The Quagmire War -- the Vietnam of our Era

The Vietnam of our era...

George Friedman, the principal of STRATFOR, a major international strategic consulting firm, has been meticulously dissecting the reasons for - and future prospects of - our nine year quagmire in Afghanistan. Here he gets to a point I have been talking about for years:

"While acts of transnational terrorism target civilians, they are not attacks — have not been and are not evolving into attacks — that endanger the territorial integrity of the United States or the way of life of the American people. They are dangerous and must be defended against, but transnational terrorism is and remains a tactical problem that for nearly a decade has been treated as if it were the pre-eminent strategic threat to the United States....

"Nietzsche wrote that, “The most fundamental form of human stupidity is forgetting what we were trying to do in the first place.” The stated U.S. goal in Afghanistan was the destruction of al Qaeda. While al Qaeda as it existed in 2001 has certainly been disrupted and degraded, al Qaeda’s evolution and migration means that disrupting and degrading it — to say nothing of destroying it — can no longer be achieved by waging a war in Afghanistan…. 

"As al Qaeda has fled Afghanistan, the overall political goal for the United States in the country has evolved to include the creation of a democratic and uncorrupt Afghanistan. It is not clear that anyone knows how to do this, particularly given that most Afghans consider the ruling government of President Hamid Karzai — with which the United States is allied — as the heart of the corruption problem, and beyond Kabul most Afghans do not regard their way of making political and social arrangements to be corrupt."

I would go much farther than George.  Because I have no doubt that the principal goal that Osama bin Laden had in mind, in perpetrating the crimes of 9/11, was to lure America into an extended, interminable quagmire of attrition in the "land where empires go to die."  While this may seem a bold statement that cannot be proved, it is consistent with three major facts:

1) American had to react.  It was predictable where we would have to strike.

2) Osama's salad days were spent humbling one superpower in the same mountains.

3) If you were a foe of the United States, you would study which past errors almost destroyed America.  Those two were Civil War and a land war of attrition in Asia.  (In fact, since 9/11, it appears we've been rapidly plunged into both.)

Where we surprised Osama was in the rapidly skillful way by which we allied with local enemies of the Taliban and crushed Osama's allies, in days.  Had we shown the in-and-out agility that we demonstrated in the Balkans Intervention - (and if we had chosen sane and sensible ways to eliminate Saddam Hussein, instead of doing everything there in all the worst possible ways) - America would now be seen as the toughest MF bastards around.  And we would be Three Trillion Dollars richer.

And if the Taliban re-established themselves after we left? Well, we could do it again. An enemy with actual assets, fixed locations an a nation to run is far more vulnerable than a guerilla force.

As George Friedman points out, the 9/11 attacks did not harm America at a deeply structural level. But our clumsy reaction to it has.

George goes on to suggest a solution: The Pakistanization of the War. Or allowing Afghanistan to fall into the Pakistani orbit, with them also taking on the burdens of dealing with the guerilla movements. But there are problems:

"The Taliban phenomenon has extended into Pakistan in ways that seriously complicate Pakistani efforts to regain their bearing in Afghanistan. It has created a major security problem for Islamabad, which, coupled with the severe deterioration of the country’s economy and now the floods, has weakened the Pakistanis’ ability to manage Afghanistan. In other words, the moment that the Pakistanis have been waiting for — American agreement and support for the Pakistanization of the war — has come at a time when the Pakistanis are not in an ideal position to capitalize on it."

Still, he foresees Pakistan brokering a peace deal... like the Paris Talks that ended the Vietnam War.  Here I think he is making up a bit of a story.  If this actually happens, I'll buy him a dinner.

=== The Faux Equivalence ===

One of the tricks mastered by the Murdochs (envision the Morlochs of HG Wells's The Time Machine!) is to create an impression of false equivalence.  We are seeing this here in California.  Every time GOP gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman is accused of favoring never-ending tax largesse for the uber-rich, she responds by calling her opponent, former governor Jerry Brown, of being in the clutches of Big Unions.

It frustrates me that she is never given the ultimate rebuttal. "Even if this is true, the unions have been plummetting in power, for decades, while the super-rich have been skyrocketing. So which should we fear?"  What social force, in fact, did nearly ALL of our ancestors fear? What group ever came close to oppressing liberty, open competition, social mobility or free markets, more than oligarchy?  Whether they called themselves feudal lords or commie nomenklatura, or captains of the crony-CEO caste?

We older folk grew up in an America with the flattest social strata (for white males) in the history of the world, yet that did not prevent a vibrant capitalism!  In contrast, over the last two decades, the fraction of the total national income going to the top 1% doubled; the fraction going to the top one tenth of a percent tripled; the fraction going to the top 1% of 1% quadrupled - and capitalism is floundering. Can anybody parse cause and effect here?

 Do the Murdochs actually believe they can prevent the chivvied and harassed and cornered middle class from noticing this trend... forever?  How about when this disparity doubles? And doubles again? And again?  Is there a limit where the oligarchs will conceivably say "enough"?  Any limit at all?

 History doubts it.  Insatiable oligarchies are unable to stop, even in their own long term self-interest.  But don't take my word for it.  Pick a random decade and continent. Try reading history.

=== The Lords of Discipline ===

I wrote to my cousin, a speechwriter in the White House, with this suggestion:

Express  grudging (and ironic) admiration for how UNIFORM and DISCIPLINED the Republicans are, hewing absolutely to a rigid party line. In sharp contrast to the democrats' perpetual disorganization. (Many recall the 1930s humorist Will Rogers said: "I'm not a member of an organized political party -- I'm a democrat.")

Heck, this portrays democrats in a way most people find endearing! (Or at least unthreatening.) As eager, well-meaning, a bit scatterbrained and unable to be tyrants, even if they wanted to.  Meanwhile, the image of a tightly disciplined, collectively lockstep-obedient party on the other side is one that most Americans find instinctively chilling.

Note, all of this can be conveyed, without actually dissing anyone openly! Indeed, by praising (in ironic tones) the other side's discipline, you never have to mention other parties that were known for their discipline (e.g.fascists or communists).  Your tone can be amiable and tongue-in-cheek envious!  But the message will get across.

=== And Tidbits ===

With the exception of Mitt Romney, Fox now employs every major potential Republican presidential candidate not currently in elected office. With Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee all making moves indicating they may run for president, their common employer is facing a question that hasn’t been asked before: How does a news organization cover White House hopefuls when so many are on the payroll?  (C-SPAN Political Editor Steve Scully said that when C-SPAN tried to have Palin on for an interview, he was told he had to first get Fox’s permission — which the network, citing her contract, ultimately denied. Producers at NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN and MSNBC all report similar experiences.)

I mean, what on Earth would some Bizarro Anti-Fox make of such suspicious goings-on?  Okay, there's MSNBC. But their viewers tend to be the wishy-washy types who THINK about attending Jon Stewart's Rally To Restore Sanity... and who shrug aside conspiracy theories (and probably don't wind up going, after all!) So don't say "MSNBC" at me.

For example: Why is Rupert Murdoch buying and promoting games made by the despotic government of North Korea? Dang!

Meanwhile, those darned academics and scientists are at it again:   "In this paper, we use the Moody’s Analytics model of the U.S. economy—adjusted to accommodate some recent financial-market policies—to simulate the macroeconomic effects of the government’s total policy response. We find that its effects on real GDP, jobs, and inflation are huge, and probably averted what could have been called Great Depression 2.0. For example, we estimate that, without the government’s response, GDP in 2010 would be about 11.5% lower, payroll employment would be less by some 8 million jobs, and the nation would now be experiencing deflation."

It would be an interesting item worthy of cautious consideration and engagement in the politics of the day.  If today's politics had anything, whatsoever, to do with evidence, or even intelligent speculation.

=== and finally... ===

Kent Pitman writes: "There was discussion just this evening by someone on MSNBC about the fact (I think they said it was a fact—I think the alluded to some study or another—but what do I know?) that there is lately a trend toward people admiring people who don’t compromise. But that the trend is biased, with more republicans admiring this than democrats. Then they noted that if you get a bunch of compromisers together with a bunch of non-compromisers, it’s little wonder things drift in the direction of the non-compromisers. Alas. What a dilemma—to become stubborn as a self-defense against being rolled over?"

I don't think it is fundamentally about "compromise." The root is deeper... it is addiction. I have been trying to draw attention to this matter for years.  I even was invited to speak about it at the National Institutes on Drugs and Addiction. See my paper: An Open Letter to Researchers of Addiction, Brain Chemistry, and Social Psychology.

I believe the most powerful act of social politics that could take place, today, would be to scientifically verify and publicize the fact that self-righteous indignation is as powerful a self-doped addictive state as gambling, thrill-seeking or rage.   And much of our culture war would start to dissipate, if the indignantly outraged were viewed the way we do the pitiable (and contemptible) people who wallow in heroin and cocaine.

THIS is what Obama should be saying, right now.  It should be shouted at Jon Stewart's rally.  And I would be happy to do so, in tones of ringing (if ironic) righteousness.

I tweet? More Science! And a Rally for Adulthood.

All right, I gave in and got a twitter account. You can find me at: https://twitter.com/DavidBrin

And with that announcement... oh there's more. First some news and science(!) and then my unusual perspectives on the Rallies in October(!)

==Transparency News==

On the Transparency front: a Maryland judge has thrown out the wiretapping charges brought against a motorcyclist who recorded a plainclothes Maryland State Trooper pulling a gun on him during a traffic stop and later uploaded the footage to Youtube. "A Harford County Circuit Court judge ruled this afternoon that a motorcyclist who was arrested for videotaping his traffic stop by a Maryland State Trooper was within his rights to record the confrontation."

Comments Josh D: “I think it's obvious that this kid broke the law and was certainly endangering the public, however, the DA who brought the wiretapping charges clearly did so in retaliation for the video of the stop being posted on the Internet.  I hope the DA faces some serious questions about his conduct in this matter.”

I care less about the DA than about general precedent.  This story was publicized by me on July 26. It is a crucial phase in the battle to retain the citizenry’s right to watch the watchmen.  I am police-friendly!  But this cannot be allowed to stand.

Faced with overwhelmingly powerful (and armed) authority that is capable of lying, the average citizen has only one recourse, the same one upon which he bases ALL of his defense against capricious power. The underlying recourse that is implicit in every corner of the Constitution...

     Accountability.

     Light.


=== Science Tidbits ===

Have they discovered a “Goldilocks Planet” orbiting its star at the right distance to have liquid water?  This article would seem to be historic... if it weren’t so atrociously written as to be almost worthless as cience journalism.  Still, you may want to remember where you were, when you read it.  Oh, here is the scientific abstract.

(In fact, this "goldilocks" planet would be a hell, one side locked toward its red dwarf sun and the other frozen solid. A few watery trickles along the Twilight Zone boundary do not an Eden make.  Let's keep trying.

 When the first alien from space lands on Earth and says “Take me to your leader,” Mazlan Othman head of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs will get the call...”  So went the panting report on the London Telegraph, followed by an international news cycle frenzy...

...followed by an embarassed retraction.  (Kind of sad, actually,  One can imagine some mildly speculative thing she might have said - in her bemused cups - getting all blown up out of proportion.  She was to attend my gathering about SETI, next week near London.  Now maybe she’ll stay home.)

In a similar vein... as I prepare to fly off to Britain to debate issues regarding the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, one mustn’t forget a bit of humor, from time to time.

== A DENSE (BUT REWARDING) SLIDE SHOW ==

Sometimes one of my older items erupts, suddenly, back into currency.  There’s been a lot more attention to my slideshow about potential dangers that might lurk from many different directions, and not just the fashionable flavor-of-the-decade (presently militant Islamists).  This presentation --A Broad Perspective Search of Unusual Failure Modes and Under-developed Strategies -- created for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency is very dense and requires earnest and soberly curious reading.  Don’t bother, if you plan to skim!

And finally... before lighting the political lamp...

A new survey of Americans' knowledge of religion found that atheists, agnostics, Jews and Mormons outperformed Protestants and Roman Catholics in answering questions about major religions, while many respondents could not correctly give the most basic tenets of their own faiths.

Kinda irksome to some folks I imagine.  Like the fact that kids who get "liberal" sex education actually have lower rates of STDs, abortion and even sex, than those given Abstinence classes.  Ooh.

==== AND NOW TO THE "RALLY to RESTORE SANITY" ===

You'll be hearing that the events being held on the Washington mall, in a few weeks -- hosted by news-comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert will be partisan affairs.  And, well, I concede that a majority of those attending are likely to be democrats.  http://www.rallytorestoresanity.com/

Still I think it worth pondering that the "Rally for Sanity" on 10-30-10 may be motivated much less by left-vs-right dogma than the very things that Stewart claims it will be about -- which is moderation vs the tone of petty, sanctimonious brattiness that has taken over American politics.  And yes, 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.

Look. We have two great countervailing forces in the American psyche. The first is a tendency toward self-righteous utopianism. This trait has a positive side. It can fuel and supercharge our greatest self-reform drives, propelling us to march and sacrifice until we have (for example) destroyed slavery, or racial injustice. On the other hand, the same propensity for frantic idealistism can enflame us into spirals of cultural or civil war, screeching at our neighbors and demeaning anyone we disagree with as simultaneously stupid, insane and evil.

The other American tendency is toward a marvelous pragmatism, a modernist eagerness to SOLVE PROBLEMS, using every available tool - including whatever mix of state and corporate and individual action will get the job done... so we can move on to dealing with the next problem.  This grown-up, pragmatic trait brought us far.  It underlies our greatest successes...

...and it has always been based upon a good-natured willingness to negotiate with each other.  To evade the sweet-addictive trap of ideological grand-standing and the drug of dogma, in favor of treating disagreement as grounds for discussion.  Moderated by the phrase all scientists are trained to utter aloud -- "I might be (just a little bit) wrong."

Of course, this same trait od pragmatism can show its own dark and ugly side, when it becomes cynical and focused solely on personal gain or victories over others, predatory and shortsighted, in a narrowminded and constricted zero-sum game.

Now, you might judge, after those paragraphs, that I respect our pragmatic streak more than the idealistic one, and that is true to an extent... though you can see my idealism drenching most of my novels. In any event, what really matters - in both idealism and pragmatism - is whether you envision the world as filled with problems that can be solved. 

That is why Martin Luther King - were he to magically reappear today - would slap the faces of those left-wingers who cannot ever bring themselves to admit that his dream has largely come true!  And, therefore, our continuing campaigns of self-improvement should move on, filled with confidence in past accomplishments, to take on new and brighter goals.

And that is why Adam Smith - were he to magically reappear today - would eviscerate right-wingers, who have never actuall read Wealth of Nations, and who cannot ever bring themselves to admit that the true enemy of freedom and markets has always been oligarchy. (Across 6,000 years, name any foe that ever oppressed more people, quashed competition and opportunity, or did more to hold humanity back.  You can't.)

The lesson?  That the real enemy is cynicism.

Which brings us to our chance to fight back.

=== Find a way to support the "Rally for Sanity" ===

Think what you will of Jon Stewart's purported ant-right bias.  Fact is that all he is saying - in reference to the rally -- is for moderates to come out and resume negotiating in calm voices. And he has been relentless in seeking moderate conservatives, to come as well.

Oh, sure, the undertone is anti-tea-party-sanctimony/rage.  Anyone can see that.  The satirical mocking of the Murdochians (a name that seems redolent of H.G. Wells dystopic fears) is clearly intentional. Still, the official line of the rally merits some sober consideration.

Moreover, let me point out this set of fundamental differences between Jon Stewart and the shills on Fox.

1- He skewers the left frequently and sincerely.

2- He has guests. Unlike Beck and Limbaugh he regularly has on his show the best and brightest from the "other side."  More than 20% of his guests are neocons or conservatives. Huckabee, Romney, McCain, William Kristol have all been on the show more than 3 times each!  These guests get to both joke around and challenge Stewart, while pushing their books! (Oh, and the audience always treats them politely.)  Bill O'Reilly was on, just two nights ago.

This is something Beck/Limbaugh/Hannity NEVER do.  Because they are liars and cowards.  There is no other possible interpretation. And that is without any consideration of their policy positions.  Worse, it displays a smug lack of curiosity that is positively and horrifically un-American.

3- Stewart's other guests include a sampling of America's best minds.  Sure, there's jocularity. But that is part of the POINT!  A light, 10 minute gloss-exposure to big ideas... laced with humor and repeated references to a real, honest to gosh book, that Stewart obviously read.  And your complaint is.....?

By the way, if Glenn Beck can "define honor" then let's hear Stewart out when it comes to "sanity."

Go if you can. Even better, help get out the vote.

End Times? Glimpses from Jon Stewart to Limbaugh...

Every generation had legends of a coming downfall. Whether you call it The End Times, Armageddon, Apocalypse, Doomsday, Ragnorak, The Population Bomb or 2012....we've long been fascinated by prophecies of devastation and doom. What is fiction, and what is possible? And how can modern civilization can start limiting the risk?  I give ten thoughtful mintues of summary.

Now, do you want a similar topic, presented at manic speed? Offering dozens of unusual perspectives and provocative ways of viewing the human predicament? And did I mention manic speed?  Fasten your belt and tune in to my talk at TEDxDelMar: The Big Question of Existence: Can technology empower freedom and human survival? Compressing all of that into just seventeen minutes!

And while we’re on the subject... What bullets have humans dodged…and which could explain the Great Silence in the cosmos? Cosmic Accidents: ten lucky breaks that may have enabled humans to exist…


=== OOOH, THAT JON STEWART! ===

Oh now this burns!  I was fully supporting Jon Stewart’s “Rally for Sanity” and urging people to go attend and have fun while standing up for reason, moderation, negotiation, and vertical foreheads, on October 30 on the National Mall in Washington DC. 

...until I saw THIS BLATANT STEAL of the title - and presumably most of the contents -- of my award winning international best-seller EARTH.  In fact, I am SO ANGRY that I am now urging people to attend instead Stephen Colbert’s Rally for Fear... on October 30 on the National Mall in Washington DC...

... Take THAT Stewart!  (Heh, I can just picture how he’s fuming in humiliation, right now.)


=== WELL, IN COMPENSATION... ===

Ah, but some people are willing to grant this far-seeing visionary some cred!  ”What do scientists think about seeing their fields of research pulverized by science fiction? We asked researchers from diverse fields to tell us whether any science fiction gets it right.”  Lo and behold, a few high quality names get dropped.

Ah, but not everybody is so wise.  Take the Backfire Effect. When some individuals are confronted with evidence that contradicts their beliefs, they begin to hold even more strongly on to these beliefs. Both sides of the political spectrum have been guilty of this puzzling effect. I suspect it has something to do with ‘circling the wagons’ – going into defensive mode when faced with an onslaught, and preparing for an offensive attack.

And on the Transparency Front: here’s a cool article about the current state of portable video cameras that can record - and re-transmit for safety - video on the spot... whether you are snapping a fast breaking event, or a questionable arrest, or that special moment...

Think you know where the future is going? Make a prediction and register it on this site -- which predicts progress over the next hundred years in science, technology, transportation, population. They predict a United States of Africa in 2026... and...


=== COOLSTUFF ===

Zoom from the edge of the universe to the quantum foam of spacetime and learn the scale of things along the way!  (This one is way better than some of the other "powers of ten" presentations out there.)

Researchers at Sun Yat-Sen University in China have demonstrated a way to record on ferromagnetic films using laser-assisted ultrafast magnetization reversal dynamics. The development will allow for practical use of new technology for recording more than 6,000 terabits (6 petabits) of data on a single 5-inch disc.

U.K.-based Reaction Engines’ Skylon plane is designed to take a 12-ton payload  of cargo and passengers into space from a conventional airport and return them back down to the same runway. The concept for the Skylon is based on a synergistic air-breathing rocket engine (SABRE) that uses jet propulsion to reach the edge of the Earth’s atmosphere.

See a study of more than 4000 British children to pinpoint the genes and genetic combinations that influence reasoning skills and general intelligence. The researchers believe their work could eventually lead to genetic tests to predict babies’ academic potential.

I just saw this weird film on TCM.  Note the main actor... and the language spoken by all the actors!

Any Book of Revelations fans, out there?  Have a look at this “beast.”

And now... while craziness is on my mind... let’s look at today's raving equivalent...


=== BRIEFLY RE-LIGHTING THE POLITICAL LAMP ===

Good lord, it is now totally explicit:

“The four corners of deceit: government, academia, science and media. Those institutions are now corrupt and exist by virtue of deceit. That's how they promulgate themselves; it is how they prosper.”---Rush Limbaugh

A must-read appraises the ever-spiraling, skyrocketing War on Science.   Nature 467 , 133 (09 September 2010)
Anyone who thinks we are in anything less than phase three of the American Civil War is a complete ostrich.

I will never again let myself be lectured to, about patriotism, by men who fantasize about riding with Nathan Bedford Forest.  When the McVeighs start rampaging, I hope we'll recognize Fort Sumter and remember Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain.  A noble man who served his country in all four corners of truth: government, academia, science and media, and who wore a color we are all going have to choose, if we want to save our country, again.

Brin-terviewed on "Virtually Speaking" Thurs 6pm... plus SciFi'ists "come out!"

Come online to participate or listen to Jay Ackroyd interview me in his VIRTUALLY SPEAKING webcast... plus avataring the event on Second Life... This Thursday 9/23 at 6pm Pacific time... 9pm Eastern. The blogtalkradio simulcast  will also be archived at iTunes.

=== A Famous Columnist "Comes Out" as a Sci Fi Fan! ===

Renowned Columnist Walter Russel Read has “confessed a guilty pleasure” -- a lifetime love of science fiction literature.  In a column fo the American Interest, he comes-out and proclaims that Science Fiction is a Genre That Everyone Should Read.

”Taken as a whole, the field of science fiction today is where most of the most interesting thought about human society can be found.  At a time when many academics have become almost willfully obscure, political science is increasingly dominated by arcane and uninspiring theories and in which a fog of political correctness makes some forms of (badly needed) debate and exploration off limits, science fiction has stepped forward to fill the gap.”

I confess to especially approving of this line: ”In the work of writers like David Brin and Neal Stephenson there is more interesting reflection on America’s place in the world than you will find, I fear, in a whole year’s worth of reading in foreign policy magazines.”

Mead also recommends Vernor Vinge, C.J. Cherryh, Benford, Willis, Niven and so on. (See my own list of favorites at Greatest Science Fiction & Fantasy Tales). And he concludes:

”The biggest single task facing the United States today is the unleashing of our social imagination.  We are locked into twentieth century institutions and twentieth century habits of mind.  Science fiction is the literary genre (OK, true, sometimes a subliterary genre) where the social imagination is being cultivated and developed.  Young people should read this genre to help open their minds to the extraordinary possibilities that lie before us; we geezers should read it for the same reason.  The job of our times is to build a radically new world; speculative fiction helps point the way.”

Now to find out if he likes autographed books...  (I tried sending my Asimov book to Paul Krugman, but could not get through the shell of his assistants/handlers.)

Alas, not all famous, professed sci fi fans are on the side of the modernist enlightenment.  Fresh off his latest Hugo win, Frederik Pohl blogs this:
 
" . . .there was a time when I really thought that if politicians would get in the habit of reading science fiction for fun instead of sticking to, say, the shoot-’em-up Westerns preferred by Dwight Eisenhower, we’d have better government. But then along came Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and shot that speculation down in flames."

(Oh, am I nostalgic for Eisenhower!  Heck, even Tricky Dick would compromise with reality, now and then. Whatever his faults, he at least believed in negotiating, even with his enemies.)

=== And finally... ===

Author Mark A. Raynor runs a contest to create vintage ads based around fictional works of the future. Take a look at his United Postal Service ad for stamps based upon my post-apocalyptic novel, The Postman. The other ad pictured is a vintage baby food ad for “The Road” – Now with more baby….ugh

And a bit of fear mongering: This list of 15 ways science will kill us all includes the Large Hadron Collider, a time machine, self-replicating printers, the singularity, grey goo (nanorobots), cyborg robots, genetically-engineered life, dark matter…
 

Changing worlds... and how I helped change this one...

Folks near San Diego can hear me see me introduce a screening of DISTRICT 9 on September 22, at UCSD, with vignettes from ALIEN NATION and E.T. for comparison.

While I loved District 9, it wasn't for the usual reasons.  I found the encounter-of-civilizations aspect illogical in many ways, along with the science. There'd be humans crawling all over the ship, for example. Also, frankly, I find unrelenting and unmoderated guilt trips (e.g. “Avatar”) overbearing and unhelpful.  That is why I will be comparing D9 with the 1980s sci fi movie ALIEN NATION... of which D9 is an homage and variation-riff.

Sure, the situations are as different as they are similar. Take the settings - Southern California vs a clearly still apartheid South Africa - which correlate with two very different tales of contact and tension.  ALIEN NATION, depicts yet another immigrant community assimilating, with unusual difficulties, but amid general good intention... helped by the moderate humanoid attractiveness of the aliens.

 In D9 we see full tilt intolerance by humans, not at all palliated by the fact that the arrivals are so alien, unlovable (from a human perspective) and  reproducing with daunting rapidity.  It's a terrific variation!  Very thought provoking, especially since the D9 aliens are clearly made up of castes, with 99.99% of them portrayed as inherently dull or mentally deficient.  The uppermost caste, secretive and refusing to contact or negotiate or explain anything to human civilization, are as much at fault for the situation as the Afrikaans bigots!

There's a definite parallel with Steven Spielberg’s “E.T. The Extraterrestrial” in which the only truly villainous individual is the captain of E.T.’s own ship.

But the director of District 9 does not make any of this plain to the audience. It’s all there, but these facts are overwhelmed by the cartoonish apartheid aspects. And so it becomes a standard guilt trip, after all, with interesting details.

No, what I admire most about DISTRICT 9 is its wonderful portrayal of a solitary human -- not an admirable or genial or respect-worthy individual, in any way -- who embarks on a quest for personal survival that is both frenzied and overwhelmingly determined.  A determination that overwhelms all other loyalties or concerns. A fascinating character study and a deeply creepy look into the mirror for any thoughtful person.

Who are the ''bad guys'? It's not always clear. See my video exploration of this topic: Name That Villain: Bad Guys and Aliens in Science Fiction Movies.

== LOOKING BACK: HOW I HELPED CHANGE THE WORLD a bit ==

Way back in 1970, I was part of the organizing committee for the Clean Air Car Race, from MIT to Caltech (where I was an undergraduate).  The race - actually a point-scored road rally - had divisions for all-electric vehicles (including the first ever to cross the continent), propane and natural gas vehicles, one with a Lear Jet engine (leaving a trail of shattered toll booths and seared underpasses, from New England to California...

... plus the world’s first hybrid car, built by the University of Toronto, with almost all of the features now seen in hybrids, from regenerative braking to multi-cycle drive trains.  Lacking computers, the car needed a co-pilot who was busy all the time, plus a back seat filled with batteries.  But it worked, and set the stage for all future hybrids. (Quite an important outcome for the race, all by itself.)

But history can be strange. It turns out that the division that seemed the least interesting would actually change the world the most.  For, taking part in the rally, were several cars tuned to use only unleaded gasoline... at the time a relatively new fuel that was much maligned by entrenched corporate powers.  The Ethyl Corporation, clawing to prevent any removal of its poisonous product, contended that fuels without lead-based additives would ruin auto engines.  But then came the Clean Air Car Race, in which all of the cars using unleaded gas cruised smoothly into Pasadena...

...and in (relatively) short order Congress acted, getting the lead out.  Which just goes to teach  a valuable lesson. Progress does not always consist of giant leaps forward.  Sometimes the less romantic or seemingly less ambitious, of your efforts may turn out to be the one the makes the greatest long-term difference.  Incrementalism may not seem romantic or grandiose... but maybe that’s exactly why it works.

I’m proud to have participated in the CACR... thirty years ago, almost exactly.  It helped make the world a little better..

PS...see me in photo number two!

AND THE DESCENDANT OF CACR IS... Forty years later, here is the heir of the Clean Air Car Race... still changing the world through science, technology, pragmatism and goodwill, instead of the sick arrogance of dogma.

===  MORE SCIENCE! ===

Under the “I predicted this” department... with clear implications for The Transparent Society ... meet Looxcie.

A cool survey of nifty science tidbits.

Some concepts for VASIMR-powered  (ion propulsion) missions, using 200 megawatts of power, allow transit times from Earth to Mars in as little as 39 days, nearly five times faster than a conventionally-powered mission. Others are skeptical. 

100,000 houses damaged by New Zealand earthquake as repair bill tops £1.8bn. 

Hundreds of enterprising New Zealanders  have turned to Facebook to organize themselves into relief squads helping residents in the earthquake-hit city of Christchurch.

See a super-cool view of a bird flock in sanfran bay, shot from an airship by a guy I respect.
Suggestions for alternative music?

“On the cusp of curing ageing?” I really, really doubt it will prove to be this simple. 

 "We want to encourage filmmakers to produce and share their cinematic  visions of a present or future society shaped by synthetic biology. What is your view on a world living with synthetic life forms?"

=== THE MUSE’S CORNER ===

1. A site that compares human heartbeats over a lifespan with animals, demonstrating some good news/bad news for humans.  The GOOD NEWS? we get roughly 2.5 billion heartbeats... roughly THREE TIMES as many as most mammals and even a lot more than our fellow primates.  The BAD NEWS?  We probably have already flicked all the readily available chemical switches to eke out this longer span.  To get more will require herculean measures, much more than simple caloric restriction (which seems to flick a few of those switches in short-lived species.)

2.  Scientists caught stealing from themselves…it’s all too easy to reuse text, particularly in the introduction & method sections, but journals have retracted papers with text repeated verbatim from previous works. Scientific publishers subscribe to software programs that scan databases, searching for duplication or plagiarism. I hope they don’t start checking my speeches; my wife says she’s heard it all before….

3. Ten accounts of shifts in the scientific paradigm of the day.

4. A biological big bang? This paper by Gibson, Wickramasinghe and Schild suggests that life developed within a few million years after the big bang – in a cosmological primordial soup. Complex organic compounds are then spread through the universe by comets and meteors to otherwise sterile planets, like earth.  (Warning... these guys are not widely considered to be “all-there” on the grounded science-o-meter. I’ve had run-ins with the zealous Gibson, and Wickramasinghe - while certainly very smart and a colleague of the late great SF author Fred Hoyle - has mono theory-itis. Panspermia Fervor.)

== MORE ITEMS ==

Patterns in the data...  A Beijing suburb will soon begin testing a new futuristic bus that would be built on tall legs - allowing bus passengers to drive above the cars on the highway.

New software seems to predict which individuals on probation or parole are most likely to murder and to be murdered.

Later this month, the Opera of the Future Group at the MIT Media Lab will premiere Death and the Powers, an opera more than 10 years in the making. Featuring life-sized singing robots and a musical chandelier, the opera could redefine how technology can enhance live performance and help reestablish opera’s spirit of innovation.

Northwestern University researchers have discovered that broadband Internet prices have remained nearly stagnant since 2004, despite the explosive pace of adoption since then, from approximately 20 percent of U.S. households in 2004 to more than 65 percent today.

NASA is considering a revolutionary new horizontal rail launcher concept.  (Yeah, but if Marshall SFC is involved...)

Federal Communication Commission’s move to release “white spaces,” or unused television channels, later this month will unleash another boom of mobile innovation.

And finally this, offered by John Petersen.

"The future belongs to those who give the next generation reason for hope." - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Events, brinterviews, progress... and more science...

Folks near San Diego can come see me introduce a screening of DISTRICT 9 on September 22... with vignettes from ALIEN NATION and E.T. for comparison.

In one of my better television interviews - on France24's international English language service - "Eve Jackson speaks to the sci- fi author David Brin about the future, privacy, freedom, technology... and science fiction."

That wildly popular “GeeksOn interview of David Brin” had a bad link, last time. It’s corrected this time.  If you care to risk “Brin overdose!”

Or listen as Mari Frank interviews me on  KUCI about transparency and privacy.  Not a great phone link, I’m afraid but a survey of strong/unusual views about how openness can help us preserve both freedom and privacy.

And here’s an article about my talented young cousin, a speechwriter for President Obama.

I came across a story on wired.com about an opera performed in Klingonese, they sent an invitation via radio telescope to where they guess Klingons live.  Ah, romantics! No attention paid to the hundreds of races inside the Klingon empire that were effectively slaves. So, this is like shouting “Yoohoo, beasties!  Come and eat us!” Sigh. ;-)

=== For the Predictions Registry! ===

Both of these are from SUNDIVER. (Someone log them in the registry!)

NASA is sending a probe to dive into the sun.  Several of the investigators consulter (mildly) with me.

And “tracking technology will enable us to empty over-crowded prisons of the least dangerous criminals – allowing them to live productive lives, while being monitored for drugs and alcohol, their location checked to ensure they stay away from schools or playgrounds. Our current prison system is an overwhelming failure: expensive, disgraceful and ineffective.’

A perfect Mocumentary.

=== The Special Muse Corner ===

1. The Hugos were announced. There was a tie for Best Novel between China Mieville (The City and the City) and Paolo Bacigalupi (The Windup Girl). Charles Stross won for Best Novella.

2. ChronoZoom, a visual history of life, the universe & everything. Developed by Walter Alvarez at UC Berkeley -- an attempt to portray a timescale of the cosmos, earth and human history, encompassing data from space science, geology, biology, anthropology and human history. Note: this is a first generation design; you need to download a Microsoft application to allow it to function effectively.   

3. News from the Helvetian front? International pressure on the Swiss to change their banking practices.

4. Gray instead of black and white: A computer chip based on probability not binary. (Trinary?)

5. Thirty statistics that prove the elite are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer and the middle class is being destroyed.

6. Micro-altruism? It appears that a few mutant, antibiotic-resistant bacteria are sufficient to allow a whole colony of bacteria to survive a dose of antiobiotics. The drug-resistant bacteria produce compounds, indoles, which strengthen the rest of the colony, even though this production takes a toll on the individuals who produce it. Such antibiotic resistant bacteria are a major health concern.

7. A new trend in Science Fiction? Writer Jason Sandford cites hard SF authors breaking the rules, and gives it a name: "SciFi Strange also flirts with the boundaries of what is scientifically - and therefore realistically--possible, without being bounded by the rigid frames of the world as we know it today. but don't call SciFi Strange fantasy. This is pure science fiction. It's merely an updated version of the literature of ideas. A science fiction for a world where the frontiers of scientific possibility are almost philosophical in nature."

8. In his new book, The Grand Design, Stephen Hawking says there no theory of everything ....
Stephen Hawking: Why God did not create the universe.

9. We are seeing the return of the Commons, as we share ever more information: files, thoughts, photos, videos... Car, bike and book sharing, as well as peer-to-peer lending sites are booming. Termed Collaborative Consumption, it’s about access instead of ownership.

11. Nanotechnology news: Tiny solar cells fix themselves -- using plant proteins, carbon nanotubes and lipids.

12. Octopuses carry coconut shells across the sea floor, then hide underneath. Are they anticipating the need for a hiding place? They have also been observed building rock walls, unscrewing jar lids...

13. Dolphins have been observed carrying heavy conch shells above the water surface -- using the shells to trap fish, then tipping them into their mouths, shaking out a meal

===  ALSO.... ===

A fun map... based on the classic map of the London Underground... showing highlights in the development of science.

Check out SideWiseThinker, blog of Michael Dobson.
He has a wonderful list on how to know if you're being reasonable: Here are a few:
-- You're not being reasonable if you don't acknowledge your own biases and blind spots.
-- You're not being reasonable if you don't take the time to find out what the other person really means.
-- You're not being reasonable if you don't separate emotional outbursts from logical reasoning.
-- You're not being reasonable if you only expose yourself to one type of information.

Yipe!  If he continues in that vein, Rupert Murdoch may have to order a hit on the fellow!

He also has a series of blogs on cognitive biases.

More soon....

Brin's Corollary to Moore's Law

The cameras will get smaller, cheaper, more numerous and more mobile every year.

We are in for a time of major decision as the Moore's Law of Cameras -- sometimes called “Brin’s Corollary to Moore’s Law -- takes hold and elites of all kinds are tempted to utilize surveillance in Orwellian/controlling ways ...often with rationalized good intentions.

Alas, many "champions of privacy and freedom" push the nebulous notion that dark outcomes can be prevented by passing laws against this or that elite looking at this or that kind of information. In other words, by restricting information flows.

For a decade, I have challenged such folks to name a time, in the history of humanity, when that general approach has ever worked for long, at keeping elites blind, let alone in a world where cameras and databases proliferate like crocuses after a rainstorm.  No one has ever come up with a single major example, of any kind, ever.  Yet, they would bet our future freedom on that nebulous approach.

As Papa Heinlein said: The chief thing accomplished by Privacy Laws is to make the (spy) bugs smaller: "A law guaranteeing privacy simply insures that bugs -- microphones and lenses and so forth -- are that much harder to spot."

The alternative concept -- to look back and watch the watchers via sousveillance -- or counter- surveillance is a hard sell, because it is counter-intuitive and easy for elites to propagandize against.  And yet, it is the essence of what the Western Enlightenment has used, as its tool set for achieving the miracles of the last three hundred years.

I explain issues of transparency and sousveillance in more detail in my nonfiction book -- The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force us to choose between Privacy and Freedom? ... and illustrate it in my novel, Earth.

Looking back... or upward or sideways ... is what John Locke and Adam Smith and James Madison et al recommended in order to create the reciprocal accountability that keeps abuse of power in check.

All of the main enlightenment systems - democracy, markets, science and justice courts - rely upon transparency-enabled reciprocal accountability to operate.  To achieve their positive sum games.  Games that benefit us all far better than the older (and more naturally human) zero sum games that emerge out of simplistic human nature.

For more on the balance between these four enlightenment systems, see my article: Disputation Arenas: Harnessing Conflict and Competitiveness for Society's Benefit.

==The Options We Face==

As the tools for either surveillance or sousveillance proliferate, we are entering a time of choice between two potential equilibrium states:

Option 1: a perfect Orwellian (or more-likely Huxleyan) hegemony, empowered by universal elite omniscience…

or

Option 2: a wide open citizen-driven society, empowered by sousveillance and universal omniscience.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no pollyanna.  I know that the latter might go sour, as portrayed in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, and I explore possible drawbacks in some chapters of The Transparent Society!  There are many potential failure modes inherent in mass citizen empowerment and ubiquitous accountability.

But one thing we know from 5,000 years of recorded history... and evidence that goes back farther still.. is that Option 1 is guaranteed to be calamitously wrong. (Indeed, an oligarchic attempted putsch is currently underway.)

Moreover, as I point out in The Transparent Society, general omniscience does not automatically mean an end to privacy!  In fact, it is logically the only way we can preserve some.

The real question is; can enough of the world's citizenry be radicalized for transparency-based accountability to ensure an end to corruption and to make our growing institutions work well, world wide?  I depict such a radicalization in EARTH.  But mass populism appears to be deliberately steered in other directions, right now.

For updates on this issue, see the links posted at: Transparency: Privacy and Accountability in an Age of Increasing Surveillance.


=== And some Misc  Science! ===

Anyone interested in improving science education for kids should have a look at LabRats! I know "Dr. Shawn"... who is Dr. Shawn Carlson, MacArthur grant winner and former Scientific American columnist and founder of the Society for Amateur Scientists.  Useful fellow and cool-looking program.  

The era of personalized energy systems — in which individual homes and small businesses produce their own energy for heating, cooling and powering cars — took another step toward reality today as scientists reported discovery of a powerful new catalyst, nickel borate, that would be a key element in such a system. They described the advance, which could help free homes and businesses from dependence on the electric company and the corner gasoline station, at a meeting of the American Chemical Society. 

While antibiotics officially date to the discovery of penicillin in 1928, a chemical analysis of the bones of ancient Nubians (today's Sudan) shows that they were regularly consuming tetracycline, most likely in their beer, 1,700 years ago.

How Charles Darwin began the Ascension Island “terraforming project”... pointing the way to Mars?

Anybody seen this book? Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming. If so, can you recommend it?

More than one "What the heck is THAT?!" photo. (Thanks Mike Gannis.)

Crispian Jago has developed a draft timeline (based on an original London underground map) showing the last 500 years of science, reason and critical thinking “to celebrate the achievements of the scientific method through the age of reason, the enlightenment and modernity.”

For years, claims have circulated that red rain which fell in India in 2001, contained cells unlike any found on Earth. Now new evidence that these cells can reproduce is about to set the debate alive.

==Brin Updates==

I’m off to London in a few weeks, for a gathering of the Royal Society, where I’ll debate the question of METI... whether a few individual have a right to gamble humanity’s future by beaming “yoohoo!” messages into interstellar space, under the blithe assumption that all advanced races will automatically be altruistic.  For background see my introductory essays on SETI & METI.  Or else, see a lurid encapsulization of the stakes in this trailer for the movie SKYLINE. (Appearing in November.)

PRIVACY PIRACY host, Mari Frank, interviews scientist, inventor and ny times bestselling author, David Brin, about privacy, transparency, surveillance and other crucial issues, on monday, september 6, 8-9am pacific time, kuci 88.9 fm in irvine, ca and audio streaming on KUCI. You can find updates of my audio/video interviews on ScoopIt.

Last time I plugged a much longer, wilder and more diverse podcast on the GEEKS ON show. They call it their most successful episode ever.  Here’s what one fan wrote in: ”Your last episode with david brin was by far the best episode ever. That man should be president. Please drag him back kicking and screaming if u have to. it's a shame he doesn't have his own podcast, should encourage him to do so!” Um... well... glad you liked it.  But I still think it is possible to have WAY too much brin!

Here is the listing for the e-book version of Star Wars on Trial. (Come on, you’ve been hankering to dive into the debate, admit it!) A luscious self-indulgence.

Keep looking ahead...

The Conversion of a Noted Ostrich - Plus Beck, heir of King?

Bjorn Lomborg has apparently changed his mind, and now thinks that global warming is the number one planetary crisis priority.  “He's back and generating as many headlines as ever. After years as the world's leading climate change critic, Bjorn Lomberg  is now saying that we need to put it at the top of our priority list. What's that, he has a new book out? Indeed, and in , Lomborg, an adjunct professor at Copenhagen Business School in Denmark, goes so far as to say we should spend $100 billion a year to sort it out. The Guardian calls it a Major U-Turn, one "that will give a huge boost to the embattled environmental lobby".

Richard Loosemore comments: ”The last quote from that article pretty much sums it up: >  'Grant him this: Dude knows how to play the media. Who else could get such attention for adopting a position already held by millions of sensible people?'”

By all means use this conversion on your well-educated but obstinate “ostrich-skeptic.” It’s big stuff. 

But don’t expect the spin machine to stop turning out bright fools to razzle us and dazzle us with incantations that have one aim... to keep us doing nothing.  Take Matt Ridley, author of The Rational Optimist, who offers yet another version of the right wing nostrum that lots of people, interacting freely, will bounce around so many ideas, that solutions to problems will naturally appear (or evolve, like species in nature), leading to better times for all. 

Now, mind you, I  absolutely agree with everything I just paraphrased! And much more! For example, Ridley correctly demolishes the opposing foolishness of the left - the insipid pessimism conveyed in liberal-influenced media like the film AVATAR - that modern society is somehow worse than cultures that came earlier, more violent, less kindly or thoughtful. 

Baloney. (In fact the very ubiquity and success of messages like AVATAR is partial disproof of its premise!  Think about that.)

Prof. Steven Pinker already has made it abundantly and decisively clear that humanity is now experiencing unprecedentedly-low levels of violence, per capita, compared to any time in (or before) history.  Likewise increasing levels of education,  freedom and (yes) ethical behavior.  The foolish leftist notion - that we can only continue this progress by chiding people, while frantically ignoring the fact that progress has been made - is certainly insane. It deserves rigorous criticism. 

Nevertheless, the right is far worse.  Take the way their fizzy “optimism” arm-wavings start off by reciting truths - (e.g that ideas do breed and evolve among free/educated people... and civilization has thereby moved forward). Only then, insidiously, they razzle that basic truth into rationalizations for indolence!

Problems will solve themselves, as if by magic!  Ignoring Adam Smith’s cautiously pro-government and anti-oligarchy reasoning, they mis-apply his teachings in order to praise the kind of laissez-faire faith in an “invisible hand” that plays right into the hands of entrenched and conniving oligarchy.

The crux: this fizzing, percolation of ideas and solutions does happen - it can lead to all the great synergies that the optimists proclaim... even the miracle of the runaway positive sum game... the suppsed justification of capitalism.  On the other hand this semi-random idea-churn works best when it then feeds into a process called the modern-western, mixed society, wherein smart men and women in business, the arts and government compare notes, deliberate, negotiate, plan and bring about solutions to problems!

The usual prescription that lies underneath what Bjorn Lomberg used to teach, and that other court rationalizers continue to foist on us, is that men like Marshall and Acheson and Vennevar Bush - who MADE this modern world - should be ignored in favor of a random boiling of freely-exchanged solutions. But the invisible hand is only a metaphor.  Groups of human beings do assess, make and implement plans. Civil servants and politicians and scientists and citizens can and should play at least as big a role as crony CEO golf buddies. 

But the message of the right wing optimism machine is to claim that foresight and deliberation can ONLY be engaged in by corporate masters. Never anybody else.  It ignores how much planning and genuine leadership went into making this present world of low violence and rising hope.

------ Other politically redolent matters -----

Kent Pitman offered this observation about “rights” in the US system of government in light of current events (mosques, immigration, etc “Rights are just promises we make to ourselves on our better days, binding us to the conduct we aspire to, hoping that on our worse days we will not be quick enough or powerful enough to undo them before we regain our sanity.”

As for the incredible gall of Glenn Beck arrogating the mantle of “Heir of Martin Luther King?”  I have one response that may seem unfair, regionalist, even a bit snippy.  On the other hand it says a lot, in a visually powerful way.

Find a map showing those states that were most opposed to Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Act. Now compare that map to one showing the regions where Glenn Beck is most popular today.  I mean, geez. Some things ain’t complicated.

More evidence of wasted money in Iraq. Of course the pathetic thing is the failure of anybody on the right to call for a Special Prosecutor, re all this.  If you include possible graft in military support contracts, we’re possibly talking about HUNDREDS of billions.  So where are the people who screeched over never-proved assertions that a few tens of  millions (yes, that is an “M”) might have been pilfered from the UN’s Oil-for-Food program, back in the Clinton years?  What do such people call misdeeds under Bushite direction - three or four orders of magnitude worse - “ancient history.”

Why, oh why, does not President Obama use the Gulf Oil Spill and the Minerals Management Agency scandal as an excuse to appoint a special prosecutor... and then simply let the SP run loose?

BCRion reminds us of this classic. (Note the date!) That is both funny and heartbreaking that it hurts, so bad.
If only, it wasn't true.

--- A little Science... and a boycott. ---

A new, magnetic-zap method for treating depression seems verified & approved.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.  Norton Security Software promised rebates when I bought packages at Fry’s. EVERY time, they have reneged. The “debit cards” they sent me never worked. The call-in numbers never answered.  I’ll never do business with them or with Kaspersky, ever again.

More SciFi! More Science! (... and too much Brin?)

Nothing better demonstrates the silliness of left-right "culture war" than the bitterly illogical fight over human-caused climate change HCC. People who stake fierce positions, over a scientific matter, based on their pre-existing political loyalties, should be ashamed of themselves. In fact, there are legitimate questions that a genuine HCC-sceptic can ask!  Questions that the scientific community ought to face and answer.  But how to tell a true "skeptic" from a kneejerk "denialist"? SKEPTIC Magazine commissioned an article from me, dissecting this serious matter, which may affect humanity's destiny. Climate Skeptics vs. Climate Deniers now posted online. Come take the “Skeptic Test!”

The fun fellows at "GeeksOn" interviewed me for more than an hour (if anyone can take that much Brin!) about everything from the future to politics to SETI to all the myriad ways that science fiction has either gone astray or else propelled our thoughts into new frontiers. Provocative notions about everything from privacy to “Avatar.”

Before They Were Giants: First Works from Science Fiction Greats is a lovely collection of early stories by the likes of Greg Bear, Charles Stross, Cory Doctorow, Larry Niven, William Gibson... and me. Way fun to glimpse the awkward first literary steps...

While in Rome, recently, we visited the Campo Di Fiorno plaza and paid respects to the statue of Giordano Bruno, who was burned on that spot for being - in effect - a sci fi author.  A required pilgrimage, if you are ever nearby.

=== from the Transparency Front ===

Iceland aims to become a legal safe haven for journalists. This, apparently began after attempts to prevent the dissemination of news about the financial difficulties of a bank in Iceland, which culminated in its bankruptcy.  And yes, of course, this correlates closely to what I predicted (in my novel EARTH (1989) would be THE core issue of the early 21st Century.  Accountability is the core ingredient of a successful modern , enlightened and free society.  It simply will not happen in a world of shadows.  Where this news stands out is simple: individual human beings have no current standing under international law.  They cannot sue or bring actions before world courts or institutions.  Nations have an absolute monopoly on “rights.”  Hence, the People are going to need a few nations who will stand up for them openly and radically.  (The US cannot be expected to do this.  It has other roles to play; it gets complicated.)  Go Iceland.

=== Looking Upward ===

The Seti Institute folks have a habit of taking ideas straight out of science fiction, dusting them off, claiming to have thought them up... then returning to the habit of bad-mouthing science fiction.  This is just another example.  

”Aliens may be thinking machines, alien AI….rather than our biological counterparts, says Seth Shostak; proposing that SETI should devote some of its search to areas where matter and energy would be plentiful, such as near hot, young stars or even near the centers of galaxies.”

Not that the idea is bad, in itself.  But, as the SETI Project completes its one scientific accomplishment... demonstrating the negative result of ZERO garish, friendly, blaring omnidirectional Tutorial Beacons... they are clearly looking for places to instead eavesdrop on advanced cultures.  A worthy goal that I wholly support.

But see where I deal with the notion of alien machines in many ways! In the story “Lungfish...” and in an article dissecting 13 reasons that aliens might lurk and visit our internet, without saying hello! 


=== More Science ===

The Age of Amateurs proven... as a fellow in Japan catches something smacking into Jupiter.

A new cosmology successfully (?) explains the accelerating expansion of the universe without dark energy; but only if the universe has no beginning and no end. 

A gallery of 30 laboratories where students can learn to implode buildings, analyze car crashes, take 3D images of molecules, clone animals, analyze bomb debris, design robots, rockets, or space habitats. Or go into the field to dive with jellyfish, study extremophiles in caves, track hurricanes or volcanoes, climb trees in the Amazon, or drill cores in Antarctica.

A graphical explanation of the movie Inception.

Ray Kurzweil claims we'll be able to reverse engineer the human brain within a decade. Others suggest that he does not understand the brain.

Ray responds.

Ah boys will be boys.

Truly amazing. The radioactive decay of some elements sitting quietly in laboratories on Earth seemed to be influenced by activities inside the sun, 93 million miles away.  Radioactivity rates are (it seems) affected by what might be neutrinos spun off by variations in nuclear reactions in the sun’s core. 

Futurama Writer Created And Proved A Brand New Math Theorem Just For an Episode.

Did the Copenhagen Suborbitals “Tycho” rocket go off?

A classic russian sci fi film. Well a lot of it seems to be a biopic about Tsiolkovsky (look him up!) You can follow a lot without understanding a word. 

Stanford University engineers have figured out that by coating a piece of semiconducting material with a thin layer of the metal cesium, it made the material able to use both light and heat to generate electricity, increasing cell efficiency.

=== From the Kurzweil collection ===

Called “photon enhanced thermionic emission,” or PETE, the process promises to surpass the efficiency of existing photovoltaic and thermal conversion technologies.

Every two days now we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until  2003, according to Google CEO Eric Schmidt — about five exabytes of data. He cautioned that just because companies like his can do all sorts of things with this information, the more pressing question now is if they should. Schmidt noted that while technology is neutral, he doesn’t believe people are ready for what’s coming. “I spend most of my time assuming the world is not ready for the technology revolution that will be happening to them soon,” Schmidt said.

Harvard University researchers have uncovered a mechanism through which caloric restriction and exercise delay some of the debilitating effects of aging by rejuvenating the connections between nerves and the muscles that they control. -- Ah but it is always about mice and flies and such.  I have explained before why these effects are unlikely to apply to humans! In fact, Ray Kurzweil’s wishful thinking notwithstanding, we have probably already flicked all the switches that caloric restriction sets off, in mice and flies and such.

A stretchy new fabric made by linking together fibronectin – the proteins found in muscle tissue — could provide a scaffold for growing new organs. It could also be used as a coating for bandages to help wounds heal quickly and with less scarring.

Iris scanning technology may create what it calls “the most secure city in the world.” In a partnership with Leon — one of the largest cities in Mexico, with a population of more than a million — GRI will fill the city with eye-scanners. That will help law enforcement revolutionize the way we live — not to mention marketers.  I’m skeptical.

More items: unlinked.

Walking at one’s own pace for 40 minutes three times a week can enhance the connectivity of important brain circuits, combat declines in brain function associated with aging, and increase performance on cognitive tasks, researchers have found.

=== A return to manufacturing? ===

Americans are 4% of the world's population and half of its military spending, and DARPA alone has a research budget of $3.2 billion.  Now DARPA is pushing “rapid prototyping” to a whole new level. Its iFAB Program aims to develop a "foundry-style manufacturing capability." By which they mean microchip foundries - the generic, build-any-chip-for-any-designer factories that churn out microchips for every application you can imagine. This will lead to open source construction of the Army’s next-generation armored combat vehicle!

If this sounds at all familiar, it's because companies like Local Motors are already trying to make this happen for everyday vehicles - custom design and custom manufacturing all made possible through what used to be called rapid prototyping and is now just making stuff in a big hurry.
The difference is that DARPA doesn't want to end up with just a bunch of kit cars - or in this case, kit tanks. DARPA wants to literally reinvent manufacturing - not just so they can build new vehicles more easily, but because they have a not-so-secret ambition to revive America's manufacturing base.

Not everyone agrees that this is kind of manufacturing is a realistic goal - DARPA has a history of bringing on science fiction authors and futurists to help it brainstorm new ideas, and it's possible they were a little too high on a particular article from Wired when they wrote this document. But that's the point of DARPA - they fund things that no one else would, and eventually, that technology trickles down to the civilian sector.

And now the kicker... I am scripting a comic book (!) right now, about the notion of a rebirth of American manufacturing!  More about that soon.

=== AND FINALLY ===

How many definitions of science fiction are there?

"Attempting to define science fiction is an undertaking almost as difficult, though not so popular, as trying to define pornography... In both pornography and SF, the problem lies in knowing exactly where to draw the line." — Arthur C. Clarke,

"Many people have tried to define science fiction. I like to call it the literature of exploration and change. While other genres obsess upon so-called eternal verities, SF deals with the possibility that our children may have different problems. They may, indeed, be different than we have been." — David Brin, Through Stranger Eyes

(Buy a copy today! ;-)

Science fictional stalkers, urgent transparency & science!

=== First, items related to sci fi! ===

See a vivid and clever animated tale about superstition and its consequences.  Note the copy of The Postman (in yellow) in the stack in front of the library near the beginning!

Just to show you how dangerous it is to be a World Famous author, first have another look at JK Rowling’s very best literary “stalker”... (brilliant stuff!)...

...and then (if you have a thick skin for bawdiness) gander at this video of appreciation dedicated to my pal Ray Bradbury. 

And yes, that is what the typical sci fi fan is like.  Especially my fans.
Right! ;-)

 === News From the transparency front ===

1)   Read this: Police Officers Don't Check their Civil Rights at the Station House Door.  Show it to friends. It is not about left or right... nor are the police being particularly vile.  Only human.  Nevertheless, this must nor be allowed to stand.

3) "Over-the-counter markets for derivatives have been a subject of blame for the global crisis. This column argues that the rising opacity and barriers to entry in these markets have been sorely overlooked leading to dark pools, flash trading, and front-running. These unfair practices can – at any time – cripple markets. They undermine the premise of free markets and should be stopped......Dark pools are a private or alternative trading system that allows participants to transact without displaying quotes publicly. Orders are anonymously matched and not reported to any entity, even the regulators (Younglai and Spicer 2009). Thus, the mainstream exchange-traded market does not have any clue about the volume of transactions happening in this parallel market or the prices at which they are being executed.

“Obviously, price discovery on the mainstream market, without dark pools information, becomes inefficient. Moreover, transactions carried out in dark pools effectively become over-the-counter in nature as the prices are not reported and financial risks not effectively managed. More critically, these risks can spread like wild fire as we saw in collateralised debt obligations and credit default swaps markets."

3) Falling Whistles is an organization is committed to raising awareness to the civil war underway in the Congo.  In this conflict, boys too small to carry a gun are forced to become “whistle blowers” and sent to the front lines of the war.  Facing death they are sent running toward the army as the first wave of attackers – armed with only their whistle. (Shudder!)

=== More Science! ===

See the editorial introducing Scientific American’s September issue about the many varied types of “doomsday” people are bruiting about. Of course, this relates to my novel-in-progress - EXISTENCE.

Are you an electronics wiz who wants a really far-out cool project?  According to a recent, important paper by Benford, Benford and Benford, the SETI Institute’s Allen Array - a lavishly funded radio telescope dedicated to sifting the cosmos for signs of intelligent life - is designed EXACTLY WRONG!  What is needed instead is a vast dispersal of 5,000 less sensitive backyard receivers, linked in a network that will look at all the sky, all the time... exactly as conceived in Project Argus!

And then... hydrogen gas flowing down through Titan's atmosphere disappears at the surface, suggesting it could be being breathed by alien bugs.  Also lack of acetylene on the surface, leading scientists to believe it may be being consumed by life. Scientists had expected sunlight interacting with chemicals in the atmosphere to produce acetylene that falls down to coat Titan's surface. But Cassini detected no acetylene there.

And a book that seems whimsically interesting. “In Packing for Mars, Roach tackles the strange science of space travel, and the psychology, technology, and politics that go into sending a crew into orbit. Roach is unfailingly inquisitive (Why is it impolite for astronauts to float upside down during conversations? Just how smelly does a spacecraft get after a two week mission?)”

==ANOTHER ITEM FOR THE PREDICTIONS REGISTRY?  ==

Compare this exciting scientific news story  - about the careful, layer-by-layer analysis of 650 million year old fossils - with my portrayal of a very similar process, in my story "Genji" which appeared in the collaborative science fiction collection MURASAKI, way back in 1992.

"The laser played across the cliff face in double waves.  First a gentle scan lit every millimeter of the sheer sedimentary surface, while widely spaced recording devices read its reflections, noting every microscopic contour and color variation.  Then, when that first scan was finished, the machine sent forth a much more powerful second beam, which seared away a thin layer wherever it touched.  Monitors now recorded glowing spectra from these vapors, taking down elemental compositions in minute detail.

"... What grew in the computer display was a slice by thin slice representation of the cliff. Each horizontal lamina layer had been laid down along this ancient coast long ago, when the vagaries of this slowly shifting archipelago pushed lapping tidal waters over the place where he now stood. Amid the slowly growing image in his holo screen lay speckles of bright color where the semi intelligent device discovered the outlines of fossils... the remains of dead Genjian creatures which had settled into the mud long ago, only to have their hard tissues replaced gradually by a process of mineralization and preservation quite similar to what occurred on Earth."

My friend, the late American space pioneer, Dr Robert L Forward, proposed that the orbit of a geostationary satellite could be pushed above -- or below -- the usual geostationary ring around the Earth, which follows the line of the equator, by using a large solar sail propelled by the pressure of sunlight. However, critics later claimed that such 'displaced orbits' were impossible due to the unusual dynamics of the problem. Now his idea has been proved.
...and finally...

=== Okay I was wrong ===

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who was forced to retire in July after an embarrassing Rolling Stone article quoted him and his staff making disparaging remarks about top White House Officials , is taking a job at Yale.  All right then, his lapse in judgement wasn’t deliberate - to win a retirement gig on Fox.  Instead, maybe it was simply human.  Ah well.  At least we do not make such men throw themselves on their swords.  Benefit of the doubt. It seems he was and is ... a useful person.

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PS... just returned (exhausted) from shepherding three teens through Paris and ... Rome in August.  No wonder those guys ventured forth to conquer Gaul!  (See details on my facebook page!)