"Nature is made of layers of competition that when you go up a layer, looks like cooperation ... everything's killing everything else. But when you rise up a layer, and squint, and look at the ecosystem as a whole, it looks fantastically synergistic and cooperative.

The human brain and mind are vastly internally competitive. You are not one thing, you are many. But what comes out, quite often, is a truly beautiful person.

Societies can do that."

#DavidBrin, 2023

https://www.teamhuman.fm/episodes/256-david-brin

@jarulf @bookstodon
Another one I just recalled, "The Postman" by David Brin. In a post-apocalyptic Pacific Northwest of North America a man steals the uniform of a dead postman, and starts posing as the representative of a fictional surviving government. And the role takes over his life.

Notable because Brin pushes back against the "war of all against all" that a lot of post-apoc fiction uses.

Was made into a movie with Kevin Kostner, but I never saw it.

(I'll stop now.)

"In all of [#AynRand's] books there are only 2 pages that mention children, that mention human reproduction. None of her uber-lord characters reproduce... What a sterile, lifeless world!

But she had to do that. Because if there are children, then she's cornered by the fact that these super-duper uber-lords will have brats that have not earned their place in the world but inherit everything, and all she's done is re create feudalism."

#DavidBrin, 2024

https://shows.acast.com/teamhuman/episodes/david-brin