Romney's "13%" solution

Mitt Willard Romney now informs us that he did pay taxes during the last ten years.

Thus he attempts to staunch - despite his own refusal to provide proof in the form of tax returns - the assertion of critics like Democratic senator Harry Reid that Romney paid no taxes at all, across some of that decade. “Every year, I’ve paid at least 13 percent,” Romney said, apparently referring to his effective federal income tax rate. 

Now let's do the unusual and actually parse it out. There are more aspects to all of this than you could shake a schtick at:

#1 First off -- please read between the lines.  In effect, Mitt Romney is only saying "for the years in question, I paid at least 13% on the final NET taxable income that appeared on line 43 of my form 1040." He said nothing about how large or small that final net taxable income was. Nor how much tax he actually paid.   All that his recent statement claims is that the amounts weren't zero, in years when he made between twenty and forty million dollars in gross income.

Consider, carefully. It's not 13% of his gross income, but of the final net taxable income after most income has been removed by shelters and dodges. Thirteen percent… on what was LEFT after sheltering most of it from ever appearing on line 43… and this should impress us?

In a Washington Post article, Ezra Klein lays this out carefully: '“Adjusted gross income” (AGI) is pretty close to what you think about when you think about income. “Taxable income” is what you’re left with after accounting for deductions like the home mortgage interest deduction.'  (Or the myriad other deductions and shelters available to the uber-rich.)

'Daniel Shaviro, a professor of tax policy at NYU, made the same point. “The key question here is 13.9 % of what. We know he paid zero tax at the capital gains rate in 2009, since he had loss carryovers for 2010.  So he may have had ridiculously low adjusted gross income (AGI), relative to his economic income for the year.”

Yes it is obscure... and yet important.  Let's hope the real lesson of all this comes across.

#2. Mitt Romney did provide 20 years of tax returns to John McCain, back in 2008, when he was being considered for the VP slot. If McCain deserved to see them at that time, as Romney's prospective 'boss,' then what are we? Chopped liver?  Aren't we the real bosses, deserving all information about the executive we're meant to hire? Similarly, Romney demanded tax returns from his prospective vice presidential candidates.

On this aspect, blogmunity member L. Lyons proposed: "Four years ago in the depths of the largest recession since the '30's John McCain and his campaign team vetted Mitt Romney as a potential VP candidate. Part of the vetting was to look at 20 years of IRS returns. Remember this was in 2008 with the economy nearly in freefall. They looked at Romney's tax returns, and chose Sarah Palin."

#3. In any event,  Mitt Romney knew he would face this issue in 2012. Indeed, he's been running for president for most of the last two decades.  And the GOP tradition held once again - that the nomination always goes (in order of priority) to (i) a sitting GOP president, (ii) a sitting GOP vice president, or - barring those being available - the fellow whose turn it is.  That is what has happened every single election year since 1960.  Barring situations (i) and (ii), the nominee the fellow who came in second for the nomination last time.

Hence, Mitt knew the nomination would likely fall in his lap in 2012 - as it has - so why did he not get ready, so that at least 4 years of tax records would be pristine and ready for public scrutiny?  Isn't the presidency worth sacrificing some tasty tax dodges? Given all that, if there are any embarrassments in those returns, what does that say about the intelligence and foresight of a man who is urging us to "make me commander in chief"?

Frankly, I'd prefer the notion of a Dan Rather Gotcha to the idea that we'd let anywhere near the presidency a man too stupid to clean up his finances before running for the top job.

#4.   Is Mitt simply delaying in order to get nominated, and then let whatever S#!^! hit the fan? Less than 2 weeks and counting, then at least he gets to be in history books, even if the party dumps him (unlikely) in October.  Ah, but follow that musing for a bit! Suppose six-term Congressman Paul Ryan inherited the top slot, simply because one man picked him for ticket-balancing reasons? What would that say about our crazy party system?

Heck, what does it say that a party would aim to vest full executive power over Pax Americana in a pair of men with zero foreign policy experience whatsoever and a combined total of less than twenty years in public office? And zero at a top national level?

#5. Going back to Harry Reid, the most senior Mormon official in the United States, who hopes to stay that way. I have one piece of advice for Reid that he should carefully consider. I suspect the possibility of a Dan Rather lure… Harry Reid has pounced on an apparent weakness (claiming a Bain investor told him that Romney paid no taxes for ten years.) But remember the Swift Boaters. Reid may have been fed a "reliable" rumor deliberately, in order to draw him onto a branch that could be cut  off.  You can be sure that tactic will be used at some point, even if it wasn't on this occasion. Double check your sources. And don't be too shocked if, suddenly, at an opportune moment, Mitt opens up a dozen tax returns and there's nothing noteworthy. I don't deem it likely, but it's better  than scenario #3 (above)..

And finally:  From the same article we offered in lead-off position, lower down. “We pay our taxes,” Ann Romney said. “We are absolutely — beyond paying our taxes, we also give 10 percent of our income to charity, so that you know, we have no issues that way and the only reason we don’t disclose any more is, you know, we just become a bigger target.”

Hm. As faithful and obedient Mormons, they are  obliged to tithe 10% of their income to their church.  It is pretty much automatic. That is the "charity" of which Mrs. Romney speaks… and it implies that this very very rich couple doesn't give hardly anything beyond that. Nothing at all to what the rest of us would call voluntary generosity.

What? I am hoping she rounded-down! But why would she?  Jumping jiminy, even the Koch brothers give something to acceptably rightist charitable causes.

In fact, let's withhold judgement as this is damnation on very slim evidence (then show us the returns!) But on the face of it, this sniffs like aristocrats who cannot be bothered to pay back or pay forward, lifting even a finger to help their nation, or to make a better world.

Sci-News, Sci-Fi News... and Brin-news!

I will be in Pasadena again this Thursday for a fun event before a live audience -- broadcast over NPR by KPCC FM:  NEXT: Our Inevitable Future | Science and Technology as Global Game Changers.

"Science and technology are converging to change the global game; and nowhere is that change more clear than in the words of scientist and futurist David Brin, one of our best science fiction writers, and the work of Paul Rosenbloom, a lead researcher on artificial intelligence. From Isaac Asimov to Brin's new novel, "Existence," science fiction has often looked at whether AI will outpace the human brain and lead us into a brave new world, or has it already? In this premiere edition of our series, “NEXT: People | Science | Tomorrow,“ Brin and Rosenbloom join host Mat Kaplan in the Crawford Family Forum to talk about our cyber future. Will humanity survive and even thrive when the Singularity arrives?"

Or else watch an interview with Terry Tazoli on Tacoma's PBS station, in an episode of "Well Read" about books and writing and such. The YouTube version is available worldwide!

== Special Editions of novels you'll want! ==

Have a look at the terrific new covers that Orbit is giving nine of my books... including EARTH and THE POSTMAN...plus two new omnibus volumes.  The collection UPLIFT will combine within one cover the entire original trilogy consistingof SUNDIVER, STARTIDE RISING and THE UPLIFT WAR ...

...while the new omnibus entitled EXILES will gather into a single volume BRIGHTNESS REEF, INFINITY'S SHORE and HEAVEN'S REACH, constituting what they always were... one terrific (though large) freestanding novel. filled with ideas and adventure.

All these re-issues (have a look at the cool covers) will accompany the imminent release of Orbit's new printing of EXISTENCE.

Like your version of a novel on audio?  The new edition of Existence by Audible uses three narrators to excellent effect, making this complex and tightly interleaved tale come alive with real drama.  Let me know what (some of you) think of it!

== Other News -- and Interviews ==

On Haystack Broadcasting's show Cover to Cover: Book Beat, Rodger Nichols speaks with Author David Brin about his new book, Existence.  See also the podcast of my interview with GeekWired on WIRED Online: Why David Brin Hates Yoda, and Loves Radical Transparency. (This is the one where I infamously challenge Yoda-lovers to name ONE time when the horrid little toad ever was helpful to anyone or did or said one thing that was un-ambiguously "wise.")

Then there's a separate, more sober interview with Frank Catalano for Geekwire.  Here's a tantalyzing excerpt. "It may surprise you that I, the Hard-SF Guy, believe there’s magic. But let’s define it as the use of incantations to create vivid subjective realities in other people’s heads. That’s what most magic has always been. The shaman might not really be able to make it rain. But if his shtick was good, he would get fed! By that light, we authors, especially in science fiction, are the greatest and most consistent magicians. We concoct long incantations — chains of spaces and black squiggles (a million of them in Existence) — and skilled recipients of the spell (well-educated readers) proceed to scan those squiggles with their eyes, decrypting them swiftly into clever dialogue, deep emotions and insight, or star-spanning explosions. This partnership of spell-weaver and incantation-user is stunning, and remains far more effective for the full-rich texture of invented worlds than any competing medium." 

See the stunning artwork by Manny Lorenzo based on my Earthclan omnibus of the Uplift Series -- both striking and inspiring. Have a look at the original. 

== Heart of the Comet ... and Glory Season ==

You've heard that Gregory Benford and I updated and re-released Heart of the Comet -- named one of the great Hard SF novels of the 1980s. But have you seen the remarkably beautiful  preview -trailer?

And while we're at it... take a look at the preview-trailer for Glory Season!

Here's your chance for a virtual visit to the world's largest, publicly-accessible science fiction and fantasy collection, the Eaton Collection at UC Riverside. The new YouTube series "It Came from Riverside,"  explores some of the treasures inside this virtual temple of science fiction, and explores the growing acceptance of SF as a field of academic study. Well... it gets you started down that road.  Consider seeing the collection in person as part of the Eaton Conference on SF at literature, April 11-14 2013 at UC Riverside.

=== More Science and Fiction Connections! ===

Universal Kilns, anyone? Imagine a futuristic simulation system that can morph nearly any object imagined into another object with different size, shape, color and function.  The building units that make this amazing system possible include tiny micro robots called claytronic atoms, or 'catoms', which interact with each other. They behave like atoms in the sense that they become the basic building blocks of the objects they are programmed to form.

Okay... this sounded familiar... and not just because of the "claytronics" in my novel Kiln People.  Between the lines I realized... then saw in the article... that this is a new term for "programmable matter"... the innovation of my friend and engineer-Scifi author Wil McCarthy.  Ah but the overlaps get better.

"However, the biggest advantage in claytronics may lie in communications. People on both ends of a phone call could be copied; and these copies would mimic the exact looks and movements of the person being replicated. At each end of the line, a real person is interacting with a replica. Think Skype; but instead of viewing each other on a screen, you can touch, kiss, or hug, as if you are physically together. When can we expect these futuristic systems to begin enriching our lives?

Wil McCarthy believes that with Moore's Law accelerating progress, these claytronic wonders could be intriguing us by decade's end."  Hmph and they call ME a sci fi writer?  ;-)

=== Personhood Rights for Animals? ===

As an author who has portrayed (very positively) the descendants of animals joining our civilization as equal citizens, you might expect me to be fully behind the nascent Animal Rights Movement.  But life is filled with ironies and complications and - as I portray in Existence, the path to full citizenship for neo-dolphins and neo-chimps and others may not pass through the Nonhuman Rights Project elucidated in a recent legal argument by Steven M. Wise. Indeed, while I agree with many of the things that he says, I find his overall plan to be rather shortsighted and too focused on the near term.  An example of how the left can take our worthy modern inclusionary trends and push them too simplistically, too fetishistically. (While the right considers inclusionary progress to be suspect or delusional; both extremes are foolish.)

People who believe they are taking a larger perspective and Big Picture sometimes fool themselves.  All too often... they aren't.

== And finally...

Yes, I've been talking about sci fi a fair amount.  Maybe to recharge my batteries for a month or two in which that dread term ... politics... will feature more prominently here, for a while.  Sigh and alack!  But it's important.

As demonstrated by the recent Mars landing, America still matters.  It will be better for the world and all its people if we can put an end to the insane Third Phase of the American Civil War.  And it won't be decided by normal politics, folks.  Not by the usual squeaker-slim majority.

It will have to be a rout.

Existence...in Review

Forgive a break from science and politics and transparency and such... to do a little horn tooting.  But the reviews have been coming in. And here are some epic testimonials for you folks who have been fence-siting about whether it's worth  $16 -- the best per-hour entertainment value around -- to plunk for a hardcover copy of Existence.

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"I would consider Existence to be a triumphant, epic Science Fiction novel on many levels. It stayed with me after I set it aside for the day, continues to simmer in my mind now that I’ve finished reading it, and has opened up a gateway to Brin’s novels I’d wanted to enter for a while.  

Brin achieved an excellent gestalt of character, big ideas, and narrative energy. Existence is my top SF novel of 2012 and I recommend it without hesitation."  --  Review from SFF.net.

---

The stunning trailer by Patrick Farley

"Science fiction is as much a literature of the moment as it is of the future. This book, then, is both a warning and an encouragement: a novel that engages with the world we're building and tries to show us a way to become a mature civilisation rather than a raggle-taggle band of individuals. Technology has libertarian roots, but in the end we build the tools that construct a civil society. In Existence Brin shows us the world our technology is building, and then poses one of the biggest questions: what is it all for?

"What we're left with in Existence is one of those rare SF novels that needs to be on every technologist's desk, alongside John Brunner's Shockwave Rider, Vernor Vinge's Rainbows End, Charles Stross's Rule 34, and Brin's own Earth. 

We may not be able to see our future, but in Existence we get a picture of a possible — even a plausible — tomorrow." --  Simon Bisson on ZDNet.

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"Existence is a book that makes you think deeply about both the future and life's most important issues.  I found it fascinating and I could not put it down."  
                --  Temple Grandin, author of Thinking in Pictures.

"This is a book which managed to far exceed my already high expectations. It's smart, it's fun, and I'm afraid it's also terribly important." 
                  -- Howard Tayler (Schlock Mercenary).

---

"(Existence is) all about the chaos and passion of adolescence — the designs we make for our lives when we're young, before unforeseeable events send us spinning into strange new orbits.... It also proposes that the best way to confront these answers is deeply human: to be creative, diverse, compromising, curious. That to reach Heaven — or something like it — requires that we look beyond ourselves, beyond humanity (all six species of it), and into the universe beyond."
                --George Dvorsky in io9

---

“Is there such a thing as "The Great American Science Fiction Novel"? ... (It) would be an ambitious, panoramic, macroscopic, and microscopic portrait concerning a speculative future that was near enough to the date of composition to allow for an assessment of its probability and extrapolative verisimilitude… the Great SF Novel remained an elusive beast, with some doubts even as to its desirability.

"But admirers of this type of novel -- and I'm one -- can take renewed hope with the appearance of David Brin's Existence. It's an overt claimant to the Zanzibar throne, and a worthy one, Version 2.0 of his similar performance in 1990's Earth.” 

"Brin deliberately fudges the exact date of his novel's action, as if to preserve it from becoming outdated. Let's just call it mid-twenty-first-century. But that's the only nebulous part of this immaculately conceived and rendered book, massive and dense but somehow light-footed as well." 
-- Paul De Filippo, Barnes and Noble Review

---

"Brin tackles a plethora of cutting-edge concepts — such as the Fermi paradox, the ascent of artificial intelligence, and the evolution of technologically enhanced humanity — with the skill of a visionary futurologist, and while his extended cast of characters is set up to articulate ideas, they come to life as distinct individuals. If he does resort to long info-dumps, it's necessary in order to convey the depth and breadth of his startling future. 

Existence is Brin's first novel in 10 years, and it's been well worth the wait." --The Guardian.

----

"Featuring memorable characters and masterly storytelling, Brin's latest novel provides food for thought and entertainment. Fans of Vernor Vinge and Arthur C. Clarke, as well as Brin's own sizable fan base, will enjoy this multidimensional story." 
     -- Library Journal starred review.

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"It's not just the near future that is in focus here but the whole timeline of existence, its image refracted through the lens of human civilization." -- online review.

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"Brin's thoughtful, multilayered story explores a first contact scenario where every twist reveals greater peril. His longtime fans will especially appreciate that this story could be read as a prequel to 1983's Startide Rising, while those not familiar with his work will find it an impressive introduction to one of SF's major talents." 
           --Publisher's Weekly starred Pick of the Week.

---

"Whodunits are a sure thing in publishing — just about everyone loves a good mystery — but Brin's multifaceted novel proves that another question resonates just as powerfully with most people: Are we alone in the universe?"  
        -- The Los Angeles Times.

---

Finally, watch the vivid trailer by Patrick Farley, sample the excerpts on my website, or listen to the audio version from Audible.

Human Evolution: Speeding? Splitting? Borging?... and a dozen Olympics?

A number of recent web-notables all seem to revolve (eccentrically) around the question of human evolution.  Whether it continues. Whether there is such a thing as "selection in groups." Whether our technological (cyborg) augmentations and/or increasing numbers of "non-neuro-typical" society members portend a new splitting of human destiny. And it looks as if I should have set Existence just five years in the future, instead of 35!

For starters, see a short futuristic film by Eran May-raz and Daniel Lazo about the "game-ification" of everything. They reveal a near future world very much like the one illustrated in my new novel, a very close tomorrow when you'll overlay reality with meta-information...

...only, instead of using it to solve problems or join "smart mobs" as I depict in a focused drama... some folks will apply such tech in different ways, turning every act, even cooking an egg, into an opportunity for "point-scoring."   Both cool and kinda chilling, it's a thought-provoking little film. These challenges to human wisdom and coping ability will continue piling up.

Anodyne for Anecdotes:  Need a counter-riff to volley back at your friends who gullibly send you forwarded nonsense via email or social media? Disinformation, rumors, assertions and "anecdotes" that are easily disproved? (One end of the American political spectrum now uses only assertions, allegories and anecdotes and has achieved the miracle of becoming nearly 100% fact free. The other political wing seems to be constantly toying with the temptation to follow suit -- heaven help us if/when they do!)  

For a tonic, send your "FWD: emailers" this cogent essay, Dissing the Disinformation, about the ancient, gracious and adult art of fact-checking in this modern era.  Will it accomplish anything?  Yes!  The idiots won't read it or learn anything or stop FWD-spamming their friends with nonsense.  But they will take you off their "FWD: list."

Apparently we are speciating, folks, between those of us still capable of prefrontal lobe usage and Homo gullibilitus.  

And if you believe that...

...see a fascinating - if challenging - discourse by the eminent scholar Steven Pinker about the fallacies of most notions of "group selection" in evolution theory. I don't agree with him on all counts, but it is a feast of clear thinking.

But nature follows many paths. One of the themes in Existence, explicitly stated by several characters, is the question of speedups in human evolution. It might be argued that one of these happened about 35,000 years ago, when suddenly Homo sapiens began drawing cave art, burying their dead and expanded their tool sets by more than ten-fold. I contend similar changes happened with the introduction of beer, and then towns, and the Renaissance-Enlightenment. My new novel attempts to explore this concept from many angles, both pro and con.

And it seems I am not the only one. In this TED talk, Will our kids be a different species? Juan Enriquez sweeps across time and space to bring us to the present moment — and shows how technology is revealing evidence that suggests rapid evolution may be under way.

Speaking of (sub) speciation:  During the nine years it took for me to write Existence, I grew increasingly convinced that the phenomenon of "autistic spectrum" - ranging from deep autism to Aspergers to simply way-nerdy - would become ever-more significant in future years.  Not only because the spectrum appears to be manifesting more often (some call it a "plague"), but also as technologies enable folks who were once isolated and victimized to connect with one another, form interest groups, alliances, pool resources and match skills.  I portray this becoming a powerful force by the year 2050...

...and now it appears that others agree.  Steve Silberman, a longtime contributing editor at Wired will soon be publishing a book, Neurotribes: Thinking Smarter About People Who Think Differently, which argues that non-neurotypicals will play an ever-growing role in society.  See a fascinating article about this at io9: How Autism is changing the world for everyone. io9 is increasingly the go-to site for all things future and science-fictional.

=== Diverging Humanity: Olympics Edition! ===

With the start of the Olympics, one may ask: Will Athletes ever stop breaking new records? Or will they continue to grow stronger, better, faster...as we approach the biomechanical limits of the human body.  Niven and Barnes portrayed one possibility in Achilles' Choice... that beefed up and drug-accelerated and e-hypered athletes would be given their own, separate olympics in which they could burn themselves out achieving short lives but glorious ones.

In contrast, Daniel Wilson's Amped shows a near future wherein a frightened public over-reacts and legislates against those who get "amplified" with implants. What has already happened?  The Special Olympics offers a venue for the disabled to show off how hard they have developed... "despite."  

Meanwhile, some regular folks are terrified of double amputees who are doing amazing things with those "sproing" legs.  See Aimee Mullins in her amazing TED talk "My twelve sets of legs."

My expectation?  It will be a case of "all of the above." Arguments over where to draw the lines between these groups.  But not much of a fight over whether there should be venues for all of them!  Including... ironically, a new Olympics level that will return to the roots, and be severely drug-tested and rigorously vetted, so that it is only for... amateurs.

Very interesting... and scary:  Can Neuroscience Cure Gaming's Gun Obsession? One researcher wants to use MRI machines to watch video game players and explore how developers can exploit the human brain’s dopamine pleasure-reward circuitry to hook players, and suggests that game developers would not want to light up the striatum constantly in some kind of sensory overload, but believes games could be developed to target players’ emotions with scientific accuracy. Read the article by Lee Hall.

=== Science potpourri ===

Remember that scene in Minority Report when the spider robots stalk Tom Cruise to his apartment and scan his iris to identify him? Things could have turned out so much better for Cruise had he been wearing a pair of contact lenses embossed with an image of someone else’s iris. Reverse-engineered irises look so real, they fool eye-scanners. And no I never believed in iris scanning.  There are so many more reliable bio markers.

Activities that we are engaged in for the first few minutes after learning new information really affect how well we remember this information after a week. Maybe all you really need to do to cement new learning is to sit and close your eyes for a few minutes.

Researchers from UCLA and California NanoSystems Institute have developed a new transparent solar cell, giving windows in homes and other buildings the ability to generate electricity. This new kind of polymer solar cell (PSC) produces energy by absorbing more near-infrared light but is less sensitive to visible light, making the cells nearly 70% transparent to the human eye.

Aerographite: world's lightest material 75 times lighter than styrofoam. Electrical conductor also.

Ford's new 3-cylinder EcoBurst Engine could challenge hybrids.  

=== And Finally ... ===

Supplement ANY of your classes with videos from Khan Academy... see this.  Seriously guys, it's free and cool and with-it...and potentially uplifting.

Philosophical ponderings of the nature of time... made funny.

Renaming Killers -- the idea spreads

Folks have been writing in, ever since I posted the latest version of my "Names of Infamy" essay.  In fact, during just the last few days there has been a noticeable media swell - - a growing movement not to mention the name of the Aurora/Batman shooter.

As reported by Molly Hennesy-Fiske of the Los Angeles Times:  "Jordan Ghawi, 26, of San Antonio became frustrated by how much of news coverage focused on the 24-year-old Holmes. 'Let us remember the names of the victims and not the name of the coward who committed this act,' Ghawi tweeted Friday afternoon. The tweet went viral. When some Twitter followers noticed Holmes' name trending on Twitter - something Ghawi said bothered his mother - they started a campaign to promote (a victim's) name instead."

On Sunday, Mr. Ghawi made his pitch directly to President Obama, who chose not to mention the shooter by name, in his public remarks.

Not a new idea, this worthy notion goes back to the last century, even long before I proposed it publicly in Salon Magazine (1999), describing the "Herostratos Effect" in which ancient peoples would sometimes expunge the names of those committing heinous crimes.

The pros and cons and means of doing this in a modern context, while preserving full memory, accountability and freedom of speech, lead to some interesting possibilities.

Although my most recent posted version of the Herostratos essay led to some radio time,  I imagine Mr. Ghawi and the others thought of this notion independently -- and more power to them! Good ideas sometimes take time, before finally gaining traction.

Still,  the intellectual/historical side of things may be of interest, if this idea is to build momentum and become a factor in solving a terrible human problem.

=== The absurd nostrums on "gun control" ==

My "names of infamy" proposal is actually quite separate from another matter -- the endless tussle over gun control.

And yet, the two topics inevitably get conflated at a time like this. At least, they were in a flood of emails, comments and assertions on facebook, twitter and this web log, proclaiming that "this sort of thing brings out  hordes of liberals campaigning to eliminate the Second Amendment and gun owner rights."

Speaking as a Smithian libertarian, but one who finds liberals worthy to talk-to, may I respond with a simple request? Will someone please show me this campaign?  Point to specific bills, or sustained efforts, even solidly backed proposals with even a slight chance of enactment.

They don't exist.  And this simple little cartoon from Tom Tomorrow sums it up neatly.

Only one serious gun control notion is getting even tepid mention: to restore the requirement that people get checked out and licensed before blithely purchasing full-on assault rifles with mega-sized magazines.  The very law that would have prevented the Aurora shooter-nut from easily acquiring his means to spray mass death.

That rule was passed, way back in the sane 20th Century, by an old thing called negotiated consensus between sober democratic and republican leaders... a pragmatic measure that led to no "slippery slope," nor any decay in reasonable gun-owner rights. Alas, it was flushed away by the later, crazier breed controlling Congress in 2005.

Now before you call me a lefty nut, please pause for perspective: those who denounced the assault gun licensing requirement  -- and who howl now against its restoration -- seem to have no problem with the ongoing, 70 year old rule against private ownership of full-scale machine guns. So then, it's just a matter of where you choose to draw lines, right?

See my essay, The Jefferson Rifle: Guns and the Insurrection Myth.

Raising this question: when one whacko can kill or wound 72 people in a couple of minutes, so quickly that no brave bystander gets a chance to tackle him, isn't that a "machine gun" style situation? Can you contemplate that maybe - just maybe - your line-in-the-sand may have been drawn just a tad too far? Is it possible to rediscover the sane art of pragmatic compromise, without fainting away or screeching in dread of a Slippery Slope?

I have shown a possible national compromise that would be a win-win... actually strengthening the constitutional guarantees of basic, essential gun ownership, while at the same time allowing pragmatic measures to be taken that reduce some of the worst calamities... all without a slippery slope.  (That is, I have shown it to the half dozen people who still have both curiosity and the patience to read careful arguments. If you choose not to actually read that proposal, please don't gush forth generalized comments here, about what you presume it to be.)

Anyway, it's all much, much simpler than that.

The Slippery Slope does not exist. Not anymore.  It's a fantasy. And I can prove it.

The fact is - and, again let me remind you that I say this not as a "liberal" but as a Heinleinian-Smithian Libertarian - the right seems completely unaware of a seismic shift that happened under G.W. Bush --

-- when many liberals started arming themselves.

Yes, they are. As is their perfect right.

Now tell that to your crazy uncle and watch multiple expressions pass across his face, as it sinks in.

The First Synthetic Organism: Our Victor Frankenstein Moment?

Remember where you were when you heard or read about this. It’s important.  

In a breakthrough effort for computational biology, the world's first complete computer model of an organism has been completed, Stanford researchers reported last week in the journal Cell. A team used data from more than 900 scientific papers to account for every molecular interaction that takes place in the life cycle of Mycoplasma genitalium, the world's smallest free-living bacterium.

Why is this a whole lot more than your run of the mill bioscience breakthrough?  Until now, knowing the ways and means of a bazillion sub-reactions and gears and wheels did not combine into a clear model of a whole organism. This is a true Frankenstein moment... in the best meaning of the term!  In that before, all we had were countless non-living pieces on the work bench.

Now... we know how to put them together.  Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha.

No, seriously.  Bwa-haha.

Biologist Craig Venter -- first to sequence the human genome -- has also been at the forefront of this quest to create synthetic life. See his TED Talk: On the Verge of Creating Artificial Life. In his book, Life at the Speed of Light: From the Double Helix to the Dawn of Digital Life, Venter explores these issues -- the challenges and controversies we will face as we head toward biological engineering of genes - and creating digital lifeforms….

Indeed, scientists are now working to create the first digital life form -- by peering into the code of life. OpenWorm is an open source computer simulation aimed at creating a virtual roundworm -- the caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegant), a microscopic nematode. This simulation will encompass every single neuron in the worm, and every connection between neurons.  The result? Watching worm behavior emerge from the data simulation.

In related news: Caltech researchers have created an artificial jellyfish from rat cells and sheets of silicone polymer. It can mimic the swimming motion of natural jellyfish via electrical stimulation which causes rapid contraction of the rat heart muscle cells.

"A powerful demonstration of engineering chimaeric systems of living and non-living components," says Joseph Vacanti of Massachusetts General Hospital. The team hopes to reverse-engineer other marine lifeforms.

Along those lines, take a look at Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves, by George M. Church and Ed Regis -- a look at how scientists will selectively alter the genomes of living organisms to…increase longevity, cure disease or …. even bring back extinct species.


==Science forges on! (Now to get politics to come along)==

Do you wish it were possible to transform American politics enough to calm down the "war on science" and transform it - instead - into a debate about science?

That's one goal of the good folks at Science Debate, who urge that matters of science and technology and the future be put on the agenda of candidates for high office, especially during the looming presidential debates. If we could get just one evening when the focus would be on the very forces -- from energy to innovation, climate change to the internet --  that drive change and propel so many challenges? Front and center? Exposing the intelligent cogency - or lack - in the men seeking to guide us into uncharted waters?  Please visit the site. Even better, sign the petition and viral it.

Barring that brilliant - but alas, unlikely, event - the folks at ScienceDebate.org have polled dozens of top scientific groups to come up with The Top American Science Questions in 2012 -- the most important science policy issues facing the United States.  Whatever your affiliation, this year do spend the time to look them over and then do send them on to your local candidates for Congress and assembly and so on.

Try it.  Then note who actually bothers to answer.

==On the Transparency Front==

BikeCams: Cyclists have long had a rocky coexistence with motorists and pedestrians.  Now some cyclists are wearing helmet-mounted cameras to record their encounters, exactly as portrayed in The Transparent Society.

From baby monitors to closed circuit television, 2.4 GHz video transmitters are in many consumer products these days. And yet, most owners of these video devices don't realize they're transmitting an unencrypted video signal that can be picked up by anyone.

See how one activist is offering these feeds on lamp post boxes to increase public awareness... in stunning correlation with scenes in my new novel EXISTENCE.  In a project, From Surveillance to Broadcast, Benjamin Gaulon has posted boxes on street corners, recording video feed that can be accessed, to increase public awareness of the capabilities of this technology.

No more hiding behind anonymity? YouTube is fighting against idiotic and often nasty/racist/sexist commenters by calling for full names when you upload or comment on videos.  We seem to be caught between a rock and a hard place.  Anonymity protects free speech... and unleashes the most vicious instincts from truly awful people.  Is there any way we could get to hold onto some accountability and feedback loops that encourage maturity and decency... while still keeping the most important benefits of anonymity?  (As it happens, I have a way, and someone could make millions while solving the problem...)

=== A Miscellany of Science News ===

Two shock waves in space, intersecting, might create a “regularity singularity” - interesting general relativity.

The National Ignition Facility completed a 500 terrawatt laser fusion shot. Wow.

Move to Kansas City right now!  Google announced plans to build the gigabit network back in February of 2010 and thousands of municipalities competed to be the future home of the planned network. In March, it selected Kansas City as the first  test of a network running fiber-optic cables directly to homes, and delivering Internet speeds roughly 100 times faster than the national broadband average. Watch for details next week.  (In Existence I briefly describe a completely unused, potentially fecund "right of way" into nearly every home!)

Watch an impressive and inspiring film about cetaceans and research into whales - with unbelievable photography - by Fabrice Schnoller and a team of French researchers.

Yes... science marches on.  Let's stay worthy of it.

GeekWire asks David Brin about the World of Tomorrow…

Journalist-author and entrepreneur Frank Catalano took advantage of my book tour for Existence, in order to pin me down with questions about everything from sci fi to human destiny, in this interview that first appeared on Geekwire.

Frank Catalano (FC): What is right with Science Fiction Today?

David Brin (DB):  Science Fiction has so flooded into popular culture and beyond that it's becoming a staple of discussion in politics and philosophy and daily life.  The New Yorker just ran a "science fiction issue" featuring works by some of our literary lights... a few of whom spent decades denying they ever wrote SF. People appear to have realized, at last, that we're in the 21st Century.  Time to buy that silvery spandex outfit, I guess.

Another good thing, the sheer number of brilliant young writers coming down the pike. Michael Chabon, Charles Yu, Paolo Bacigalupi, Mary Kowal, Daniel Wilson, Kay Kenyon.... and dozens more. They can turn a phrase with the best in any genre, any era, and there are so many of them!  Liberated by new technology to explore innovative storytelling methods, like novels with embedded media or animated storyboards... zowee!

FC: What is wrong with science fiction today?

DB: Too many authors and film-makers buy into the playground notion that cynicism is somehow chic and knowing.  So many 50 or 80 year-old cliches are rampant -- e.g. "hey look, I invented suspicion of authority!" -- while nostalgia pushes aside what used to be our genre's golden notion. That we in this civilization might find ways to improve, to solve problems, to become better than we were.  A difficult project, fraught with many pitfalls. But too many portray it now as hopeless.

How pathetic! That beneficiaries of relentless progress should repay that debt by casting doubt on the very possibility?  And lest you mistake this for political, I see the habit spewing from both ends of the hoary, lobotomizing so-called "left-right axis." My late, lamented friend Ray Bradbury called this fetish the very lowest form of ingratitude.

Not that all SF has to be pollyanna sunny or tech-praising-pulp!  Ray plumbed the darkest depths of the human soul, in tales that could freeze your heart.  So?  He considered fantasy chills and terrifying sci fi what-ifs to be part of the process, exploring our dark corners and failure modes, always aiming to achieve effective warnings.  Self-preventing prophecies.

Some of us are rebelling. Neal Stephenson, Kim Stanley Robinson, Greg Bear and others have been laying down a challenge to our peers. If you think we have problems, expose them!  But spare a little effort to suggesting solutions. Or stoking others with belief that we can.

FC: Does the ascendence -- and some would say replacement -- of literary science fiction by multi-sensory media worry you? Editor H.L. Gold, as I recall, once famously said, "the Golden Age of science fiction is 14." Is this still true in an age of 3D movies, realistic CGI even on TV shows, and immersive video games with science fiction storylines and settings?

DB: Good question.  Certainly when it comes to mass media, I can grumble about the immaturity, the cliches, the shallow idea space and the relentless cowardice of sequel-remake-reboot-itis. Whenever I see a new film I deliberately tune down several "dials" in my mind -- critical faculties associated with logic, plotting, science... -- just so I can retain some ability to enjoy a flick in the spirit it's offered.  (Anyway, that helps to keep both my wife and daughter from strangling me, during the show!) And yes, sometimes I get the dials tuned right, though I do resent having to do it.

But we're at the dawn of a new era.  In today's Hollywood, writers are the lowest form of life.  But that will change when a small team - writer-led -- can create a rough, animated storyboard of a film, fully 90 minutes long with spoken dialogue and music, that can gain a web following long before any studio sees it. This new, intermediate art form will change everything and shift the center of power over to story.

FC: What will literary science fiction -- paper or digital -- do best compared to other media forms of science fiction?

DB: Look, it may surprise you that I, the Hard SF Guy, believe there's magic.  But let's define it as the use of incantations to create vivid subjective realities in other peoples' heads.  That's what most magic has always been. The shaman might not really be able to make it rain.  But if his schtick was good, he would get fed!

By that light, we authors, especially in science fiction, are the greatest and most consistent, industrial-grade magicians. We concoct long incantations -- chains of spaces and black squiggles (a million of them in Existence) -- and skilled recipients of the spell (well-educated readers) proceed to scan those squiggles with their eyes, decrypting them swiftly into clever dialogue, deep emotions and insight,  unexpected ideas or star-spanning explosions. This partnership of spell-weaver and incantation-user is stunning, and remains far more effective for the full, rich texture of book-rooted invented worlds - where the recipient of the spell has to invest some energy and imagination - than any competing medium.

FC: You've occasionally dipped your pen into non-fiction, including 1998's The Transparent Society (winner of the American Library Association's Freedom of Speech Award) which seems oddly prescient in  time of privacy leaks and, some would say, sloppy privacy boundries both on the part of companies (Facebook) and individuals. Back then, you effectively said that openness, or letting everyone see the cards each other are holding that could be played on the other -- be they corporate, government or individual -- was the best policy when it came to organization's collecting and hoarding of private information. In the more than a dozen years that have passed, do you still maintain that? Or has your position, well, evolved in light of recent web social media events?

DB: Across at least 6000 years, nearly every civilization stuttered with barely perceptible progress and dismal statecraft.  The Enlightenment's chief tool in changing all that has been a suite of "arenas" in which we can compete, make fresh alliances, buy, sell, argue or negotiate without blood on the floor.  These arenas are democracy, science, markets and justice courts.  And here's the thing.  All four work best when most of the participants know most of what's going on, most of the time, and make good decisions accordingly.  All four enlightenment arenas wither and sicken and die, when denied light.

Dig it, in The Transparent Society I am no radical! I accept that some secrecy is necessary and avow that human beings have an intrinsic need for some privacy.  But here's the irony.  We'll be far more likely to be able to defend some privacy if we all can see! (Thus catching the peeing toms and would-be Big Brothers.) The term is "sousveillance." Look it up!

Oh, while we're at it. Also look up the concept of the "positive sum game."

FC: Many in technology used to say they were heavily influenced by science fiction -- both the literature and, famously, the first television series to treat literate science fiction seriously, Star Trek. Lately, though, tech startups seem to cite their primary influence as other technologists, such as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Does this show a lack of imagination? Or a lack of good science fiction? Or something else?

DB: Well, once some kids started making billions while turning sf'nal ideas real, who do you think will be the role models?  I just hope those billionaires remember to re-prime the well. There are scores of ways to do it.

FC: Plug time. Since we're talking around Hollywood, if you had to give a high-concept pitch for Existence in a phrase, what would it be?

DB: It's 2050.  People have been smart and solved some problems... but there's a minefield of threats and dangers ahead! At which point a message in a bottle washes on our shore, with an offer and a warning: JOIN US.

Of course, what I'd really do is refer producers to the vivid, three-minute preview/trailer for the book, with gorgeous hand-painted images by the great web artist Patrick Farley. (Yes, books now have trailers; I told you times are a-changing!) tinyurl.com/exist-trailer

FC: What is, or should, the role of science fiction be in inspiring students in STEM or other science-related disciplines, beyond entertainment?

DB: Not all SF or fantasy has to inspire new scientists and engineers. But it's good to know that kids are still reading the challenging stuff.  The tales filled with adeventure and personal drama... but also lots and lots and ideas.

FC: What one thing excites you in science today that even most geeks may not be aware of?

DB: What? And give away my best new story notions before I can write 'em? I was jazzed to learn of Planetary Resources, the new company with deep pockets, aiming to mine asteroids and make us all so rich we can transform Earth into a park.

It turns out that Europa and Enceledus may not be the only ice-covered moons with buried seas. The solar system may contain dozens!

And did you know that mammals have an inherent ability to regrow body parts and limbs? We appear to have abandoned it many many millions of years ago, but docs are learning how to insert the missing gears and crank that old machinery, wow.

Do you doubt I could go on and on? I can.  And  can you imagine that there are those who aren't excited by the possibilities? Or determined to stay alert to dangers, and eager to help progress? Can you believe you're a member of the same species as...  but well, by now those folks aren't reading this interview anymore.

FC: What one writer is writing in science fiction today, aside from you, that you consider a must-read for solid yet accessible scientific extrapolation?

DB: Well I already mentioned some of the young whipper snappers. A great hard SF guy? Vernor Vinge in Rainbow's End. Though I find Stephen Baxter and Rob Sawyer to be right up there.  Geoff Landis gets the science right.  Three English majors, Nancy Kress, Kim Stanley Robinson and Greg Bear, have an uncanny knack, as do writers like...
But you asked for just one.  I'll stop at seven, but attach some recommended reading list links.

Now let's cross that minefield.