Bruce Sterling’s Last WIRED Column

And, of course, it’s a lovely little thing. I love how Bruce, in a totally arse-backwards and unexpected sort of way, has gone from fulltime sf writer to the kind of steely, omnivorous, worldhopping and determinedly groundbreaking futurist people always misguidedly thought sf writers were. His career is an inspiration, a treasure, and a source of some envy to me:

…futurism itself has no future. Once confined to an elite group, the tools and techniques of prognostication are all widely available. As for pundits: The world used to be full of workaday journalists, with just a thin sprinkling of opinion mongers. Now a TypePad account is a license to deliver nose-to-the-pavement perspective with an attitude. The very word futurism is old-fashioned, way too 1960s. Today’s Internet-savvy futurist is more likely to describe himself as a strategy consultant or venture capital researcher. That development doesn’t surprise me. Frankly, I saw it coming.