Top all-time · #3015
David Brin
Personal blog · davidbrin.blogspot.compoliticsscienceculture
David Brin writes CONTRARY BRIN, a personal blog at davidbrin.blogspot.com about politics, science and culture. Since 2008, 25 different Hacker News readers have linked it 34 times. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-31, and you can follow it by feed.
A blog about science, technology, science fiction, books, and the future.
What Hacker News says?
A great 2006 essay on the other side of this coin is "Why Johnny Can't Code" by David Brin [1]. From the lead paragraph: "BASIC used to be on every computer a child touched -- but today there's no easy way for kids to get hooked on programming." The author ended up buying a used Commodore 64 for his son. He touched this topic again in his blog in 2011 [2] (scroll to "encouraging kids to program"; he also participate…
Comment linking /2011/06/milestones-leading-up-to-good.html
on “The No-Code Generation is arriving”Submitted David Brin: Distinguishing Climate "Deniers" From "Skeptics" as a story · 34 points
HN discussionThe US has a far better track record than any other leading power in history when it comes to facilitating the development of other countries into nice places. See e.g. http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2009/11/how-americans-spent-th... , or consider the motivation behind the Optional Practical Training student visa provision. As a US citizen, I personally spent three years working in China for a Chinese company, on sal…
Comment linking /2009/11/how-americans-spent-themselves-into.html
on “Svalbard is as close as you can get to a place with open borders”Submitted "Neo-Reactionaries" drop all pretense: End democracy and bring back lords as a story · 18 points
HN discussionBrin’s an interesting case. In addition to his impressive bibliography (still hoping for the sentient space-exploring dolphins movie to get greenlit..), he has consulted for NASA's Innovative and Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program. He’s also quite vocal politically, for team blue. Last week he penned this pre-mid-terms piece on the UAP transparency topic: https://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2026/10/disclosure-ufo-cults-...…
Comment linking /2026/10/disclosure-ufo-cults-get-worse-even-as.html?m=1
on “Jules Verne's Lost Novel”Submitted Pining For Feudalism As An Antidote For Modernity (2011) as a story · 16 points
HN discussion> North vs South, Red State vs Blue State, liberal vs conservative, religious vs secular. Whatever you want to call it, Americans - it seems - are separating themselves into two (or more) distinct and ideologically opposed groups. This is nothing new, of course, but what IS new (at least in my memory) is that there are fewer and fewer opportunities for common discourse. It's... honestly not as new as you think. Not…
Comment linking /2014/09/phases-of-american-civil-war.html
on “Techies Who Are Homeschooling Their Kids”Submitted The Second Amendment and the Insurrection Myth as a story · 12 points
HN discussionOh my. Two minutes of web search: http://www.accuracy.org/article.php?articleId=51 http://www.cato-unbound.org/2008/11/12/matthew-yglesias/poli... http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2006/05/cato-hypocrisy.html http://www.socsec.org/publications.asp?pubid=325 http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200207/thinktank.asp http://www.acsh.org/publications/pubID.498/pub_detail.asp http://www.no-smoke.org/pdf/catoinstitute.pdf http://…
Comment linking /2006/05/cato-hypocrisy.html
on “How Rent Control Drives Out Affordable Housing”Submitted Liberals, you must reclaim Adam Smith as a story · 7 points
HN discussionScience fiction writer David Brin talks about this: http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2011/05/no-losers-tax-simplifi...
Comment linking /2011/05/no-losers-tax-simplification-proposal.html
on “Can the US tax code be simplified with computer modeling and simulation”Submitted Pining For Feudalism As An Antidote For Modernity (2011) as a story · 7 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Deadly Thing at 2.4 Kiloparsecs as a story · 6 points
HN discussionSubmitted Your Duty as a Sci Fi Fan? as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Can Citizens Become a Political Force? as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted A Free Brin Story: “Reality Check” as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted David Brin on the History of Class Warfare and it's Relevance to Today as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Seasteading: Some Problems on the way to Castle Sovereign as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Let's Lift the Earth (2014) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Brin: Looking back at Heinlein's Future History, coming true before our eyes as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Why are “new economy” moguls mostly optimists? as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Omniveillance and Ubiquitous Law Enforcement as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Jefferson Rifle: A gun control compromise? as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Space-Launch Mass Drivers & von Neumann machines: Science meets Science Fiction as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Theses on Starship, Space Tourism, and Human Futures Beyond Earth as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted David Brin Short-Story Contest: What Happens to Starman and the Red Roadster? as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Optimism, Pessimism, and Hypocrisy as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Designed to Let Us Down, our deliberately frail cell phone system (2007) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted David Brin: Bootstrapping a Solar System Civilization as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Privacy will not go away – but it will evolve as a story · 1 points
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