Shaping Things (Mediaworks Pamphlets)
In this short book futurist and science-fiction writer Bruce Sterling coins a word -- spime -- to describe the future he sees unfolding. A spime is an object that can be located in space and time. The time is rapidly approaching when most objects in our world will be spimes. In the not too distant future, we'll be able to "google" our lost car keys. We will also have the opportunity, if we choose it, to follow the production stream of every object we use. This is a rousing manifesto about the future of design.
Why this is progressive/liberal: This is less "progressive" and more "this is really cool." I suppose if I had to fit it into some progressive pigeonhole it's be that Sterling focuses on making the invisible visible. We have an abundance of new tools at our fingertips, and rather than bemoaning the loss of a life gone past we should be figuring out how these new tools can make out lives better. And, we also need to pay attention to the almost certain ways they will make out lives worse.
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