Episode 15: John Barnes - Paranoid Style
A conversation with cyberpunk writer John Barnes about collapse, technology, and his prescient 1995 novel 'Kaleidoscope Century'
Author John Barnes joined us this month to discuss one of my favourite science fiction books of all time, his prophetic 1995 cyberpunk classic Kaleidoscope Century. A tale of espionage, meme war and technological singularity, the book made a strong impression on me in the mid-2000s. I jumped at the chance to ask him about the novel’s genesis and its lasting legacy after he agreed to read my essay ‘Meme War’.
A true polymath, John used our hour together to unpack everything from data science and systems analysis, to semiotics and Cold War politics in the era of collapse. It was a fascinating conversation - below you’ll find a few links to further reading on the topics we discussed.
Further reading from John Barnes
The main books from John’s back catalogue that we discussed were the aforementioned Kaleidoscope Century, and briefly its companion books in the Century Next Door series, Orbital Resonance, Candle and The Sky So Big and Black. We spent some time on his ‘climate fiction’ classic Mother of Storms, which is an epic blockbuster movie waiting to happen. We also briefly talked about the Cold War-inspired Daybreak series, which begins with the thriller Directive 51. At the end of the conversation we discussed the novels he co-wrote with the astronaut Buzz Aldrin, which are Encounter with Tiber and The Return.
Early on, John mentions the magazine True Confessions as the ultimate example of ‘Confession stories’, a popular fiction subgenre in American magazines of the 1950s which he calls “stories of sin, suffering and repentance”. John’s mother never got a story in True Confessions, but he says it was the best example of the genre.
John also mentions his writing for the Oxford Encyclopaedia of Theatre and Performance, and the precision needed to write for this kind of book. This economy of expression is very evident in his work, which often does a lot with very little; much like his early literary guiding lights, Hemingway and Steinbeck.
We moved quite quickly into a discussion of the science behind Mother of Storms. Here’s what looks like the actual 1982 NOAA climate data John references, and here’s a link which explains how NOAA use climate data today. We also discuss ‘Paleometeorology’ (now called Paleoclimatology). A 2014 Guardian piece on paleoclimatology offers a pretty in-depth look at how the data this field of study generates is applied. A more recent article on a study undertaken in Mexico shows how paleoclimatology was used to analyse and learn from 500,000 years of weather patterns.
The study I referenced, looking at ‘cascade effects’ in climate change, is called ‘Towards improved understanding of cascading and interconnected risks from concurrent weather extremes: Analysis of historical heat and drought extreme events’. It’s a dense read in places, and sobering, but worth the effort if you want some hard data on how things like supply chain failure might affect city infrastructure, migration patterns and service provision when extreme weather events take place. Understanding these ‘cascade’ effects might prove essential in any effort to combat or otherwise mitigate climate-related disasters.
We moved on to discuss SMOTs (Simulation Modeling Optimised Targeters), the central technology in Kaleidoscope Century, which as I described in my essay, are a form of smart weapon that evolves to hack human consciousness. John mentioned ‘pipes’, a type of computer programme, as key to understanding how this might happen.
This 2019 Guardian piece on killer drones echoes a lot of the concerns about smart weapons that John dramatises in the novel, but the real world numbers for lethal UK drone strikes (obtained via a Freedom of Information request) make for a distressing read.
In Kaleidoscope Century, the confluence of advanced weapons technology and political instability leads to an almost apocalyptic scenario, something that we still find easier to imagine than any alternative, or end to capitalism.
One part of the interview with John that surprised me was about what he called “a book I’ll never publish” - half-jokingly called How Long Can a Polar Bear Tread Water? In it he would have advocated for geo-engineering and climate hacking as a solution to climate change. I’m of almost exactly the opposite opinion - my view on climate hacking is closer to this New Yorker piece (paywalled) which mostly focuses on the inherent dangers of such solutions.
Despite John’s optimism in our interview, his published books put me in mind of something the scientist Nick Bostrom wrote in his 2019 paper ‘The Vulnerable World hypothesis’:
Scientific and technological progress might change people’s capabilities or incentives in ways that would destabilize civilization. For example, advances in DIY biohacking tools might make it easy for anybody with basic training in biology to kill millions; novel military technologies could trigger arms races in which whoever strikes first has a decisive advantage; or some economically advantageous process may be invented that produces disastrous negative global externalities that are hard to regulate.
Slavoj Žižek has something to say on the subject of climate hacking, and he too falls on the side of optimism driven by necessity. In 2021 he writes for publicseminar.org:
What is required from us in this moment is, paradoxically, a kind of super-anthropocentrism: we should control nature, control our environment; we should allow for a reciprocal relationship to exist between the countryside and cities; we should use technology to stop desertification or the polluting of the seas. We are, once again, responsible for what is happening, and so we are also the solution.
Then there’s John Gray, one of today’s greatest and most ardent skeptics when it comes to the notion of progress (as it is defined by neoliberal thinkers like Stephen Pinker, who I would call a ‘statistical optimist’). For Gray, a belief in progress is a kind of ‘secular heresy’ that mimics the structure of millennarian Christian myth, with a belief in a promised land, and a utopian ‘great hereafter’. Gray likes to point out that none of the imagined rewards of scientific progress particularly suggest the likelihood that our societies, our ways of life, will continue. As Gray writes for New Statesman in 2020:
Human agency was at work in the fall of Rome through the unintended consequences of the near-global connectivity the empire embodied. Infection entered Rome via far-flung trade networks and flea-ridden rodent populations that thrived in grain stores. With human numbers higher than ever before, large populations were crowded together in cities. Tuberculosis, leprosy and a formidable array of fevers were endemic. The vast reach of Roman power exposed these vulnerable populations to infections from the furthest reaches of the Earth. The Roman plagues were a by-product of an early experiment in globalisation. The possibility, and eventual inevitability, of pandemics was wired into the structures of imperial Rome at the height of its power.
The same applies to all of our technologies - the fact that they can be shown to proliferate, thrive and accelerate, year on year, for an extended period does not in any way guarantee that the trend will continue. This is why Gray is incredibly scathing about the promises of transhumanism. As he writes in 2017, for New Statesman:
Cyberspace is an artefact of physical objects – computers and the networked facilities they need – not an ontologically separate reality. If the material basis of cyberspace were destroyed or severely disrupted, any minds that had been uploaded would be snuffed out… Every technology requires a physical infrastructure in order to operate. But this infrastructure depends on social institutions, which are frequently subject to breakdown…. For these believers in technological resurrection, American society was already immortal… Cyberspace is a projection of the human world, not a way out of it.
Moving to the subject of memes, John and I talked about the theory in the work of Richard Dawkins (The Selfish Gene, 1976), which was later developed by others including Daniel Dennet (Consciousness Explained, 1991) and Susan Blackmore (The Meme Machine, 1999), among others. Blackmore is especially relevant because she has posited the existence of a ‘third replicator’ at play in human evolution - tremes, or technological memes. These are very close to the interlinked human-machine consciousness systems of Kaleidoscope Century.
John also mentions Gregor Mendel’s ‘principles of inheritance’ - he says that Semiotics as applied to the theories of Mendel produced a ‘Watson and Crick moment’ for the study of how language and ideas are transmitted. It is this confluence of ideas that Dawkins’ thinking about memes embodies. This is why John and his colleagues were already talking about ‘semiotic replicators’ before they encountered the much more catchy term ‘meme’.
The fact John referenced Richard Hosfstadter’s 1964 essay The Paranoid Style in American Politics made my day, as this was a piece of writing I believed had directly influenced his approach to science fiction and alternate history. John also references his Daybreak trilogy as another place where he explored Cold War paranoia in an alternate, cyberpunk present.
On the topic of Q-Anon, there are too many links to include here in terms of its analysis as a meta-conspiracy, but if you’ve no idea what it is or where it came from, this Vice piece from 2021 is a decent introduction.
John also mentions the US election of 1876, a fascinating parallel to the events of the 2020 elections, and one of the most contested runs in the history of US democracy. It had catastrophic consequences for liberal and progressive values. Violence and chaos ensued, aimed in particular against black voters. It’s a fascinating Wikipedia rabbit hole to fall down, or you could read an account by National Geographic, or a more recent (paywalled) New York Times piece comparing 1876 to 2020.
Discussing his science fiction influences, John mentions two of the all-time greats, both names you might not have heard of unless you’re more than a passing fan of the genre. They are Poul Anderson, a master stylist and ideas guy, one of the kings of the pulp magazines, and a visionary with a real economy of style. His Tau Zero (1970) is one of my favourites.
John also tips his hat to the great John Brunner, who will in all likelihood be the subject of his own Strange Exiles episode at some point in the future. A progenitor of cyberpunk, his photorealistic world-building continues to underpin the aesthetics and storytelling of modern science fiction, even before you consider his visionary treatment of ideas like networked communications and computer viruses (in The Shockwave Rider, 1977), overpopulation and artificial intelligence (in Stand On Zanzibar, 1968), or ecological devastation (in The Sheep Look Up, 1972).
Brunner is a writer whose work feels due for a major popular rediscovery - perhaps now we’ve had a half-decent William Gibson adaptation in The Peripheral, with the possibility of a Neuromancer show now also on the cards, a Brunner show or film is nearer. Gibson was hugely influenced by Brunner, and it seems like the Peripheral and Westworld showrunners were too - Westworld’s artificial intelligence Rehoboam (in Season 3) was a clear Zanzibar reference. John also goes on to mention L. Sprague de Campe’s alternate history, Let Darknesss Fall.
It was a pleasure to interview John, who remains one of my favourite science fiction writers in any style. I highly recommend his hard-boiled, violent, devastatingly smart alternate presents and futures to anyone brave enough to cross their thresholds. You won’t regret the journey - especially if you have a strong stomach and a dark sense of humour.
What else we’ve been reading
I highly recommend this recent Film School Rejects piece about cyberpunk. It might not hold much of interest for dedicated fans but it’s a great starter for ten if you enjoyed this episode, and want more.
There’s a good interview with Cory Doctorow on surveillance capitalism, in the New Yorker - this shorter piece on what science fiction got wrong about surveillance (by Andrew Aoyama, for Jacobin) is a nice companion read.
On the buzzy subject of the death of Twitter, Kenan Malik says we should beware treating tech bros as geniuses. The writers at The Atlantic and Vice agree on something for once - both say social media is dead. I’m on the fence, myself. Part of me would be glad to see the back of Twitter, another part thinks that it’s unlikely Musk can drive it into the ground any faster than the relentless march of history, and a user-friendly ‘killer app’ to unite the metaverse(s).
One of the best things I read this month was a piece by Dan Hancox on false nostalgia, inspired by the ‘proper binmen’ meme. I’ve rarely read any better analysis of how the memes we make define us, and what that might say about Britain. Once you read this, you’ll see the ‘proper binmen’ people all around you, just as often as you see the skin fade and North Face jacket combo.
Finally, I’ll leave you in the capable hands of two of the cleverest surviving humans of the anthropocene - Slavoj Žižek and Werner Herzog. The ‘Infinite Conversation’ AI delivers an unending stream of simulated conversation between these two excellent intellectual weirdos. We can only hope that if humanity fails, this bot will continue to operate, offering some kind of warning or hopeful message to whatever alien species discovers the smoking wreckage of our culture.
Next time on Strange Exiles: Adam Richardson of Direct Democracy UK
Our next guest is Adam Richardson, an activist, blogger and founder of Direct Democracy UK. A single-issue platform party standing in the next UK election, they plan to offer British voters a new model for political engagement.
We’ll be dropping Episode 16 on Friday 6 January, but we’ll be back before the holidays to share a short Q&A with Adam on the blog. Our audio conversation was recorded a few months back - since we spoke however, British politics has exploded, so let’s find out how that’s affected Adam’s plans.
Until then, find me at the links below! Take care of each other.
Bram E. Gieben, Glasgow, December 2022
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