Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Other People's Money, by Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow has an interesting story up at Forbes Magazine (of all places!) called “Other People’s Money”. Apparently Forbes commissioned several writers to give some economic visions of twenty years from now and this is what Doctorow came up with.

Honestly, I was confused half the time. I could follow the main thread of the story and understood some of the connections Doctorow was making and what of our economic future he was tweaking, but at the same time...I was confused. Some of the jargon and acronyms and technical stuff did not quite connect.

The story works as a conversation where Gretl, a backwards tech lady explaining to a young VC (Venture Capitalist?) about what she does and why she does it and during the conversation she pretty well explains the history of change from 2007 to 2027. Not to put too heavy of a hand on it, but it reminds me a bit of some of the philosophical dialogues (Aristotle, Socrates, etc), though there is less of the “tell me more, teacher” here. It takes place in a “dead Wal-Mart”

Like I said, interesting story in a theoretical “what if” sense. I don’t think it is supposed to do anything more.

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