David Brin Quotes

Then again: from the critic's point of view, one of the truly wonderful things about the Star Wars universe is that the territory is so sprawling and borrows from so many sources that it's possible to find just about anything here, if you look hard enough. For example, the story of the original movie can also be summarized as, A restless young boy chafes at life on the dusty old family farm, until he meets a wizard and is swept away to a wondrous land where he meets some munchkins, a tin man, a cowardly lion and Harrison Ford as the scarecrow.

Your neighbors are not all sheep. Your political opponents are not all evil or fools. Try talking to those you despise. They are your fellow citizens. And together, we are not lesser than any "greatest generation.".

In 1983, Michael W. Doyle commented on the common observation that democracies almost never wage war on one another. Understanding the reasons for this phenomenon may be crucial to our hopes for preventing devastating conflict in the next generation. Which attributes of democracy foster this essential trait of mutual nonaggression?

Other generations perceived a plethora of swords hanging over their heads. But generally what they feared were shadows, for neither they nor their gods could actually end the world. Fate might reap an individual, a family, or even a whole nation, but not the entire world. Not then.
We, in the mid-twenty-first century, are the first to look up at a sword we ourselves forged, and know, with absolute certainty, it is real ...

As simple an act as reading or writing a sentence must be surrounded by perceptory nap and weave ... an itch, a stray memory from childhood, the distant sound of a barking dog, or something left over from the lunch that is found caught between the teeth.

The best time to act on this was decades ago. The second best time is now.

True brilliance has a well-known positive correlation with decency, much of the time
a fact the rest of us rely on, more than we ever know. The real world doesn't roil with as many crazed artists, psychotic generals, dyspeptic writers, maniacal statesmen, insatiable tycoons, or mad scientists as you see in dramas.

My first duty to write a gripping yarn. Second is to convey credible characters who make you feel what they feel. Only third comes the idea.

Obviously they thought their Lord was giving the haughty tirbeswoman

The fundamental premise of sci-fi is not spaceships and lasers - it's that children can learn from the mistakes of their parents.

If there are still honest-smart men and women within those old and noble traditions, they should think carefully, observe and diagnose the illness. They should face the contradiction. Discuss the conflation. And then do as Warren Buffett and Bill Gates and many others have done. Choose the miracle of creative competition over an idolatry of cash.
They should stand up..

In the book, America had already been weakened by bio terror plagues before waves of selfish violence took down the rest. But the real enemy was the kind of male human being who nurses fantasies of violent glory at the expense of his fellow citizens.

All I ask is ... ponder with open minds. We've made so many mistakes, humanity, during just one lifetime. Many of them perpetrated not by evildoers, drenched in malice, but by men and women filled with fine motives! Like you.

Science Fiction is the jazz of literature.

Information is not like money or any other commodity. The cracks that it can slip through are almost infinitely small, and it can be duplicated at almost zero cost. Soon information will be like air, like the weather, and as easy to control.

If you have other things in your life-family, friends, good productive day work-these can interact with your writing and the sum will be all the richer.

I may not ever be able to be certain what is absolutely True ... but I sure as heck can work to find out what isn't true! Moreover, I can improve my model of the world, by slowly, carefully finding out what is truer than what I already know.

The three basic material rights
continuity, mutual obligation, and the pursuit of happiness.

But Orpheus failed because, like all pakeha, he just couldn't keep his mind on one thing at a time.

With gritty action and realistic science, Peter Watts brings to life a dark and vivid world.

It may be that the best time for Otherness has already passed. Clearly part of the basis for this renaissance has been wealth, especially the unprecedented comfort enjoyed by the vast majority of Westerners since World War II, in which very few of us can even conceive of starving

One of life's joys was to have friends who gave you reality checks ... who would call you on your crap before it rose so high you drowned in it.

Only a knowledgeable, empowered and vocal citizenry can perform well in democracy.

Why must conversions always come so late? Why do people always apologize to corpses?

He approached the great glass barrier dividing the room, and the speaker at the end of the table. "Cyclops?" he whispered, stepping closer, clearing his tight throat, "Cyclops, it's me, Gordon."
The glow in the pearly lens was subdued. But the row of little lights still flashed--a complex pattern that repeated over and over like an urgent message from a distant ship in some lost code--ever, hypnotically, the same.
Gordon felt a frantic dread rise within him, as when, during his boyhood, he had encountered his grandfather lying perfectly still on the porch swing, and feared to find that the beloved old man had died.
The pattern of lights repeated, over and over.
Gordon wondered. How many people would recall, after the hell of the last seventeen years, that the parity displays of a great supercomputer never repeated themselves? Gordon remembered a cyberneticist friend telling him the patterns of light were like snowflakes, none ever the same as any other.
"Cyclops," he said evenly, "Answer me! I demand you answer--in the name of decency! In the name of the United St--"
He stopped. He couldn't bring himself to meet this lie with another. Here, the only living mind he would fool would be himself.
The room was warmer than it had seemed during his interview. He looked for, and found, the little vents through which cool air could be directed at a visitor seated in the guest chair, giving an impression of great cold just beyond the glass wall.

Snow and soot covered the ancient tree's broken branches and seared bark. It wasn't dead, not quite yet. Here and there tiny shoots of green struggled to emerge, but they weren't doing well. The end was near.
A shadow loomed, and a creature settled into the drifts, and old, wounded thing of the skies, as near death as the tree.
Pinions drooping, it laboriously began building a nest--a place of dying. Stick by stick, it pecked among the ruined wood on the ground, piling the bits higher until it was clear that it was not a nest at all.
It was a pyre.
The bloody, dying thing settled in atop the kindling, and crooned soft music unlike anything ever heard before. A glow began to build, surrounding the beast soon in a rich purple lambience. Blue flames burst forth.
And the tree seemed to respond. Aged, ruined branches curled forward toward the heat, like an old man warming his hands. Snow shivered and fell, the green patches grew and began to fill the air with the fragrance of renewal
It was not the creature on the pyre that was reborn, and even in sleep, that surprised Gordon. The great bird was consumed, leaving only bones.
But the tree blossomed, and from its flowering branches things uncurled and drifted off into the air.
He stared in wonderment when he saw that they were balloons, airplanes, and rocket ships. Dreams.
They floated away in all directions, and the air was filled with hope.

The dream is so pleasant: to extend a limited sub-portion of yourself into a simulated world and pretend for a while that you are blissfully less. Less than an omniscient being.

Humorists are precisely the kinds of guys who can cut through the orgy of petty indignation that the aging baby boomers are imposing on this great country.

It is a paradox of Life that all species breed past mere replacement. Any paradise of plenty soon fills to become paradise no more.

There was a time, in living memory, when this nation bestrode the planet like a titan.

First they came for the hackers. But I never did anything illegal with my computer, so I didn't speak up. Then they came for the pornographers. But I thought there was too much smut on the Internet anyway, so I didn't speak up. Then they came for the anonymous remailers. But a lot of nasty stuff gets sent from anon.penet.fi, so I didn't speak up. Then they came for the encryption users. But I could never figure out how to work PGP anyway, so I didn't speak up. Then they came for me. And by that time there was no one left to speak up. WIDELY COPIED INTERNET APHORISM, A PARAPHRASE OF PROTESTANT MINISTER MARTIN NIEMOLLER'S STATEMENT ABOUT LIFE IN NAZI GERMANY

Metaphorically speaking, some very bright people suggest that citizens of the twenty-first century will be best protected by masks and shields, while I prefer the image of a light saber.

The best means to an end are not always those that appear most direct.

Deep down, most humans prefer living out their lives surrounded by comfortable certainties, guided by warm myths and metaphors, knowing that they'll understand their children, and their children will understand them.

Where is it written that one should only care about big things?

In all of history, we have found just one cure for error - a partial antidote against making and repeating grand, foolish mistakes, a remedy against self-deception. That antidote is criticism.

free speech should be viewed as sacred and inviolable not simply for its own sake, but for utterly pragmatic reasons. Only through an active, vibrant, noisy ferment of criticism can blunders be discovered before they bring nations crashing down. Moreover, we can never tell in advance which criticism will later prove right; therefore, we must allow, foster, and even encourage all the criticism we can get.

Demonstrating some of the proposed new techniques of encrypted uniqueness verification that can be embedded in each customer's use-copy of a given work.

There's no doubt that scientific training helps many authors to write better science fiction. And yet, several of the very best were English majors who could not parse a differential equation to save their lives.

The health of an enlightened and progressive society is measured by how vibrant is its science fiction, since that is where true self-critique and appraisal and hope lie.

I suppose, all told, I've done more good than evil in my life, but that's incidental, a product of happenstance and the bizarre caprices of the world.

Magic and art arise from an egomaniac's insistence that the artist is right, and the universe wrong.

The notion of a universe filled with cowards ... who stay cowardly FOREVER, no matter how advanced they become ... seems no[t] only unimaginative and temporally myopic, but deeply dismal, as well.

I regret having been the bearer of ambiguous tidings.

Change is the very fabric of our time.

In the end, the work of diplomats continues even while others fight. So, it's not necessarily true that everyone needs to march.

In other words, I look through my eyes and see only a version of the world, a version that can be, and often is, colored or twisted by what I want to see. Another person may witness the same events, and yet observe something entirely different.

There isn't one America anymore. If there ever had been.

Generalization is a natural human mental process, and many generalizations are true - in average. What often does promote evil behavior is the lazy, nasty habit of believing that generalizations have anything at all to do with individuals.

While I have the floor, here's a question that's been bothering me for some time. Why do so few writers of heroic or epic fantasy ever deal with the fundamental quandary of their novels . . . that so many of them take place in cultures that are rigid, hierarchical, stratified, and in essence oppressive? What is so appealing about feudalism, that so many free citizens of an educated commonwealth like ours love reading about and picturing life under hereditary lords?

Why should the deposed prince or princess in every clichéd tale be chosen to lead the quest against the Dark Lord? Why not elect a new leader by merit, instead of clinging to the inbred scions of a failed royal line? Why not ask the pompous, patronizing, "good" wizard for something useful, such as flush toilets, movable type, or electricity for every home in the kingdom? Given half a chance, the sons and daughters of peasants would rather not grow up to be servants. It seems bizarre for modern folk to pine for a way of life our ancestors rightfully fought desperately to escape.

When I begin a book, I inevitably discover many things along the way, about the characters, their past histories and the political intrigues that surround them. This discovery process is vital, and I would not prejudice it by deciding too much in advance.

Cultural contamination that is directed outward is always seen as 'enlightenment.

A neurosis defends itself by coming up with rationalizations to explain away bizarre behavior.

Men can be brilliant and strong, they whispered to one another. But men can be mad, as well. And the mad ones can ruin the world.
Women, you must judge them ...
Never again can things be allowed to reach this pass, they said to one another as they thought of the sacrifice the Scouts had made.
Never again can we let the age-old fight go on between good and bad men alone.
Women, you must share responsibility ... and bring your own talents into the
struggle ...
And always remember, the moral concluded: Even the best men
the heroes
will sometimes neglect to do their jobs.
Women, you must remind them, from time to time ...

Every marvel of our age arose out of the critical give and take of an open society. No other civilization ever managed to incorporate this crucial innovation, weaving it into daily life. And if you disagree with this ... say so!

I had to admit, standing there, that sometimes you just gotta admire the passion of the truly insane
a passion that bulls right past all sense or reason.

It's said that 'power corrupts,' but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power. When they do act, they think of it as service, which has limits. The tyrant, though, seeks mastery, for which he is insatiable, implacable.

My education and background thoroughly inform my writing.

It was a strange trek - the sullen leading the apathetic, followed by the confused, all tailed by the inveterately amused.

a species used to strict patterns of inherited hierarchy.

For all its beauty, honesty, and effectiveness at improving the human condition, science demands a terrible price - that we accept what experiments tell us about the universe, whether we like it or not. It's about consensus and teamwork and respectful critical argument, working with, and through, natural law. It requires that we utter, frequently, those hateful words - 'I might be wrong.'

There's a reason why kings built large palaces, sat on thrones and wore rubies all over. There's a whole social need for that, not to oppress the masses, but to impress the masses and make them proud and allow them to feel good about their culture, their government and their ruler so that they are left feeling that a ruler has the right to rule over them, so that they feel good rather than disgusted about being ruled. - George Lucas, New York Times, 1999

Analog, or Asimov's Magazine, or The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

Creative people see Prometheus in a mirror, never Pandora.

It is a total mystery how we evolved minds capable of piloting cars through wild maneuvers using a wrist to steep while shouting at a cell phone. The creationists are fools for focusing on animal evolution. Darwin explains nature! He has more difficulty explaining us.

She had called in the debt that parents owe a child for bringing her, unasked, into a strange world. One should never make an offer without knowing full well what will happen if it is accepted.

Self-righteous people can talk themselves into forgetting they are part of a civilization. They can then feed on that culture, bringing it down. It's happened many times in the past. It could happen to us.

Someone once said that one measure of sentience was how much energy a sophont spent on matters other than survival. Fiben

Self-awareness is probably overrated. A complex, self-regulating system doesn't need it in order to be successful, or even smart.

It's how creativity works. Especially in humans. For every good idea, ten thousand idiotic ones must first be posed, sifted, tried out, and discarded. A mind that's afraid to toy with the ridiculous will never come up with the brilliantly original.

We aren't a curse upon the world. We are her new eyes. Her brain, testes, ovaries ... her ambition and her heart. Her voice. So sing. (556)

The village is coming back, like it or not.

Beware of self-indulgence. The romance surrounding the writing profession carries several myths: that one must suffer in order to be creative; that one must be cantankerous and objectionable in order to be bright; that ego is paramount over skill; that one can rise to a level from which one can tell the reader to go to hell. These myths, if believed, can ruin you.
If you believe you can make a living as a writer, you already have enough ego.

Indeed, the maligned American pastime of baseball may be by-far the greatest and best sport by one criterion, when it comes to emulating and training for genuinely useful Neolithic skills! Think about it. The game consists of lots of patient waiting and watching (stalking), throwing with incredible accuracy and speed, sprinting, dodging ... and hitting moving objects real hard with clubs! And arguing. Hey, what else could you possibly need? Now, tell me, how do soccer or basketball prepare you to survive in the wild, hm?

What point was there in pursuing an ever-elusive popularity?

Everything isn't subjective. Reality also matters. Truth matters. It is still a word with meaning.

Seldom does a storytelling talent come along as potent and fully mature as Mike Brotherton. His complex characters take you on a voyage that is both fiercely credible and astonishingly imaginative. This is Science Fiction.

Every time humans discovered a new resource, or technique for using mass and energy, one side effect has always been pollution. Why should the information age be any different from those of coal, petroleum, or the atom?

I consider Yoda to be just about the most evil character that I've ever seen in the history of literature. I have gotten people into tongue-tied snits unable to name for me one scene in which Yoda is ever helpful to anybody, or says anything that's genuinely wise. 'Do or do not, there is no try.' Up yours, you horrible little oven mitt! 'Try' is how human beings get better. That's how people learn, they try some of their muscles, or their Force mechanism heads in the right direction, that part gets reinforced and rewarded with positive feedback, which you never give. And parts of it get repressed by saying, 'No, that you will not do!' It is abhorrent, junior high school Zen. It's cartoon crap.

If facts are inconvenient, well, damn those who live and work with facts.

Petals floating by, Drift through my woman's hand, As she remembers me.

Science has learned recently that contempt and indignation are addictive mental states. I mean physically and chemically addictive. Literally! People who are self-righteous a lot are apparently doping themselves rhythmically with auto-secreted surges of dopamine, endorphins and enkephalins. Didn't you ever ask yourself why indignation feels so good?

Fortunately, human beings are remarkably diverse models to work from.

If an outsider perceives 'something wrong' with a core scientific model, the humble and justified response of that curious outsider should be to ask 'what mistake am I making?' before assuming 100% of the experts are wrong.

As sci-fi writer Theodore Sturgeon said, 90 percent of everything is crap. But science fiction has not been forgiven for its crap. The reason is that science fiction inherently distrusts the 'eternal verities' on which literature graduates base their doctoral dissertations. Literature departments were uncomfortable with that. But things change.

In historical fact, all of history's despots, combined, never managed to get things done as well as this rambunctious, self-critical civilization of free and sovereign citizens, who have finally broken free of worshipping a ruling class and begun thinking for themselves. Democracy can seem frustrating and messy at times, but it delivers.

Responsibility was our cruel mooring....

Predicting has a spotty record in science fiction. I've had some failures. On the other hand, I also predicted the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of fundamentalist Islam ... and I'm not happy to be right in all of those cases.

Again, how will we keep them loyal? What measures can ensure our machines stay true to us? Once artificial intelligence matches our own, won't they then design even better ai minds? Then better still, with accelerating pace? At worst, might they decide (as in many cheap dramas), to eliminate their irksome masters? At best, won't we suffer the shame of being nostalgically tolerated? Like senile grandparents or beloved childhood pets? Solutions? Asimov proposed Laws of Robotics embedded at the level of computer DNA, weaving devotion toward humanity into the very stuff all synthetic minds are built from, so deep it can never be pulled out. But what happens to well-meant laws? Don't clever lawyers construe them however they want? Authors like Asimov and Williamson foresaw supersmart mechanicals becoming all-dominant, despite deep programming to "serve man.

In contrast, markets - oft mythologized as "natural" are the most unnatural things going. Libertarians will tell you "market laws are laws of nature", what baloney. Markets - and the other great modernist cornucopian tools - are magnificent wealth generating machines, built ad-hoc, through trial and error, constantly fine-tuned and refined, tinkered, adjusted.

Give up," they preached. "Don't bother trying to figure out how the flawed world works. Perfect knowledge is to be found only within the mind, the soul. Seek your own private salvation then, apart from the world, and don't bother getting your hands dirty trying to piece together the nuts and bolts of God's handiwork.

Where were answers to the truly deep questions? Religion promised those, though always in vague terms, while retreating from one line in the sand to the next. Don't look past this boundary, they told Galileo, then Hutton, Darwin, Von Neumann, and Crick, always retreating with great dignity before the latest scientific advance, then drawing the next holy perimeter at the shadowy rim of knowledge.

I would normally never set out to write a trilogy.

History and geology show what an eyeblink it's been since our current, comfortable culture came about. And yet that culture is using up absolutely everything at a ferocious rate.

Beware of assumptions that seem "obvious" in one decade. They may become quaint in the next.

Your faith in Homo technologicus -the Tinkering Man- has one fatal flaw. It offers you no escape clause.

But it is a delightful challenge to try to depict interesting aliens.

It takes great wisdom, maturity, and force of will to overcome ingrained human egotism and say
"Hey, I can fool myself! I might even be wrong, from time to time."

Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.

Above all, TRIBES is fun, and even kind of sexy ... in that every round features an Opportunity for Reproduction, which is the main aim of the game, as it is in most of Nature.