"Bruce Sterling - Statement of Principle, A" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sterling Bruce)

didn't have the heart to tell her that my friend and colleague Walter
Jon Williams had once written and published an SF story closely
describing explosives derived from simple household chemicals.)
Cyberpunk SF (along with SF in general) has, in fact, permeated
the computer underground. I have met young un

derground hackers who use
the aliases "Neuromancer," "Wintermute" and "Count Zero." The Legion of
Doom, the absolute bete noire of computer law-enforcement, used to
congregate on a bulletin-board called "Black Ice."
In the past, I didn't know much about anyone in the underground,
but they certainly knew about me. Since that time, I've had people
express sincere admiration for my novels, and then, in almost the same
breath, brag to me about breaking into hospital computers to chortle
over confidential medical reports about herpes victims.
The single most stinging example of this syndrome is "Pengo," a
member of the German hacker-group that broke into Internet computers
while in the pay of the KGB. He told German police, and the judge at
the trial of his co-conspirators, that he was inspired by NEUROMANCER
and John Brunner's SHOCKWAVE RIDER.
I didn't write NEUROMANCER. I did, however, read it in
manuscript and offered many purportedly helpful comments. I praised
the book publicly and repeatedly and at length. I've done everything I
can to get people to read this book.
I don't recall cautioning Gibson that his novel might lead to
anarchist hackers selling their expertise to the ferocious and repulsive
apparat that gave the world the Lubyanka and the Gulag Archipelago. I
don't think I could have issued any such caution, even if I'd felt the
danger of such a possibility, which I didn't. I still don't know in
what fashion Gibson might have changed his book to avoid inciting
evildoers, while still retaining the integrity of his vision -- the very
quality about the book that makes it compelling and worthwhile.
This leads me to my first statements of moral principle.

As a "cyberpunk" SF writer, I am not responsible for every act
committed by a Bohemian with a computer. I don't own the word
"cyberpunk" and cannot help where it is bestowed, or who uses it, or to
what ends.
As a science fiction writer, it is not my business to make people
behave. It is my business to

make people imagine. I cannot control
other people's imaginations -- any more than I would allow them to
control mine.
I am, however, morally obliged to speak out when acts of evil are
committed that use my ideas or my rhetoric, however distantly, as a
justification.

Pengo and his friends committed a grave crime that was worthy of
condemnation and punishment. They were clever, but treacherously