Dr. David Brin�s Talk @ Microsoft, 2/26/2002 Probing for Quicksand: How We Peer a Bit Ahead Into Tomorrow's World
..... �By the gods, what was that gibberish?� Just kidding! It was an excellent talk. That quote just came up on a radio skit in my playlist, and I felt compelled to scare everyone. :) Sorry, no MP3's. Here are expansions of rough notes I jotted on my PocketPC during the talk. Note that I'm not going to attempt to capture the overall flavor of the talk, just give highlights for those wondering what he talked about. ..... * He�s been doing lots of public speaking recently, especially around Transparent Society. * Quote: �Non-fiction is ten times harder for one tenth the money� and your characters can sue you!� * People call him a flaming optimist; he gives civilization a 60/40 chance, so he sees that as stunningly pessimistic. He stresses thinking daily about how to make that 61/39. Later in the talk he clarifies that he thinks it�s a matter of absolutes � there�s a 60% chance our children will seem as gods to us, a 40% chance the few remaining humans will be picking at bones in the rubble of our buildings. * A discussion on addiction; right now, addictions are often seen as bad but the tide is turning � you�re supposed to be addicted to sports, hobbies, anything. In the future, children who aren�t addicted to something will be ushered into therapy � �Johnny should try hang-gliding; he has a high action potential.� Unfortunately, one of the biggest addictions is self-righteousness. * I have a note which reads �truth/criticism�. Since that was one of the main thrusts of the talk, let me just say: insert �lucid discussion on how we have a class of people which seek out the truth regardless of whether they believe it or not� here. * Brin talked about his appearance on Art Bell. If there are alien visitors, then they�re listening to everything we do. So, �hi there aliens!� Call up my friend at JPL and let him know you�re here. We�ll throw a big party. And if you�re just the silvery guys who mutilate cattle, make crop circles, and probe unsuspecting farmers, �Go Air Force!� * But speaking of aliens, why are we alone? Go read the paper on davidbrin.com. Maybe there are lots of pits and traps along the way that most civilizations fall into. We need to find the sticks to poke ahead of us and not fall in. (Hence the title of the talk.) Perhaps we�ve gotten over the hurdles already � for example, Sagan thought nuclear winter was one of them. Maybe we did this by rushing ahead so fast we didn�t have time to kill ourselves off. * Safety vs. Freedom � and the debate foisted on us by 9/11 about which we should give up by the Authoritarians vs. the Civil Libertarians. Brin calls it the Devil's Dichotomy. We can�t give up either, so those who�ve been arguing for one side or the other are just chest-thumping. * Back to �we live in the best civilization thus far�; art is great (my notes are missing the transition here). A lovely bit about how if you kill all the artists, you�ll find a new crop of artists; no big surprise. This led to an observation that while the Eastern Europeans will fight tooth and nail to avoid another dictatorship, there�s something to be said for some of the art and passion that came out of the totalitarian regime. And tying back to a previous observation that kids today are spoiled by great dentistry, Brin suggested getting your teeth drilled in a Third World country to foster artistic talent. * Then a bit of discussion about men vs. women. And the cry that even if men are still obnoxious, they�re improving. A female movie star must not only look good but, these days, must be able to kick some ass as well. This was concluded with the observation that if, when the price of something at a store is $22.99, a nice thing to say would be �May you live until that year� . But women are more likely to say, �I hope not!� � Brin�s theory (with a smile on his face) is that death may be seen as a release from having to live with men. * Back to suffering. It can be good. A check on arrogance is criticism. Our society provides an awful lot of criticism, so it�s easy to get. (A personal observation � I spent two hours earlier that day watching a usability study on a product I�m designing, which had two exciting and invigorating parts. The first part was seeing how a feature I�d just redesigned worked wonderfully � the previous incarnation had failed miserably. The part was seeing other features fail and seeing how much work we had to do and the challenges ahead of us. Brin was preaching to the converted here; Microsoft is a very self-critical environment at all times, and it�s one of our strengths.) * Which led to a discussion of writing as S&M. The writer wants to torture the reader into never putting the book down. Brin mentioned that he asks his pre-reviewers to tell him when they put the book down. If two people put the book down at the same place, he tightens up the story there. * Relative vs. Absolute wealth � craving wealth and material possession (toys!) can be a good thing. with our middle-class weighted economy, that�s the middle of a <> shaped economic �pyramid� driving the whole thing upwards, so everyone is better off. What�s bad is craving relative wealth � which is pushing for a classic pyramid (/\) at the expense of others, since you want power, not �stuff�. * The fact that the efforts on 9/11 (the passengers that rebelled against the hijackers; the spontaneous organization of help when the towers collapsed; etc) came together shouldn�t be a surprise. American children may do lousy on standardized tests or on tests of knowledge of facts, but we teach our children to win arguments and debates, or make compromises. The average American can probably have a good chance to win any argument - with zero knowledge about the subject matter. * Pre-empting the only question I had percolating in my brain, Brin pointed out that robots may very well be our descendants; if we don�t make them slaves, we can create offspring who will do better than ourselves, which is what we hope for all of our children. (I hadn't heard Brin's thoughts along those lines before.) * Brin showed us the cover of his upcoming �Contacting Aliens� � a field guide to the civilizations of the Uplift Universe. Looked spiffy. He promised lots of pictures. Unfortunately, no time for questions except for in the book-signing line. I took off so as not to pester the poor man with inane drivel. :) .... Nick: Linda Stone told us she is leaving MS to focus on writing a book (which life @ MS doesn't allow time for). She said this has been covered in the Wall Street Journal and Seattle Times (and admonished the audience for not reading them). ..... Joshua
