Snow crash
In the previous post i said that i was going to have something to talk about for a long time because of Bruce Sterling's speech.
So, today i want to talk "Snow Crash", a book from Neal Stephenson. Bruce speaks about a concept introduced in this book, not very new i my opinion. It's place called Metaverse, it's like a virtual universe, parallel to our, made based in our own physics, but different. For those movie fans, it's a little like the Matrix. People live in the reality and access the Metaverse, like when we go to the Internet. I like the Metaverse because only one thing, it's Unix based. The rest is not very original or visionary.
The hero in this book is a pizza delivery boy that works for the mafia. The mafia have the monopoly of pizza delivery. He always goes around with two japanese swords, a katana and a smaller one. He will be helped by a 15 year girl to fight an Alaska native that uses glass knifes to kill.
Until here is just another fiction book, not very different than many others. What made it interesting for me was "Snow crash". "Snow crash" is a type of computer crash, and old one. Nowadays we don't get snow crashes. It's called like this because the result of was a static filled screen. Today the screen just goes black, and the most usual crash is Microsoft's "Blue screen".
In this book snow crash is also a drug and a virus. Not a computer virus though, it's a brain virus. Our eyes are part of our brain. The only part of the brain with a direct connection out, so they use in the Metaverse a special static screen to infect the brain of the victims. But there is also a reality version of "Snow crash", it's delivered by language. The theory here is that language is not just words, it's directly connected to geography of the brain. If we use the right sound and words we can put parts of the brain active in a way that we can infect it.
The book also goes into the subject of how language affects the way we think. Here i can't agree more. I write in english because it's easier for me to have a rational and clear line of thought in english than in portuguese. If i wanted to talk about feeling and sadness i would do it in portuguese. If i wanted to write poetry i would do it in portuguese. I think in the language that is more useful for the moment. Also dream in different languages. My brain does work differently in different languages, even sometimes i use computer languages to get trough some more detailed and rational questions. Language is a tool, but a special tool, because it maps directly to different parts of the brain that can be more or less useful according to the language used and the situation at hand.
Having putted this aside, lets go back to "Snow crash". the question is, can we make a brain virus?
I believe so. I know that we can and we already have done some. Hypnotism, what is that? It's when someone, by means of language, concentration and the receptiveness of the subject induce a state on the victim that is out of is control. That's a virus, like those mail virus that infect a machine if you click on some download of stack overflow link. The other is that subliminal publicity stunt that was forbidden. That's also a virus, a more subtle one, with less guarantied results, but also more hard to detect and with little intervention from the subject, like a rootkit that comes in some screensaver's file. Then, if you play video games, you already read the warning that the game can produce episodes like epilepsy because of the flickering screens. That's also a virus. this one like those that find an open port and make the computer crash.
Those virus i bean talking exist, they are here. The question now is what we can do with them ? Can we improve them ? Can we make ourselves some anti-virus and firewalls to protect our brain ?
So, today i want to talk "Snow Crash", a book from Neal Stephenson. Bruce speaks about a concept introduced in this book, not very new i my opinion. It's place called Metaverse, it's like a virtual universe, parallel to our, made based in our own physics, but different. For those movie fans, it's a little like the Matrix. People live in the reality and access the Metaverse, like when we go to the Internet. I like the Metaverse because only one thing, it's Unix based. The rest is not very original or visionary.
The hero in this book is a pizza delivery boy that works for the mafia. The mafia have the monopoly of pizza delivery. He always goes around with two japanese swords, a katana and a smaller one. He will be helped by a 15 year girl to fight an Alaska native that uses glass knifes to kill.
Until here is just another fiction book, not very different than many others. What made it interesting for me was "Snow crash". "Snow crash" is a type of computer crash, and old one. Nowadays we don't get snow crashes. It's called like this because the result of was a static filled screen. Today the screen just goes black, and the most usual crash is Microsoft's "Blue screen".
In this book snow crash is also a drug and a virus. Not a computer virus though, it's a brain virus. Our eyes are part of our brain. The only part of the brain with a direct connection out, so they use in the Metaverse a special static screen to infect the brain of the victims. But there is also a reality version of "Snow crash", it's delivered by language. The theory here is that language is not just words, it's directly connected to geography of the brain. If we use the right sound and words we can put parts of the brain active in a way that we can infect it.
The book also goes into the subject of how language affects the way we think. Here i can't agree more. I write in english because it's easier for me to have a rational and clear line of thought in english than in portuguese. If i wanted to talk about feeling and sadness i would do it in portuguese. If i wanted to write poetry i would do it in portuguese. I think in the language that is more useful for the moment. Also dream in different languages. My brain does work differently in different languages, even sometimes i use computer languages to get trough some more detailed and rational questions. Language is a tool, but a special tool, because it maps directly to different parts of the brain that can be more or less useful according to the language used and the situation at hand.
Having putted this aside, lets go back to "Snow crash". the question is, can we make a brain virus?
I believe so. I know that we can and we already have done some. Hypnotism, what is that? It's when someone, by means of language, concentration and the receptiveness of the subject induce a state on the victim that is out of is control. That's a virus, like those mail virus that infect a machine if you click on some download of stack overflow link. The other is that subliminal publicity stunt that was forbidden. That's also a virus, a more subtle one, with less guarantied results, but also more hard to detect and with little intervention from the subject, like a rootkit that comes in some screensaver's file. Then, if you play video games, you already read the warning that the game can produce episodes like epilepsy because of the flickering screens. That's also a virus. this one like those that find an open port and make the computer crash.
Those virus i bean talking exist, they are here. The question now is what we can do with them ? Can we improve them ? Can we make ourselves some anti-virus and firewalls to protect our brain ?
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