Ghost of a flea

reason: Not long after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, you wrote a cri de coeur about how the attacks signified the end of a belle époque, during which the government is relatively technocratic, competent, and bland -- providing basic services but otherwise uninteresting -- and the rest of the world is peacefully progressing, partly as a function of technological advance. Are we going to see that kind of era again?

Bruce Sterling: It depends on who "we" are. For the U.S., the belle époque is over. It lost its steam under this tremendous necromantic thing that bin Laden pulled, and also it’s over because this huge surge of energy that was in the dot-com world failed at the last mile. Socially, policy makers have made a series of choices very similar to what preceded the collapse into World War I. There’s the same kind of massive gung-hoism for acts of violence and the same kind of irrationality. We’re in a very dark time. It’s dark enough that it cannot lift overnight.