Bruce Sterling: “Nobody is technologically going to solve civilization”

Techfestival
Techfestival 2018
Published in
2 min readOct 15, 2018

TALK. Bruce Sterling (US) is an author, journalist, sci-fi writer, editor and critic. He is a renowned keynote speaker at South by Southwest (SXSW), which is why we were absolutely psyched to have him deliver the closing keynote at Techfestival 2018. Watch the full talk here, to hear Sterling wrap up what we have learned about the current state of tech at this year’s Techfestival, giving us his most quirky, emotional and honest thoughts on what difference the techfestivals of the world can make in bringing together a community, and starting new, much needed conversations on the future role of technology.

“We don’t really need tech solutions. We don’t want to impose technological policy solutions on people. And nobody is technologically going to solve civilization. So what we need is a cultural sensibility that gives us honesty and authenticity. How can we make sense of the situation we are in, and give it poetic rightness? Until we figure that out we’ll just have to peck away at our keyboards in the attic of our giant puzzle palace. That’s where fate has washed us up. But there are a lot of people like us all around the world now. And we think you have the answer to this. We just haven’t seen it yet”

Watch all Techfestival keynotes: Want to check out the rest of Techfestival 2018 keynotes? Find all keynotes here including talks by Ingrid Burrington, Lisa Mosconi, Matt Webb, Kevin Slavin and many more.

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