TIP OF THE SPEAR

Our Species and Technology at a Crossroads

In the mythology of the blues, the crossroads is where a musician decides whether or not to shake hands with the devil. The unpaved cruciform is always remote, rural. There’s a signpost but no distant homestead lights visibly flickering like hope in the wee, wee witching hour. The bargain to be negotiated is Faustian, Biblical; a universal and ancient trope. Until this moment, the myth has embraced the destiny of a single man, be he a prophet, a doctor or a guitarist.

Times have swiftly and extraordinarily changed. The moonlit deal on the table now has become a collective decision, one involving all of wired humanity and those of us who soon will be. Which way will we turn at the intersection? Is dystopia or utopia to the left, the right or straight ahead? Well, that all depends and, anyway, it’s far too late to backtrack. Tip of the Spear: Our Species and Technology at a Crossroads is a thoughtful and engaging book by Jim A. Gibson. His thesis, asked and answered is simple: “Now what?”

Jim and I have been friends for more than 40 years. We met in high school. We played extramural football and intramural hockey together. I spent a lot of time in his parents’ basement. In the early 80s I visited him at his duplex in Toronto’s Beaches neighbourhood from Montreal. One morning we watched his orange Beetle get towed to the Cadillac ranch. We sat down afterward in the living room. I picked up a black plastic coaster with a sliding metal clip sticky with the previous night’s spilt Drambuie. “What’s this?”

“That’s a computer floppy disc. It can store hundreds of pages of text.”

“Eight and a half-eleven, 250 words per page?”

“Yes. That, my friend, is the future.”

In retrospect, that was the moment our career paths diverged; me with my new electric typewriter. I’ve since dallied in advertising and literature. Jim joined the digital revolution and became in his words, “a serial entrepreneur.” Decades later our career paths converged. Jim asked me if I would read his manuscript. I read every draft, five or six of them discounting the jet-lagged cut and pasted one. I offered some editorial and style suggestions. In exchange, Jim managed to incorporate a Bruce Springsteen reference of his own volition and it flows, my brother.

Tip of the Spear addresses big, important, complicated and sometimes abstract stuff. Where will I file my copy in the Crooked 9 library? The book is at once philosophy, business, technology and sociology. Jim understands that everything is in some way connected, especially in this age of information and data, our new economic drivers. Like any clever storyteller, he manages to unsnarl some of the narrative threads, make some sense of some confusing concepts. Jim is a positive thinker but no Pollyanna. The sun will come up over the crossroads, as it must, and we will choose a direction in the new dawn. Jim has written a guide.

For more information visit jimagibson.com.