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> If you quote William Gibson's analysis of Japanese society as authoritative or insightful, you already lose. Gibson's social commentary has always had a strong element of pseudointellectual profundity masquerading as depth.

Could you point out some specific flaws in this or other Gibson's essays?

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I can't speak for his Japan chops or essays, but in Zero History it certainly felt like all his forced and abundant name checking of NY places (I live in NY) felt like he was using vocabulary to indicate knowledge/expertise rather than actual insights. I really liked Pattern Recognition, but I was forced to put down Zero History in frustration about half-way through as the name checking made the novel feel like one poorly constructed long form rap lyric.

Conversely the name checking worked fine for me as I don't know much of New York past what you see in films, so I wouldn't be able to key to it in the same you would.

And ruin a perfectly good ad hominem? ;-)

Welp, here we go.

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