Swap content to view it in a different light, perhaps warning you of the consequences? “As far as myths are concerned — and I don’t think that’s the point of myths, by the way, but since you asked — telling a clear story of how things would be in the next few decades would help,” says Stephenson. “I’m fascinated by all kinds of events that seem like, here’s a plan, here’s what we can do that can be set up without reshaping people from the ground up.” And it’s the kind of people who work most closely with his work, the people whose work it is around— “people with an engineering mindset, or rolling over, problem solving,” as Stephenson points out — who are most attracted to such designs.
They think that someone, or some other country, has tried to measure solar energy. Climate change is a serious problem, and geoengineering “is a cheap, easy-to-use, flawed, controversial method that one will soon use,” he says. But he denies casting Billionaire Scientist as the answer. It’s just a book. He said the billionaire “just does, without the law,” says Stephenson, laughing a little at his story. “He’s a little grassy man, by design. What-if. ”
However, Stephenson’s recognition of geoengineering as the Great Vision may have real significance. His great science at this time is not just a myth or a universe. It’s the engineers tackling the problem that is coming up. After years of persistent fires, hurricanes, epidemics, and other natural disasters directly or indirectly, climate change, the idea that the world’s top technologists could dictate why lawmakers seem to have failed is almost hopeless.
That’s a big fictional question, Stephenson says, but there’s nothing more surprising than, let’s say, Isaac Asimov’s unchanging laws for robots. It’s the kind of preposterousness that makes people wish they were heroes, though our brains tell us the real job probably includes meetings with Robinson’s banks too. The difference between the book and the report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is that the book needs to make a big difference – Stephenson has been advocating for a decade for science fiction to fit his Golden Age expertise, but as an inspiration, not a challenge. . It should be fun, and it shouldn’t be attractive. He says: “One of the things that draws people to the book right away is their ax-wielding.
Instead, a science fighter or a whitepaper is a false choice. One of the most famous researchers in the field of solar geoengineering (and technology and other important elements of climate change) is Harvard scientist David Keith. He knows Stephenson and doesn’t think there is – or will. “I refuse to give up on you,” says Keith. “The idea that some ideas are technological and some are technical does not contradict the first two classes of the class. There is no technical expertise that can solve our problem without solid evidence, but principles alone will not cause the worst emissions.”
Asking billions of people to save the world is not a good idea, but even today, they are not really interested. Elon Musk owns a solar power company and an electric car company. Laurene Powell Jobs is investing $ 3.5 billion in aid to areas affected by climate change. Silicon Valley Titans help pay for Keith’s programs. “In the process of announcing this, I have heard everything from the most politically and ecologically motivated ideas to someone in the Sand Hill Road office saying, ‘We just have to take action and take responsibility,’ ‘says Keith.” There is a big show. “