DAVID BRIN's political and economic essays

memes: the new weapon of war

Naturally, we needn't look at this struggle over human hearts and minds as a "war." When Brin called it that in a speech at Brigham Young University in 1989, few had heard about memetics. At the time, we were in the final phase of a Cold War waged mainly through propaganda. So warning about a coming meme war was intentionally a bit provocative. Subsequent events have established "Survival of the Fittest Ideas" as a predictive hit.

wage smarter politics

For those who want to fight for the Enlightenment, in order to keep those values alive, here are David Brin's suggestions. A few of these recommendations will be aimed at political parties, while the rest are for concerned citizens. We must find ideas that will work to end the culture war, and we will find them because Ideas R Us, and because we have got to get on with Civilization.

a real 20th century miracle man!

In 1999 Time Magazine had crowds throng to its web site eagerly voting for who should be named "Person of the Century." Brin's pick was George Marshall, who — as he explains in "My Candidate for Person of the Century" — gave the world a few decades of respite from the slaughterhouse of ideologues like Hitler and Stalin.

Marshall was also the strategist behind a miraculous event that happened seventy years ago — when liberals and Democrats went through a wrenching, painful self-transformation to preserve that hard-won peace.

our POW problem

What to do with the prisoners currently held in Guantanamo? Or others we might capture amid a war without borders or fronts? Calling the violent men in Guantanamo "POWs" does not mean they can be tortured. They must be treated according to Geneva protocols. But it does mean they can be held indefinitely, in a military facility on American soil, so long as hostilities continue in a plausible state of war

will an emperor ever acknowledge his wardrobe malfunction?

Every election American taxpayers watch, wait, and hope for the candidate who will turn to the camera and say, "Of course the rich pay too little tax!" — and just like that Supply Side economics would end. In "The Fairness Divide: Intervention That Liberals and Conservatives Can Agree On," Brin looks what we could choose to replace it with. Do we prefer interventions that increase opportunity for all, or interventions that aim at fairness in outcomes?

why stock trading is not positive-sum

What's a Transaction Fee, why do we need it, and how would it save us from the "Terminator"? The answers to these questions — and to a number of other economic conundrums — may surprise you! But those computerized parasitical systems will howl in agony! Thus, it will give you a better chance to gain from your own savvy and insight, when you log into your E-Trade account.

our 'forgotten' quagmire war

The principal goal that Osama bin Laden had in mind, in perpetrating the crimes of 9/11, was to lure America into an extended, interminable quagmire of attrition in the "land where empires go to die." If you were a foe of the United States, you would study which past errors almost destroyed America — the Civil War and Vietnam.

how democrats and republicans wage war

This essay's topic is war. I will concede that we are at least another generation away from abolishing the foul practice, at long last. Until then, wars will happen — as today's primitive nations and angry peoples jostle for advantage, as shortages of resources, even water, propel rising tensions, and as fierce cultural drivers that ignite the worst violence. Instead, let's focus on how our two U.S. political parties differ in the ways they wage war — their distinctions in doctrine, policy, professionalism, style and effectiveness.

the GOP is losing wars while winning battles

What makes the Republicans so successful at building unlikely coalitions? How are they able to bring together groups that — on the surface — have nothing to gain in becoming allies? Strictly in terms of practical realpolitik, that accomplishment merits respect and careful study, the kind of respect any foe ought to give, if grudgingly, to opponents who can reinvent themselves, adopt compelling new messages, recognize unlikely opportunities, and seize the slimmest advantages — the kind of respect that precedes an effective effort to fight back.

even failure can have positive effects

For the last three decades the American people — when polled in a neutral manner — tend to prefer Democratic positions on policies, like transparency, low-secrecy, accountability, energy research, moderate environmentalism, tolerance of individual eccentricities, and responsible attention to international affairs. BUT the Republican Party has proved incredibly adept at using politically innovative tactics to win despite these policy disadvantages: Democrats won the Presidency in 2008 and again in 2012, but succumbed again in 2016. In 2005 Brin wrote "How Progressives Can Win Back America", which proposed both strategic and concrete plans. Perhaps it's time for a re-read?

an unhealthy balancing act

What people tend to ignore is that all health care systems practice rationing. There is simply no way to avoid it, as we all would pay any price, for any chance of health. We’ll take our dying loved one to the best doctor, period, and screw the price and screw second best. The chief difference between the US and the rest of the civilized world is that we let profit-driven insurance companies do the rationing, and they do it based solely on profit considerations and whatever they can get away with.

end democracy and bring back lords?

Can we expect calm, measured and enlightened rule from the New Lords who are — even now — making their moves to restore the ancient social order, and replace the middle class and its diamond-shaped social order with a traditional pyramid of owner-lord privilege? Of course not. For every Lorenzo de Medici or Henry Plantagenet there were thousands of fools who let flatterers talk them into believing ego-stroking stories — that they were lords because of their own genius, or inherent superiority, or God-given right.

guns and the insurrection myth

The issue of guns in America seems intransigent. But polls show that most Americans don’t wish to eliminate personal gun ownership, they simply want more accountability. Here is a possible compromise, one of many. Moderate gun owners just might accept reforms that treat most personal weapons like motorcars — including registration, mandatory training, licensing and insurance — if they were also offered some surety against the dreaded slippery slope.

what kind of wars do we wage?

We should distinguish between two kinds of foreign intervention — those that are like "emergency room" operations and others that more resemble "elective surgery." If the nation must sacrifice its warriors, its treasury, its international goodwill and peace of mind, then we should be called upon to mobilize, as our ancestors did, rich and poor, to willingly pay whatever must be paid. If convinced, millions would step up to enlist. And the rich would, as in times past, come forward to offer billions. Whether a projection of force is an emergency operation or an elective enforcement of national policy, truthful evaluation of short and long term costs is essential.

8 causes of the deficit, decoded

To many U.S. voters, one issue towers foremost — the Fiscal Cliff of rising public debt. Frightened by the much-worse debt crises in Greece, Spain etc, Americans fret about floods of red ink that reached more than a trillion dollars a year under George W. Bush, and that have gone down only slightly under Barack Obama. Want to invest some time into understanding the deficit and the debt? Brin lists and appraises the EIGHT major reasons that deficit so quickly grew. We need to understand these 8 factors — how they happened, and how the decisions were made — before we're lulled into another cliff-dive.