William Gibson's “Wheelie Boy” from “The Peripheral” Is Real

Gibson is incredible. He's the most prophetic sci-fi writer by a huge margin.

I re-read Neuromancer a few years ago and to me it seemed that with the exception of certain details (e.g. the pay phones), it's aged spectacularly well and seems more relevant today than it was in the 80s. Aspects of it, such as its political landscape, read like non-fiction.

Even things that seemed silly, like the "'trodes", no longer do:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_direct-current_st...

TDCS is not an interface technology, but hey close enough. We even have a black market in 'proscribed biologicals':

https://www.modafinilcat.com

The whole 'startup hustler scene' seems uncannily like the Console Cowboys -- including the idea that you're washed up by 30 unless you've made some big hustle. Picture your typical startup death march and then re-read Burning Chrome. HN's not unlike a virtual version of the Gentleman Loser.

We have billionaires talking about orbital colonies, and Sam Altman (YC) recently called for the creation of the Turing Police. The Trans-Pacific Partnership is laying the groundwork for a global corporate mafia state much like Gibson described, with nations ceding authority to amorphous global capital.

I could just keep going and going. The degree to which he was dead on in those early cyberpunk novels almost seems supernatural.

He did get the geography a little off... California is more like his Sprawl, and China is more like his Japan. What's happening in the Middle East with ISIS and such seems not far off from the brutal nihilistic European war hinted at as part of the world's back-story in Neuromancer.

It's not necessarily a good thing. Gibson's work is frequently quite dystopian. Seems to me that he achieves his remarkable prescience by being optimistic about technological development but pessimistic about politics, economics, and human social evolution. In Gibson's worlds we're clever and good at building things but fail miserably in areas like self-examination, self-awareness, and social reform... basically we're just animals with big brains.