Twelve Questions about "the Future" from my Reddit AMA

I recently participated in an AMA - Ask Me Anything on the Reddit Futurology subgroup. Here's a selection of questions and answers from this session.

What do you find that has changed in the past ten years that is leaning towards your own fictional work?

The trend toward transparency being crucial to our survival and freedom has been in my fiction and nonfiction for decades and it is coming true. Last year, largely unheralded by media, saw the most important civil liberties decision in thirty years, when the courts and the Obama Administration separately declared it to be “settled law” that citizens have a right to record their interactions with police, in public places. Of course there will be tussles over the details for years. I'll talk later about how we must also watch the watchers of the watchers.

What, if anything, have you changed your mind about in the last 12 months?

In politics -- I reluctantly concluded that reason will not prevail and the U.S. is doomed to a new phase of its 200 year Civil War, with dogma and hate replacing reason, almost across the board... alas. 

In science -- I learned that we can look beyond the "curtain" of light that raised 325,000 years after the Big Bang! In literature, I learned that a new novelist in China - Liu Cixin - has leaped ahead by a couple of generations and will stun western readers, in the fall.  These are just a few examples.

Hey, I am surprised a whole lot of the time!  Indeed, part of being a modern world citizen is being willing to say the one phrase that all scientists are trained to say:

"I might be wrong; let's check it out."

What do you believe (if anything) is necessary for our society and culture to change, in order to prevent a collapse/new dark age/extinction of our race? Or - if nothing - why?

I've pushed for 30 years what I think is the secret of the Western Enlightenment Experiment -- The Positive Sum Game. Jared Diamond in Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed shows what will happen if Earth is run by the Zero Sum thinking that dominated in 99% of human societies.

We get positive sum outcomes from science, democracy, markets etc because they are competitive! But it is REGULATED competition that minimizes blood and cheating and maximizes folks leveraging against each others creativity.

The mistake of the left is to badmouth competition, when Adam Smith was the first liberal!

The mistake of the right is to imagine we can get these benefits without very meticulous regulation to prevent cheating, which ruined 99% of human societies and made them zero (or negative) sum. Alas, it is winners and the strong who inevitably try to cheat - a flaw in human nature that may also have crushed positive sum systems on other planets, helping to explain why no one (yet) found the knack of maintaining perpetual creativity and reaching the stars.

Look at how regulated sports is! It would collapse otherwise.  The trick is to find the right and minimal kinds of regulation that keep the game flat-open-accountable-fair and competitive.  Those who would over-regulate are almost as bad as those who ignore 6000 years of human/feudal history and think that markets and politics can regulate themselves.

Right now oligarchs are trying to turn our society zero sum and feudal again. The attempt happens every generation. If we can prevent it and restore a pragmatic, can-do society, maximizing the flat-open-transparent arena of joyful-fair competition, then we may reach Star Trek.

Which self-preventing prophecy do you think would have the largest positive impact the on future if published today?

In my essay, The Self-Preventing Prophecy: How a Dose of Nightmare Can Tame Tomorrow's Perils, I talk about how the highest form of Science Fiction is a predictive novel that scares millions into fighting against the portrayed future. e.g. Soylent Green or Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. The greatest Self-Preventing Prophecy was Orwell's 1984, which I discuss here.

A related topic is why so many recent films and novels wallow in dystopias that are NOT "self-preventing" because their scenarios are lazy and stupid, as I discuss in The Idiot Plot.

Today? I'd warn about collapse of confidence in our creative-pragmatic can-do civilization. The worst problem we have is so many of our neighbors turning stylishly cynical.  Too many of YOU think you invented "brave cynicism" when it is a drug-addict cop-out. What truly takes courage and adult patience is the long slog of negotiating with your neighbors, who are NOT all sheep!  Many of them - even those who oppose you - may be 10% right about something.  Or 50%!  There are some who are much smarter than you.

Do you ever see that ethos manifest in a film or novel?  Of course not!  (Well, maybe in EARTH or the novels of Nancy Kress and Octavia Butler and Kim Stanley Robinson.)  The positive sum game is very hard to portray in dramatic ways.  But it can be done and that kind of story might save us.

Negotiate.

==On the Singularity==

What's your opinion on the possibility of humanity forming a collective consciousness through the internet?

I portray this happening in Earth and in Foundation's Triumph. The latter was in Isaac Asimov's universe so it portrayed a Gaia/Galaxia uber mind that essentially takes over. Nicer than the Borg because folks don't clank and whirr but instead float and go 'om' and commune...

I do think that to be a simplistic type of Overmind (see Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End, too.) That is not how complexity actually layers, in complex systems lilt nature. In Earth I portray individual humans retaining all of their individuality, with the higher shared consciousness riding lightly above, benefiting from human individuality and eccentricity, absorbing and digesting their input the way you ponder the countless fleeting thoughts in your own head.  It is a more complex and subtle kind of "over mind."  It might be a positive-sum win-win.

Do you believe biological immortality could happen in 10 - 25 years from now? Also what do you want to see in the future with new technologies coming out?

I deem it pretty unlikely. I am a bit of a grouch-curmugeon in the transhumanist-life-extension community. Humans are already the Methuselahs of mammals, getting three times as many heartbeats as mice and elephants. We have probably plucked the low-hanging longevity fruit and the next steps will be very hard.

What I do expect to see is methods of brain/skull preservation that are far cheaper and more convenient than cryonics. Plasticization etc. Not for actual revival, of course. And most intra-cellular info would be lost. But the location of a trillion synapses might be preserved and serve as boundary conditions for a fairly good emulation program that could upload a version of you, someday. Is that good enough? Depends.

See my larger essay: Do We Really Want Immortality?

Where do you differ with Ray Kurtzweil on the singularity?

Ray and I get along, but I am a contrarian. When I find myself among those who do not believe in change - alas many of our fellow citizens - I speak about how rapidly human destiny is being challenged with new powers. 

Around Ray and his acolytes? I am cautionary.

For example, Kurzweil believes Moore's Law, all by itself, will make him immortal by creating Soulful machines who will gladly incorporate us and human values in the adventure of super-life. I portray this happening! In Earth and in Existence! But at Ray's conferences, I splash cold water.

For example, he calculates Moore's Law crossing the rate of transistor growth in machines with number of synapses in a human brain... about a trillion... and thus derives when (benevolent) AI will take off. But synapses may just be the tip of the iceberg, especially if there's intracellular computing! If so, Moore's Law will need five or six or maybe even ten more doublings!

Which do you think we'll reach first? Relatively cheap spaceflight, or full body 'virtual reality' simulations? The latter can, of course, include MMI equivalents instead of external bodysuits.

Sure VR will be the main thing for most of us. If we could make cheap "deputies" we could send them to Mars and bring back the heads and "live" the experience!  Say, I offer that in Kiln People!

 ==On Books...and Aliens==

I just want to say that I really enjoyed your Uplift books. Do you have any plans for new books?

Indeed I am currently working to get Creideiki and Orley off that planet, at last! The Brightness Reef trilogy settles the fate/destiny of the ship Streaker, and a lot else. Till then, see the story "Temptation" downloadable from my website. Some will argue that Existence is uplift!

What do you make of Cliford D. Simak's dog and animal society in City? I allways found his ideas on animal and foreign intelligence interesting, if somewhat anchored to his time.

Yes, Simak influenced me. Also the fact that I have never had a novel that did not feature an ape or other primate! ;-)

Have you looked into the topic of UFOs and if so, do you have a stance on the UFO phenomenon?

Sorry but this "phenomenon" is taking care of itself. Brin's Corollary to Moore's Law (yes it's called that) is that CAMERAS get faster, cheaper, more numerous and mobile at a rate much faster than Moore's Law.

This means that the excuses for blurry UFO images get slimmer and slimmer. Have you done the math? All of the places where a UFO was dimly blurry in the distance 20 years ago... would have dozens of folks with cell cams right below it today! Please do the math. If images remain blurry, it is because they are teasing us and staying just out of range, even taking Brin's Corollary and the lens quality of iPhones into account!

In that case, they are bastards. Snub em.

Please... you know I am interested in aliens! I spend my life on the topic, in SETI and in fiction. I'll even admit a very slim chance there might be UFO saucer aliens! But I find the creatures described in these stories to be illogical, immoral, unimaginative, ridiculous and ... compared to the thought experiments in good science fiction... unutterably boring!  They are way down on my list of priorities.

(See my short story "Those Eyes".)

==On Privacy==

What is your idea on a transparent society, and how does that affect personal privacy? Or should we start getting used to having no privacy?

The most common assumption of people who have not read my articles or The Transparent Society is that - as "Mr. Transparency" I oppose privacy or think it is doomed.

No way! A free people will want and demand some privacy! In Chapter 4 of The Transparent Society I discuss how essential some core privacy will be... though it will be closer and narrower.

But the irony is that we will only have that core if we live in a world that is mostly open! In which most people know most of what's going on, most of the time. Only then will voyeurs and spies and sneaks be deterred, because they'll get caught!

There is so much to this. See more articles about transparency, freedom and technology.

A Potpourri of Questions from Reddit

Yesterday I did a grueling 8 hour Reddit AMA: Ask Me Anything, archived here.  Shall I go ahead and post some of the questions and my answers?

What advancement that will happen within our lifetimes do you most look forward to? Why?

I talk to a lot of the "Singularity" guys and I get to be the grouch toward their expectations of looming imminent immortality. Not that there won't be advances; I hope for some! But I think the human enlightenment projected is vastly more important than any one person's greedy clutch at life extension! Hence, what I yearn for is improvements in PROCESS. The Enlightenment processes of markets and democracy and science have been spectacular! Guys like Clay Shirky claim the Web is making us hugely smarter in real time. But ....  I don't see that. There are many tools still missing and lobotomizing conversation to 140 words won't do it.

I show some of those possible improvements... in EXISTENCE!

The web transcendentalists are one side, then you get cyber-cynics like Nicholas Carr. You might like my article showing what both sides miss:  My Salon Magazine feature comparing the technology pessimists to those who think the Internet is turning us into gods: Is the Web Helping Us Evolve?

What advancements have the potential to change everything?

• Better online methods of discourse
• Brain/intelligence augmentation
• Artificial Intelligence... assuming we prevent it from emerging from predatory high frequency stock trading programs (if it does we are so screwed; and yes I know you are reading this, Goldman-Sachs Pouncer 234s!)
• Getting all to realize that self-righteous indignation is a real, bona fide drug-high self-doped addiction! One that we baby boomers are expert at!

What can we citizens do, to overcome governmental resistance to transparency? The issue ends up buried under all the other partisan concerns -- yet every aspect of government would be so much better if transparent. How can we overcome the static friction and get the ball rolling?

You expect the mighty to willingly let themselves be kept accountable? Look at the last 6000 years. We humans (especially when powerful) always come up with reasons why WE (and our friends) need privacy while our foes need accountability.

Those 6000 years show how obstinate the problem is, but they also show reasons for optimism! The Enlightenment's 250 year experiment has been amazing. Adam Smith said break up power into smaller chunks so the mighty will help us to hold EACH OTHER accountable, and we did!

The time to worry? When the mighty conspire against this solution.  As they are doing now.

Always watch out for the next layer you missed. I am "Contrary Brin" and hence I must point out that all the power consolidations you are mentioning (government bureaucracies) are old and have not changed much in decades, yet you fret them as if they are skyrocketing.

Taxes are near their lowest rates in 80 years, Federal and state shares of the economy are plummeting and historically low. So why your fixation on that center of power? Might it be because far more aggressively rising accumulations of power want you focused that way?

I am a Smithian-Heinleinian libertarian. I distrust ALL accumulations of power! Look back across 6000 years and tell me who was oppressed and who were the oppressors?

What group of conspiracists worry you the most? Political, economic, military, scientific, insert group here?

We all do selective perception. If you are "progressive" you notice conspiracies of the right and vice versa. (Personally, I find the "left-right axis" to be lobotomizing.)

I am Contrarian -- so my libertarian friends get poked by me and they think I am liberal. My liberal friends hear me rave on and on about Adam Smith. But yes, I do believe that one conspiracy - HG Wells's mutant/cannibalistic "murdochs" - is the worst.

Technology is lowering the barriers to entry in writing and publishing books, particularly through the ebook phenomenon. Do you think that large publishing houses will still be playing a major role in 10, 20, or 50 years? Or will we have completely switched to a grass-roots self-publishing system?

Think of human society. 99% of those before ours were pyramid shaped, with oligarchs atop -- and we may be heading back that way. But the West invented the diamond-shaped society in which a thriving middle out numbers the poor or rich.

It turns out some professions are naturally diamond-like. Like engineering. You engineers MIGHT be rich or poor but are likely to have a house/car etc.

The arts will ALWAYS be pyramidal. For every Steven King there are ten of me who are doing great but who envy him (he's a nice man actually.) For every author who is comfy there are ten squeaking by. And so on down. What has changed is the PATH to climb the pyramid. You can still get plucked up to the top by mavens and pros (editors) OR you can climb the Ramp of Merit with online pubs and fanzines and e-books.  These aren't either-or paths.  They are complementary.  Both will endure and we'll get good art in both ways.

In your Uplift series, there are several earth species which eventually achieve sentience. What are your thoughts on developing the intelligence of these species? Should we interfere or leave them to go on as they have? Or, rather, should we expand our ideas surrounding sentience to encompass these species?

The left will say "they have their own nobility and style of intelligence!" And the right would decry meddling in God's plan.

But I have met the dolphins and spoken to their researchers. ALL agree the creatures would love to be smarter than they are. They seem frustrated and are desperately eager and get awfully miffed they can't figure out a problem they know that a human child can easily suss.

I consider it criminally selfish to hold onto the top position - all for ourselves - if we could help others up that last and obviously very difficult few rungs. LOOK at how many other races are stuck at nearly the same level! Dolphins, parrots, apes, sea lions, possibly octopi. Something about the next step is HARD and I think maybe we should lend a hand.

Many will call EXISTENCE a prequel to Startide Rising in that it shows one possible beginning to the Uplift Project. And it shows that it won't be easy!

Oh, thousands of folks have written to me jazzed by the notion that we might someday spread the diversity of intelligent civilization on Earth - a worthy goal! We'll make other minds! AIs! Uplifted dolphins and apes! Heck we might even manage to uplift our children!

But then people realize that uplifting apes or dolphins would take 200+ years and along the way? Pain.

Since writing The Transparent Society, have you changed your opinion about the potential for transparency to improve society? Do you track projects related to implementing the concepts presented in that book (and if so, do you have a list of active and/or defunct projects)? Are you interested in being involved in such projects?

I grow increasingly convinced that the four great innovations of the Enlightenment: Democracy, Markets, Science and Justice, absolutely depend on most of the participants knowing most of what's going on, most of the time.

All four languish, sicken and die if secrecy prevails.

I am a moderate! The Transparent Society is filled with discussion of exceptions where secrecy can pass a burden of proof and privacy is important!
But ironically it can only be defended if we see well enough to catch the peeping toms.

What sparked the idea for an entire civilization built upon uplift? Do you see this as the inevitable progression of intelligent species or was it just a thought experiment?

GREAT question. Almost all I do is informed by the Fermi Paradox. EXISTENCE lays down dozens of hypotheses (amid a rollicking, idea-drenched adventure!

In the Uplift Universe I wanted to do space opera with LOTS of alien races. Only how can that happen and be stable if everyone is colonizing and warring like mad... the galaxies would go to hell.

But the progenitors set up this cycle, see, in which your status depends on how many "offspring" races you raise up. This means everybody becomes fanatical to protect Nursery Worlds where candidate species can rise up. Wars are limited and potential protected... see? It is not a friendly cosmos, but it does limit the worst failure modes...

Do you think humans as a species could survive in a world where there is no scarcity?

I think Star Trek is the most wholesome sci fi ever and it portrays a somewhat post-scarcity world. Look many of us already live in such a world. Our cave ancestors would call us gods.

Do you know where your own contrarian streak comes from?

A sense of how desperately little time we have to get things right. And that everybody who enslaves themselves to a simpleminded dogma is betraying their own agility of mind or ability to learn from one another.

Even if your side is 80% right, it desperately needs its faults questioned!  Criticism is the only known antidote to error.  So thank your foes for providing lots of it!  To help you improve.

Then return the favor!