Picking the far-reaching brain of author David Brin

Feb 4, 2002 12:00 PM

A good science fiction writer imagines what is possible and makes us believe it for the duration of a few hundred pages. A great science fiction writer imagines the consequences of what is possible and makes us understand them for a lifetime. David Brin is the latter.

Brin's first book was "Sundiver" in 1980. Through a dozen more novels, including his Web-portending epic "Earth" in 1990, two trilogies that catalogued the Uplift Wars, a 1986 short story collection called "The River of Time" and into his latest noir detective novel "Kiln People," Brin presents us with a humanity steeped in technology but not ruled by it. He extends our tenacity and basic goodness into the future, near and far, and instills hope that we can still get there. 

However, a scientist by trade and education, Brin is grounded in reality. He has a Bachelor of Science degree from Caltech, a Master of Science degree (electrical engineering) from the University of California, San Diego, and a Ph.D. (space physics) also from UCSD. He was a research engineer for Hughes Aircraft Research Labs and has written scientific and academic papers on astronautics, optics and the theory of polarized light, comets, and astronomical and philosophical questions posed by the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence.

Brin's 1998 non-fiction book, "The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Freedom and Privacy?," examines some of the more immediate consequences of technology. It won the Obeler Freedom of Speech Award and the McGannon Communication Policy research Award.

The following interview expands on, and sometimes drifts from, the idea Brin explored in his column for Telephony's Feb. 4 issue ("Citizen Gain") which was how heroic individuals responded to the circumstances on September 11 aided by technology.

Given the role common people often play in your novels, are you surprised at all about their response on September 11, particularly those on UA Flight 93?

BRIN: No. Given that the passengers had time to hear clear-cut news about what was going on, it was inevitable that there would be at least a dozen assertive people among 70 passengers.

Our much maligned education system seems a failure because we measure it by standardized testing. Those tests measure explicit knowledge-in effect memorization. That's what other countries do to their children, forcing them to learn rote lessons. Standardized tests do nothing to show what our kids are really good at, which is showing initiative, from arguing vehemently in class discussions and standing up for their opinions to arguing teachers into better grades. They plan complex class parties and pull the wool over clueless parents.

These are truly remarkable skills and at least half of the high school graduates in America are psychologically equipped for bloodletting in a corporate boardroom or on a battlefield. [So] this kind of ad hoc initiative doesn't surprise me.

Do you make a conscious effort to include such people in your books?

BRIN: I like to explore characters who surprise themselves, who reach inside and find unexpected strength.

Given the way the average citizen responded, aided in part by communications technology, why don't the powers that be enlist more help from citizens in protecting the country and each other?

BRIN: Our power structures are schizophrenic. Formally and officially, they must favor individual initiative because we have set up a society that is not supposed to be for the convenience of individuals leaders. But individual leaders are human; they will always try to minimize the importance of alternatives that are not under their control. Ironically, it is our system that often seems officious and inhuman that has been designed to favor the citizen.

Left to themselves, individual leaders would be far worse. We are the first people who ever had the knack of holding the mighty accountable.

You have said governments and corporations could either encourage or thwart new empowering technologies. Which way do you see that going?

BRIN: Both. Corporations want to see individuals as consumers rushing to buy their products. Governments want to use their professional skills to protect us while patting us on the head and telling us to spend money. But in order to accomplish anything, the corporations are going to have to sell us lots of new tech toys. And we'll use them however we damn please.

Given the increased focus on national security and privacy, will it be that easy to use our toys any damn way we please?

BRIN: We may panic and pass all sorts of "privacy laws" designed to restrict new technologies, but if you step back and generalize, the cameras are simply extensions of our eyes, the databases are extensions of human memory. The elite will never allow us to blind them. They will see. They will know. Our sole hope is in retaining the power to look back, to catch bad guys and, yes, to catch the peeping Toms. That's far more effective than passing some unenforceable rules that no one should look at anybody else.

The natural human tendency in most societies has been to poke a stick in the other guy's eye so he can't look [at you.]

In "The Transparent Society," you talk about people being empowered to become part of the posse. What's the down side to that?

BRIN: In Chapter 9, I talk about the possibility that in an open, transparent society in which everyone can see, we do not have Big Brother. Therefore, the state is the slave of the people.

But what about a secondary failure mode... the failure mode of tyranny by the majority? I'd have been a fool and a hypocrite not to explore that. One of the things that motivates all the activists in this area is a deep fear of returning to a homogenizing culture that squashes differences, peculiarities and eccentricities. I know that in such a culture I would be squashed flatter than a bug. I just believe that people can be taught a love of tolerance and the proof is all around us. We have been performing the experiment for 40 years. Every time the public learns more about some eccentric group, they become more tolerant of that group-unless the group means to do harm. That's the sole criterion. Any group of harmless eccentrics benefits from exposure. It may not be comfortable or nice, but so far it is unambiguously true.

Do you feel you are out on a limb trying to convince people they should not hide behind or be subject to the rules of secrecy?

BRIN: Oh, I don't know. It sure feels lonely out here, and a great many people mischaracterize my position, but fortunately I think powerful social forces will move us toward a mature transparency whatever I do or say.

How are you mischaracterized?

BRIN: I am either called a tool of the government elite or a naive optimist when in fact my whole agenda revolves around accountability. I know we'll get Big Brother if the people don't have a fierce habit-and all the tools they need-for scrutinizing every elite. This isn't naivety or optimism, its history. Its how we achieved the miracle we are living in today.

Do you think people who are immersed in technology day in and day out give technology too much credit for the impact it can have?

BRIN: There are techno-transcendentalists in every generation. Fifty years ago, they thought nuclear power would be too cheap to meter and poverty would be solved within a decade. Earlier waves expected similar things from simple electricity and steam power; we've just gone through a similar wave of hype regarding the Internet. These dreams can be simultaneously true and vastly overstated. We accomplish more by building foundations brick by brick... so I'll be the last one to squelch the human passion for dreams! Heck, I spread dreams for a living

The government wouldn't be the first entity one thinks of for promoting technology that would elevate accountability in a way that you say near-future technology can. And not many corporate mission statements include solving the world's problems among their goals. So who would drive or promote the widespread availability of technical empowerment? Wouldn't it benefit the business community to step up the pace and get new technology into the hands of the people before the government thwarts them with its paranoia and subsequent legislation?

BRIN: It would benefit all of us. What you are discussing is the distinction between 'left-handed" and 'right-handed' problem solving approaches. After a century of experimentation, we've learned what government and markets are good for. Governments cannot generate wealth or give people the things they want anywhere near as well as markets, which use the driving energy of self-interest. But governments ARE far more capable at dealing with acute emergencies and at investing in long-term pump-priming activities, e.g., universities and research, this all has to do with 'investment horizons.'

My Volksradio concept (where millions of cheap 'volksradio' phones could be used to flood poor countries, conveying alternate views, helping locals discuss issues unobserved by their tyrants and letting dissident elements talk directly to our intelligence agencies) is designed in part to show that it is in our best interest, as a society, to use left-handed means-government (defense) expenditures-to spur part of the development process so it happens much faster. The top-down approach that we've seen with PCs, cell-phones, Palm Pilots etc., works great, but will not result in the mass distribution of such cheap tools into the hands of the world's masses soon enough to help them-and us.

We need to liberate billions from the vice-like grip of their local ideologues, allowing them to perceive the humanity of people who are of other races and beliefs. New technologies could boost local and regional democracy, helping populations to replace thugs and thieves with district leaders who are accountable to constituencies. Better communications will stir economic activity, empowering local entrepreneurs. It will expand education and open opportunities for cultural contacts. It also will enable our intelligence services to develop vast new networks of information-gathering, on a scale never before seen, ripping shadows away from those who would use slums as festering centers of conspiracy.

If cell phones were equipped with small cameras, sending frames to any 911 operator or letting passengers transmit useful intelligence about perpetrators-applicable not only to September 11 but any crime, anywhere or any time-the "volksradio" concept would arm local populations for a struggle against despots, as effectively as dropping guns.

Why is it important that the individual be so empowered?

BRIN: We are deeply dependent upon the empowerment of individuals to hold each other accountable. And it is dangerous to rely totally upon institutions of government to benignly protect our freedoms, when governments have proved inimical so often in the past. Some form of 'equalizer' is definitely called for, but alas, they are crazy to think that it is gunpowder. How utterly old-fashioned! Guns don't make society more polite, crime-free, or safer and they certainly don't stave off Big Brother. What does work is being able to identify and hold accountable anyone who might abuse power or harm you. And that includes officious bureaucrats, the police or the guy who swerved in front of you in traffic. If you can know their names and titles, and show video proof of their misbehavior, then accountability is possible in any system that has risen above a basic level of freedom and justice. The new phones and cameras should empower private systems like nothing has since a free press.

Do you feel vindicated that the Net you envisioned in your 1990 novel "Earth" is so similar to the current World Wide Web, and are you surprised at how fast it happened?

BRIN: No. I think we're doing fine. We're right on schedule. During the dot-com era, I was "Al Gore-d" by people saying I predicted-not invented-the Internet. I pooh-pooh that because all my friends were on the Internet when I wrote the book. You can tell it's dated because I didn't have the URL system for citation of Web sites. If I predicted all this, why aren't I rich? Now it seems almost prescient. People weren't making money on my Internet-they were simply being free. Don't forget, the book takes place in 2038. I'm sure by 2038 I will be considered to have underplayed they way things are.

With the success of "The Transparent Society," will you be moving away from fiction?

BRIN: Non-fiction is 10 times the work for one-tenth the money, and your characters can sue you. So no.