----- Original Message -----
From: "d.brin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, September 24, 2001 5:48 PM
Subject: Brin TV appearance & other news
>
>
> Just a quick note to friends out there wishing you all well and hoping
that
> you've all come through recent events unscathed.
>
> Also, it's time for a news update. (Would someone please pass this on to
> the Brin-L list? Tell them that I miss the gang and hope to return
> someday.)
>
> First news - I'll be on TV again soon, talking about the future in a BBC
> production. The show will air as HyperSpace in the US on TLC. SUNDAY,
> OCTOBER 7 from 8:00 p.m. - 11:00 p.m. Repeats the following FRIDAY from
> 8:00 p.m. I appear in the segment called "Destiny" with a cool sunset
> going on in the background...
>
> Of course this was filmed long before recent events put the world
topsy-turvy.
>
> As for those recent events, I won't pretend to have answers - well, not
all
> of them - but my own form of catharsis from the shock and pain was to
> scribble a rambling set of observations and questions that can be viewed
at
> http://www.futurist.com/911/notes_about_calamity.htm I'll add some
further
> thoughts below in an afterword.
>
> COMING EVENTS:
> Purdue University October 8
> Windycon - Chicago (Schaumberg) November 9-11
> Further Confusion - San Mateo CA - January 24
>
>
> OTHER BRIN NEWS:
>
> The title of my new novel - the most original thing I've done in years -
is
> KILN PEOPLE. (To be published by TOR in January.) Take the notion of
golems
> - temporary clay people (not clones). Using a "home copier" you ditto
your
> memories and a genuine imprint of your soul, then at day's end you
download
> the golem's memories. As a citizen of this future, you've done this a
> zillion times and take it for granted. You live your life in parallel,
> sending expensive "study golems" to the library while cheap models clean
> the house and your real body works out at the gym. 2/3 of the population
> is clay, has no rights, and doesn't think it's unfair....
> Huge fun. Bad puns like psycho-ceramics. Golem blanks come in
> ceram-wrap. Get it? ;-)
> Tor Books has done a great cover featuring art by Jim Burns. In stores
> in time for New Years, we hope.
>
> In October look for "Forgiveness" -- a 90 page hardcover Star Trek graphic
> novel (a posh word for a high-class comic!) based on a story I first
> envisioned in the 1960s! And another hardcover graphic novel THE LIFE
> EATERS will appear in 2002.
>
> Also watch for the ILLUSTRATED GUIDE TO ALIENS IN DAVID BRIN'S UPLIFT
> UNIVERSE, from BantamBooks next summer.
>
> FINALLY... I am working with a new web designer to thoroughly update and
> revise my website http://www.davidbrin.com/ though my thanks still go to
> Sean Fagan who will continue to maintain http://www.kithrup.com/brin/
>
> It may take a few weeks, but try dropping by the new site around mid
October.
>
> Till then...
> ... let us hope that our families... and civilization... thrive.
>
> With warm regards.
>
> David Brin
>
>
>
> ABOUT RECENT EVENTS:
>
> Above all, I wish people would ask these questions.
> 1. Security mavens are demanding tighter restrictions on daily life, while
> civil libertarians preach we should accept risk to avoid "Big Brother".
> Both groups assume a fundamental tradeoff between safety and freedom. But
> is such a tradeoff real? Can we have _both safety and freedom? (The
> evidence suggests yes.)
>
> 2. Most of the useful video was taken by private citizens. Private cell
> phones spread word quicker than official media. The sole effective action
> to thwart terrorist plans was taken by individuals, armed with
intelligence
> and communication tools outside official channels. What does this suggest
> about the coming era? (See my arguments about a coming "age of amateurs.")
>
> 3. The actions of 9/11 were facilitated by terror networks that moved
large
> amounts of money secretly and with great ease. Is it time to reconsider
> the value of banking secrecy?
>
> 4. Consider the possibility that we're over-reacting with measures for
> added "security". No measures will ever prevent small knives from being
> smuggled aboard airliners, and trying to prevent it will only hurt our way
> of life. Was 9/11 caused by lack of security or by an obsolete passivity
> doctrine taught to crew & passengers? This doctrine has already been
> changed by the brave passengers of flight 93. Instead of getting into a
> security lather over teeny little knives, shouldn't we simply arm pilots
> and get back to our lives?
>
> 5. Amid all the preparations for war, why are the armed forces not
bringing
> along press people? Not even as many as accompanied the highly
> secure/secret invasion of Normandy in 1944?
>
> 6. I am in favor of responding assertively. But before diving headfirst
> into Afghanistan, where no intervening power has ever come away unscathed,
> should we be asking - is this possibly the VERY thing that bin Laden
wanted
> to achieve? To come fight on his home killing ground? We should choose
our
> own battleground, playing to our strengths.
> Our chief strategic aim should not be to catch one wily bastard. It
> should be to get CNN pictures of locals welcoming our boys as liberators.
> The lesson: our foes cause tears, we bring joy. It's the only image that
> will turn killing into victory, instead of another round of escalating
> tit-for-tat.
> There is a scenario that could achieve that. Anything we do that
> shows weeping widows will be counterproductive.
>
> ( I plan to pose these questions when I debate William Safire on
privacy
> and security 11/13 in New York. He's awfully big though! I think they
> chose me because they couldn't find anybody more famous to speak for
> openness. That's a pity.)
>
> Yes, the culprits must be punished. But I am more interested in
> understanding the psychology and underlying reasons that people can
> de-humanize others, making it permissible to kill them.
>
>
