It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.
...where were answers to the truly deep questions? Religion promised those, though always in vague terms, while retreating from one line in the sand to the next. Don't look past this boundary, they told Galileo, then Hutton, Darwin, Von Neumann, and Crick, always retreating with great dignity before the latest scientific advance, then drawing the next holy perimeter at the shadowy rim of knowledge.
Creative people see Prometheus in a mirror, never Pandora.
If there are still honest-smart men and women within those old and noble traditions, they should think carefully, observe and diagnose the illness. They should face the contradiction. Discuss the conflation. And then do as Warren Buffett and Bill Gates and many others have done. Choose the miracle of creative competition over an idolatry of cash. They should stand up..
Prison for the crime of puberty -- that was how secondary school had seemed.
Predicting has a spotty record in science fiction. I've had some failures. On the other hand, I also predicted the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of fundamentalist Islam... and I'm not happy to be right in all of those cases.
In the book, America had already been weakened by bio terror plagues before waves of selfish violence took down the rest. But the real enemy was the kind of male human being who nurses fantasies of violent glory at the expense of his fellow citizens.
Those who use 'Correlation is not the same as causation' as a magic incantation to dismiss all fact-using professions are fools holding a lit match in one hand and an open gas can in the other, screaming, 'One has nothing to do with the other!'
Only a knowledgeable, empowered and vocal citizenry can perform well in democracy.
Competition, by itself, always leads to cheating by the powerful, who try to establish pyramids of power, like feudalism. Yet, competition is the great creative force! So how do we save it from its own contradictions? By cooperation! By cooperating with each other, via politics, to make rules and prevent cheating, so that competition can thrive!
Why must conversions always come so late? Why do people always apologize to corpses?
But it is a delightful challenge to try to depict interesting aliens.
There's no doubt that scientific training helps many authors to write better science fiction. And yet, several of the very best were English majors who could not parse a differential equation to save their lives.
I like to be surprised. Fresh implications and plot twists erupt as a story unfolds. Characters develop backgrounds, adding depth and feeling. Writing feels like exploring.
The greatest hypocrisy on the planet right now is for those who defend capitalism to not be in favor of radical transparency, for all of us to know who owns everything. And that is my militant, radical, moderate, pro-capitalist, pro-Enlightenment, ferocious stand.
Anyone who wants simple, pat stories should buy another author's product. The real universe ain't that way, and neither are my fictive ones.
For every Steven King, there are a dozen guys like me who make a good living. For every David Brin, there are a dozen authors who have managed to make it their day job. For each of them, there are a dozen more for whom writing is a terrific supplement.
My first duty to write a gripping yarn. Second is to convey credible characters who make you feel what they feel. Only third comes the idea.
Change is the principal feature of our age and literature should explore how people deal with it. The best science fiction does that, head-on.
We already live a very long time for mammals, getting three times as many heartbeats as a mouse or elephant. It never seems enough though, does it?
