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636d966
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The dream is so pleasant: to extend a limited sub-portion of yourself into a simulated world and pretend for a while that you are blissfully less. Less than an omniscient being.
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David Brin |
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d6dbb44
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Why is the future always ... in the future?
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David Brin |
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32cff3b
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there were few worse criminals on any world than the engineer who blithely and knowingly hands over to a tyrant the tools of oppression.
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David Brin |
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b696ca9
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Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.
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David Brin |
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e60020a
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Dogmas don't have to be entirely logical, as long as they work.
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David Brin |
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fc2909f
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In 1983, Michael W. Doyle commented on the common observation that democracies almost never wage war on one another. Understanding the reasons for this phenomenon may be crucial to our hopes for preventing devastating conflict in the next generation. Which attributes of democracy foster this essential trait of mutual nonaggression?
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David Brin |
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f87eb6f
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Okay, so imagine we get past the next few rough decades and finally do what we should have back in TwenCen. Say we mine asteroids for platinum, discover the secrets of true nanotechnology, and set Von Neumann "sheep" grazing on the moon to produce boundless wealth. To listen to some of the rest of you, all our problems would then be over. The next step, star travel, and colonization of the galaxy, would be trivial. But hold on! Even assumin..
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David Brin |
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cbe28b1
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Excuse me for being greedy, but I want freedom and good government.
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David Brin |
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287282f
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All I ask is ... ponder with open minds. We've made so many mistakes, humanity, during just one lifetime. Many of them perpetrated not by evildoers, drenched in malice, but by men and women filled with fine motives! Like you.
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David Brin |
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b1151ef
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That's not how human psychology works. No, we tend to do lots of things without knowing why. We need excuses, though, so we rationalize! If an obvious reason for our behavior isn't readily available, we invent one, preferably one that helps us think better of ourselves.
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David Brin |
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6bf5504
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In principle, an open society sees information flow as a good thing, to be hampered only in the presence of strong evidence that harm cannot be prevented by any other means.
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David Brin |
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ea9abaf
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one of the most fascinating and effective kinds of lying is self-deception.
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David Brin |
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b2b0ed1
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There's a reason why kings built large palaces, sat on thrones and wore rubies all over. There's a whole social need for that, not to oppress the masses, but to impress the masses and make them proud and allow them to feel good about their culture, their government and their ruler so that they are left feeling that a ruler has the right to rule over them, so that they feel good rather than disgusted about being ruled. --George Lucas, New Yo..
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David Brin |
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bb81d8a
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Again, how will we keep them loyal? What measures can ensure our machines stay true to us? Once artificial intelligence matches our own, won't they then design even better ai minds? Then better still, with accelerating pace? At worst, might they decide (as in many cheap dramas), to eliminate their irksome masters? At best, won't we suffer the shame of being nostalgically tolerated? Like senile grandparents or beloved childhood pets? Solutio..
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David Brin |
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fcfc57a
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free speech should be viewed as sacred and inviolable not simply for its own sake, but for utterly pragmatic reasons. Only through an active, vibrant, noisy ferment of criticism can blunders be discovered before they bring nations crashing down. Moreover, we can never tell in advance which criticism will later prove right; therefore, we must allow, foster, and even encourage all the criticism we can get.
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David Brin |
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6317f76
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It may be that the best time for Otherness has already passed. Clearly part of the basis for this renaissance has been wealth, especially the unprecedented comfort enjoyed by the vast majority of Westerners since World War II, in which very few of us can even conceive of starving
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David Brin |
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7cdf166
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Once you consider the premise that Episodes I through III are not live-action movies with extensive special effects, but rather animated features with a few living actors rotoscoped in, many of the more common critical objections to the movies simply wither away.
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David Brin |
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57772e9
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Socrates, Plato, Jesus, Buddha and countless other mystics, in countless cultures, have preached the same thing -- that we all exist amid a blur of uncertainty. That one can never know complete truth about physical reality via our senses alone. Much is made of the differences between their systems... Socrates teaching reason, Buddha urging meditation, and Jesus prescribing faith. But what they all had in common was far more important. Each ..
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David Brin |
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f5a74f8
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In other words, I look through my eyes and see only a version of the world, a version that can be, and often is, colored or twisted by what I want to see. Another person may witness the same events, and yet observe something entirely different.
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David Brin |
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e3499cf
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Give up," they preached. "Don't bother trying to figure out how the flawed world works. Perfect knowledge is to be found only within the mind, the soul. Seek your own private salvation then, apart from the world, and don't bother getting your hands dirty trying to piece together the nuts and bolts of God's handiwork."
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David Brin |
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c7ba77c
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I may not ever be able to be certain what is absolutely True... but I sure as heck can work to find out what isn't true! Moreover, I can improve my model of the world, by slowly, carefully finding out what is truer than what I already know.
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David Brin |
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31c2d5f
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It takes great wisdom, maturity, and force of will to overcome ingrained human egotism and say -- "Hey, I can fool myself! I might even be wrong, from time to time." "
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David Brin |
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2d8013f
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We are, at our core, information pack rats and inveterate correlators.
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David Brin |
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b144e6c
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Self-righteousness is an especially heady condition that all of us have experienced at one time or another. Those who are honest will admit there is something sickly-sweet and alluring about knowing you are right, while others are terribly wrong.
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David Brin |
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ee0a748
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Then again: from the critic's point of view, one of the truly wonderful things about the Star Wars universe is that the territory is so sprawling and borrows from so many sources that it's possible to find just about anything here, if you look hard enough. For example, the story of the original movie can also be summarized as, "A restless young boy chafes at life on the dusty old family farm, until he meets a wizard and is swept away to a w..
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David Brin |
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6f80645
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There isn't one America anymore. If there ever had been.
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David Brin |
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a4b4c04
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I suppose, all told, I've done more good than evil in my life, but that's incidental, a product of happenstance and the bizarre caprices of the world.
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David Brin |
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d693e62
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A l'interieur, il se sentait un creux immense et douloureux, comme s'il avait eu le coeur pris dans un etau de glace. Rien ne semblait pouvoir bouger en lui, au risque de briser quelque chose de chancelant, de precaire.
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David Brin |
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536c53a
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Yet egotism can also be useful to ambitious creatures, driving their single-minded pursuit of success. Madness seems essential in order to be "great."
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David Brin |
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351eba6
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humans wrestled endlessly with their own overpowering egos. Some tried suppressing selfness, seeking detachment. Others subsumed personal ambition in favor of a greater whole--family, religion, or a leader. Later they passed through a phase in which individualism was extolled as the highest virtue, teaching their young to inflate the ego beyond all natural limits or restraint.
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David Brin |
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0601236
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If humanity has one majestic talent, it's an almost infinite capacity to get used to the Next Big Thing ... then take it for granted.
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David Brin |
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0f22fd3
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Comment se fait-il, meme, qu'il y ait eu des gens pour y croire ? Gordon haussa les epaules. -- Ca s'appelait la technique du << gros mensonge >>, Johnny. Il suffit de donner l'impression qu'on sait de quoi on parle... de se contenter de citer des faits. Et puis de parler tres vite. Tu entrelardes tes bobards de sorte qu'ils aient l'air de reveler l'existence d'un complot et tu marteles ca sur tous les tons. Ceux qui cherchent un pretexte, ..
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David Brin |
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c8577dd
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She had called in the debt that parents owe a child for bringing her, unasked, into a strange world.
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David Brin |
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1ae393d
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It wasn't his place to judge the women. Theirs was the harder job, here in the wilderness. His tasks were simple--to hunt, fight, and if need be, to die. Theirs was to go on, whatever it took.
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David Brin |
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60be810
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I found out something, you know. I discovered that the big things don't love you back. They take and take, and never give in return. They'll drain your blood, your soul, if you let them, and never let go.
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David Brin |
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3daae91
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What are the most common traits of nearly all forms of mental illness?" The answer? Nearly all sufferers lack-- flexibility-- to be able to change your opinion or course of action, if shown clear evidence you were wrong. satiability--the ability to feel satisfaction if you actually get what you said you wanted, and to transfer your strivings to other goals. extrapolation--an ability to realistically assess the possible consequences of your ..
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David Brin |
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aff30db
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At last, a kind of immortality could be achieved by anybody who learned the new trick of recording their words and thoughts and stories, by marking impressions in wet clay. The immortality of speaking across time and space, even long after your original body returned to dust.
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David Brin |
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f53d623
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Inspired by these tiny sculptures, a few hyperfeminist mystics deduced a delightfully satisfying ideological fantasy--that an Earth-Mother religion preceded every other spiritual belief system, all over the planet. This ubiquitous Neolithic creed must obviously have worshipped a goddess! One whose top traits were fecundity and serene maternal kindliness. That is, till gentle Gaia was toppled by violent bands of macho Jehovah-Zeus-Shiva foll..
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David Brin |
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c39a79e
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Leaving was out of the question, of course. A combination of pride, obstinacy, and simple gonadal fury rooted him in his tracks. Here he would do battle, and that was that.
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David Brin |
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fcfc900
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nous pouvons nous doter de garanties constitutionnelles, etablir une stricte repartition des pouvoirs, mais de telles mesures ne prennent un sens que lorsque les citoyens assurent que ces garde-fous soient respectes. Or, ceux qui ont soif de puissance et d'argent sont sans cesse a l'affut d'un moyen de violer les lois ou de les tourner a leur avantage.
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David Brin |
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930c149
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Mais les tyrans potentiels... ceux qui disposent d'une panoplie de methodes eprouvees depuis des siecles pour manipuler l'homme du commun, pour lui mentir, pour lui oter toute confiance en soi. On dit que << tout pouvoir corrompt >>, mais il serait plus proche de la verite de dire que le pouvoir attire ceux qui sont susceptibles d'etre corrompus. Les gens sains d'esprit sont, d'ordinaire, attires par autre chose que par le pouvoir. Lorsqu'i..
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David Brin |
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e68870b
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Each of us remains convinced that our own subjective viewpoint is more urgent than anyone else's--indeed, even more valid than the objective matrix that underlies so-called reality. After all, the subjective view is a grand theater. Each of us gets to be hero of an ongoing drama. It's why ideologies and bigotries survive against all evidence or logic.
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David Brin |
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3050915
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Oh, subjective obstinacy had advantages, Morris, when we were busy evolving into nature's champion egotists. It led to human mastery over the planet ... and several times to our species nearly wiping itself out.
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David Brin |
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4489fcf
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The variety of inventive ideas--and ideologies--that people can come up with never ceases to amaze me, especially when they're stoked by the ultimate drug, self-righteousness.
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David Brin |