David Brin: What’s Important Is Not Me. And It’s Not You. It’s Us!

David Brin is not only a PhD in astro-physics but also an award winning, best selling science fiction author, perhaps best known for his uplift series of novels and, most recently, Existence. Originally, I was supposed to interview Brin in the summer. Unfortunately, I got a concussion the day before and thus had to delay it. David is a busy man so it took a while to book another date but eventually we did and I have to say that I very much enjoyed talking to and being challenged by him. During our conversation with Brin we cover a wide variety of topics such as: his interest in science fiction, writing and civilization; his novel The Postman which later became a feature film with Kevin Costner; his views on post-modernism, progress, ethics and objective reality; pessimistic versus optimistic science fiction; the self-preventing prophesy as the greatest form of science fiction (e.g. George Orwell’s 1984); his role of lead prosecutor in Star Wars on Trial and Yoda as one of the most evil characters; his latest novel Existence… My favorite quote that I will take away from this interview with David Brin is: “What’s important is not me. And it’s not you. It’s us!” Correction: the Oedipus tragedy was written by Sophocles, not by Aristophanes as I say during the interview.