Gibson re paranoia

[pynchonoid]

Go to the blog entry to link to the NY Times article
he's quoting.


http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2004_12_01_archive.asp

Monday, December 06, 2004

    posted 8:16 AM
    'One reward Bollaert did collect from BzzAgent
was, of all things, the William Gibson novel ''Pattern
Recognition'' -- an actual paranoid science-fiction
novel about a future in which corporations have become
so powerful they can bribe flunkies to infiltrate your
life and talk up products. ''It made me think, when
somebody says something about a product - I wonder.
That gave me a little pause,'' she said. Earlier in
our conversation, I touted my iPod. Wouldn't she feel
differently about my comments, I asked, if it turned
out that I'd gotten it from Apple or a BzzAgent
equivalent? ''That's true,'' she said. ''But you know
what? If you start questioning everyone's motives,
then you'll be in a home with tinfoil on your head.'''

    NYT

    Let me get this straight: Because I imagined,
without knowing that BzzAgent existed, that this sort
of thing not only could but would be done, the fact
that BzzAgent exists makes me "paranoid"? Or is it
merely the imagining that makes me "paranoid"?

    Pattern Recognition isn't "about a future", of
course, and the present reality, judging by this
piece, is one in which corporations have become so
powerful that they can *recruit unpaid volunteers* to
infiltrate your life and talk up products -- a twist I
evidently wasn't quite paranoid enough to imagine.


=====
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