{"id":292,"date":"2015-09-24T21:52:47","date_gmt":"2015-09-25T02:52:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/?p=292"},"modified":"2015-09-24T21:52:47","modified_gmt":"2015-09-25T02:52:47","slug":"technological-development-and-the-natural-environment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/2015\/09\/technological-development-and-the-natural-environment\/","title":{"rendered":"Technological Development and the Natural Environment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The natural world\u2014forests, open fields, areas untouched by mankind\u2014are almost completely lacking in William Gibson\u2019s, <em>Nueromancer<\/em>. In fact, Gibson demonstrates the gross disconnect between humans and nature in the opening line of his work, comparing the sky\u2014one of the most fundamentally \u201cnatural\u201d aspects of Earth\u2014to a dead television channel (1). With all of the technological advances in Gibson\u2019s world, the ease at which Case, Molly, and Armitage travel around the world, and the ability of humans to sustain entire man-made cities in space, it may seem as though Gibson is celebrating humankind\u2019s ability to manipulate the natural world at will. However, I believe Gibson is actually critical of technological advancement and its impact on nature, by developing a society so technologically advanced that it is almost a parody of technological advancement.<\/p>\n<p>One of the more interesting instances of the lack of nature in Gibson\u2019s world is \u201cThe Sprawl,\u201d as referred to as the \u201cBoston Atlanta Metropolitan Axis\u201d (BAMA). Gibson refers to BAMA as a distinct geographic location on a map, as if it is one city, the Boston-Atlanta metropolitan area. However, the distance from Boston to Atlanta is approximately 1,000 miles, meaning that this urban sprawl consumes essentially the entire East Coast of the United States, a ridiculous and completely unsustainable amount of space, by today\u2019s standards.<\/p>\n<p>It is also very interesting to see how Case reacts the one time he does encounter the \u201cnatural world,\u201d on the Moroccan beach, inside Neuromancer\u2019s virtual reality. Here on this serene, deserted beach, a place many of us might find relaxing, Case is anxious and afraid; \u201cHe turned his head and stared out to sea, longing for the hologram logo of Fuji Electric, for the drone of a helicopter, anything at all. Behind him, a gull cried. He shivered\u201d (233). I find it interesting how lost Case is in this \u201cnatural\u201d place, how he fears the lack of man-made structures and consumerism. In fact, Case would eventually burst into tears and pee himself in this fear, a visceral reaction to simply being exposed to nature. Thus, I believe Gibson uses Case\u2019s overreaction, and the hyper-developed, dystopian world he creates to argue for the preservation of nature.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The natural world\u2014forests, open fields, areas untouched by mankind\u2014are almost completely lacking in William Gibson\u2019s, Nueromancer. In fact, Gibson demonstrates the gross disconnect between humans and nature in the opening line of his work, comparing the sky\u2014one of the most &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/2015\/09\/technological-development-and-the-natural-environment\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4317,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-neuromancer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4317"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":293,"href":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292\/revisions\/293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}