Sci-Fi Writers Dream Up Ideas For US Government 123
cheezitmike writes "This week in Washington, DC, a group of Sci-Fi writers is helping the US Department of Homeland Security envision the future at the 2009 Homeland Security Science & Technology Stakeholders Conference. The agency is hoping the interaction between writers and bureaucrats helps the government 'break old habits of thought' and 'help managers think more broadly about projects and their potential reactions and unintended consequences.' And, it's at minimal expense to taxpayers, since the writers are consulting pro bono."
Dreamer Fithp! (Score:2, Insightful)
roll on the nuclear bomb powered space ships
Here's a couple wild ideas (Score:5, Insightful)
* Stop torturing people. It's good at terrorizing, but doesn't actually help catch bad people.
* Stop locking people into iron cages because they ate a particular kind of plant.
Here's a freebie:
* Stop making laws based on dictates of an invisible guy in the sky who burns people for eternity because they stuck their jimmy in the wrong hole. It's just a little kooky when you think about it.
Seriously, consulting sci-fi authors? How about consulting superheros like Captain Common Sense?
What a waste of time (Score:1, Insightful)
It sounds like a real waste of time. The government calling on a group of science fiction writers to come up with ideas for the future? Are they out of their own ideas or something? What are they doing working in the government then? This just seems like a way to generate a fluff media piece listing cool fantasy technologies to make everyone hopeful and temporarily forget about economic problems and Democrat in-fighting.
Re:Noooooooo...... (Score:5, Insightful)
Old news (Score:5, Insightful)
They've been using George Orwell as inspiration for a while now.
And Tonight in the DHS channel (Score:2, Insightful)
At 8PM, TNA Impact "Roar of the Redneck!"
At 9PM, Shitty Monster Movie with Cheap CGI
At 11PM, Watch an Ultimate Gamer Cry Like a Fucking Emo - Life is so fucking hard man!
At 1AM, Another Fucking Infomercial - look, the Aussie guy is selling pills to get a 6-pack!
At 2AM, Highlander vs Al Quaeda.
Re:An Improvement (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, an improvement but only in the entertainment value.
These guys do best exactly what we don't need more of from the DHS - "movie plot threats."
"Movie plot threats" are a dime a dozen, we will bankrupt ourselves trying to defend against even a fraction of a precent of them. We need to spend money on the basics like first responders, medical facilities, emergency planning, etc that apply to any threat, man-made or acts of god.
And once that stuff is taken care of to a reasonable degree, the rest of the money needs to stay in the hands of private citizens who will make much more productive use of it - whether it is as simple as buying food and shelter for their families or running small businesses.
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
Re:George Orwell (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems like now that they've gone and made 1984 a reality, they need new material to work off of.
Really? I'd say we're closer to Brave New World these days.. Don't forget to take your soma--err, i mean Paxil.
Re:Noooooooo...... (Score:5, Insightful)
They need a crash course in understanding factual reality, not some wacky sci fi hallucination.
The voters, too. Someone keeps electing these morons.
Re:An Improvement (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And Tonight in the DHS channel (Score:3, Insightful)
9:30 pm - Sweet Sixteen with a rahfull - Al Qaeda Killer Chick
Re:Noooooooo...... (Score:3, Insightful)
The voters, too. Someone keeps electing these morons.
You know, while I understand why government officials (particularly the ones higher up) are referred to as morons and the like, I think it's far more likely that they're well aware that they're dishonest with the public and serve themselves and come across as idiots because of their tangled web of lies which really doesn't matter that much once you consider how easy it is to sway public opinion with propaganda.
Of course, given that the great majority of candidates are self-serving (morons) to begin with it's not surprising that people like this get elected. Oh well, I guess I'll just find a less-restrictive place to live when things become too oppressive for me =).
Re:Here's a couple wild ideas (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately, there's good reason to believe that Captain Common Sense is a homophobic theist. To draw the kinds of enlightened conclusions that the parent does, it turns out that we need to override our common sense tendencies. Consulting sci-fi writers is actually quite a clever way of dealing with the limitations of common sense.
Re:Noooooooo...... (Score:3, Insightful)
When you find that place please let me know.
Re:An Improvement (Score:3, Insightful)
My credibility, that derives from knowing how to read, and having read the SIGMA website and several of the blogs of its members?
My assertion, that you don't know what you're talking about, reinforced when you betrayed that you didn't know SIGMA pre-dates DHS?
You have nothing and you know it. You're engaged in a trolling tactic, so now I'm doing this for fun.
As to your assertion, that a bureaucrat can anticipate threats better than science fiction authors (despite having advanced degrees, scientific or engineering experience, military or military consulting experience, and lives continually engaged in though experiments of scientific, military, political, and cultural extrapolation), let's hear what a career bureaucrat has to say:
"Never did anybody's thought process about how to protect America, did we ever think that the evildoers would fly not one but four commercial aircraft into precious U.S. targets. Never." - George Bush, 9/16/2001.
Funny, Tom Clancy thought of that. So did our military and intelligence services on numerous occasions. The bureaucrats overseeing the analysts who wrote those reports considered it implausible. They knew it was possible, but they lacked the imagination to believe that terrorists would actually do that.
Is it any wonder they're now listening to people with imagination?