I feel it is important for this community to become aware of the author and physics professor, David Brin. He is widely recognized as an expert on the impact of technology on privacy and how society should respond to this phenomenon. He is a proponent of transparency, egalitarianism, citizen participation and above all the importance of criticism of those in power, and a harsh critic of the current top-down power structure and corporate wrecklessness that plagues our country. The fact that he wrote extensively and accurately about all of these topics in a book published nearly 10 years ago should speak to the need to expose more people to his ideas.
If you know of his work, please recommend this diary. If you don't, PLEASE follow me below the fold and you soon will. I have taken quite a bit of time to transcribe some audio, so any amount of kudos and curiosity would be HIGHLY appreciated.
David Brin is the author of The Transparent Society, as several novels including The Postman which was adapted into a movie by Kevin Costner.
The Transparent Society is a frightening and enlightening examination of the choices our society will face as surveillance technology improves. He strikes the balance between security and transparency and demonstrates that security is only truly attainable by allowing full transparency of our institutions. In the wake of the NSA stories of today, it is a highly recommended read. And anyone who’s come by this site knows that I’m big into Glenn Greenwald as well, I think the topics that Greenwald discusses in How Would a Patriot Act? intersect perfectly with Brin’s perspective.
I got into him somehow when I was first browsing iTunes podcast directory. I can’t find it on iTunes, but the lecture that got me interested in Brin, "Evaluating Horizons" recorded at Accellerating Change in 2004 can be downloaded here. I have taken the time to transcribe some of my favorite exerpts, which I hope will compell you to listen to the clip in its entirety.
For those of you who'd rather watch a few clips rather than read or listen to a brief lecture, scroll to the bottom of this diary to view two excellent clips via YouTube and GoogleVideo.
So as promised, a few excerpts from Evaluating Horizons, organized by topic and in no particular order (all emphasis implied from vocal inflections):
Science and the Bible
I mentioned the passage from the bible, here's an example: In Genesis what is the very first thing that is requested of us by the lord? It is something that was asked of us before we fell from a state of grace, so it can't have anything to do with sin. It was even before asking not to eat from the tree of good and evil. No, it was to name the beasts.
Now look at that passage, it's actually expressed as a favor, as an act of curiosity. All through the rest of the bible, it's all about, "you guys are gonna have to hard scrabble and work your way out of sin". It's the one moment when god asks us a favor--and it is to name all the beasts.
Can you think of an allegory that better suits science?
I believe this is how our politicians should be speaking to religious people-by using the language of the bible to bring them towards understanding that belief in god and science can coexist peacefully, but NOT endorsing any move to hold this nation's scientific community and our country as a whole back from technological progress and honest debate. To frame science, in all it's glorious detail and complexity as a celebration of whatever force created this universe. To show people that the gods of the bible and the koran can be friends with the gods of the big bang, evolution and climate change.
Brin continues...
Urban America vs Rural America
The will to believe without evidence is the romantic worldview. Ours is the frail one, ours is the rebel. And we need to come up with allegories and metaphors like name the beast in order to be able to talk to people and not simply stigmatize them. Because when we treat them with contempt, we only fire their ovens for campaigns like they just waged against urban America, because that's what we just saw.[Referring to the 2004 elections and all the ugliness that came from the right wing]
Looking at the red state-blue state, you might have thought it was the Confederacy and the plains against the North, against the old Union--but it's not. If you looked at the distribution of votes inside Ohio, inside Florida, these towers of blue surrounded by low little mounds of red everywhere.
Rural America has declared war on Urban America. Urban America has never voted as big as it just did, even against Barry Goldwater. Over a hundred prominent republicans from William F. Buckley all the way to Pat Buchanan disparaged this guy[Bush]. Seventy-plus republican newspapers changed their stand for the first time in a century. This is one of the reasons we thought things were gonna go differently.
But we were showing our bias, our bigotry, and we were [only] looking at Urban America--and we're not all there is, are we?
Yes, they're ungrateful for all the trillions of dollars of farm aid, the rural electrification, and the cable TV, and subsidized phone bills and the mere fact that they have family farms instead of agribuisinesses due to our subsidies, and our entertainments, and our technologies and everything else that's fine. Romantics don't have to be grateful. What they have to be is dragged into the new century. And the way to do that is not aggressively. The way to do it is with love..
On the ties that bind
We're gonna have to be people who are capable of stepping back from our indignation, our self-righteousness--the specific political things that make us overwraught, and recognize a few things. That the eccentricity we're proud of may be shared by millions of others. The authority group that we're worried about may be worrisome to a great many people. The typical democrat is worried about accumulations of undue amounts of authority by aristocrats, religious nuts and faceless corporations. The average republican is worried about accumulations of undue authority by snooty academics and faceless government beuracrats. The average libertarianpicks one from column A and one from column B.
Are any of them wrong? Expressed the way I just put it, are any of them wrong in their basic impulse to worry about accumulations of undue authority by elites?
Any of you out there who have been reading Glenn Greenwald may be aware of a book he has recommended several times, The Authoritarians, which is being released a chapter a week by the author. This book deserves it's own diary, but to give it a quick plug it is a thoroughly researched psychological examination of right-wing authoritarianism. I only bring it up because I find it to be helpful in understanding what we are truly facing in this country which is people who are skeptical of authority and those who have been drilled into submission by family and society. I believe that people can be of either sort and also wear various political stripes, just as Brin does.
Liberals' Guilt Trip
Our very success makes us more self-critical, and the liberals have got to learn from this. See how the liberals brought last Tuesday about by always emphasizing guilt and never imagining using praise, for all the things we've done:
"You've bought our product for 50 years! It never worked! Buy more! You SUV driving, gun toting, racist sexist sons of bitches!"
As opposed to:
"You bought our product for 50 years! And look at the universities you've made! And these incredible bright kids! And the rising IQ scores! And the Earth that is half-saved from some ecological damage! And the karate-chopping Title 9 girls who we've got out there! And you fought the racisim in your heart until it's about half gone. What amazing people you are! BUY MORE!"
Does anyone here disagree that the second approach he begs the progressive community to embrace is the one that would be far more successful in uplifting a movement.
That's about all I can handle for now, if this generates enough interest I'd be happy to transcribe more. Now as promised, two video clips I tracked down, both excellent in their entirety.
Cross-posted @ lethologica