Can We Have Some OTHER Writers Advise the Government?!
Interesting article brought to my attention by a friend. Reproducing it below as well. Please tell me this is a joke. I mean, some of it it would be oddly endearing if not for the context. But most of it is disgusting.
Now a fixture at Department of Homeland Security science and technology conferences, SIGMA is a loosely affiliated group of science fiction writers who are offering pro bono advice to anyone in government who want their thoughts on how to protect the nation.
The group has the ear of Department of Homeland Security Undersecretary Jay Cohen, head of the science and technology directorate, who has said he likes their unconventional thinking. Members of the group recently offered a rambling, sometimes strident string of ideas at a panel discussion promoting the group at the DHS science and technology conference.
Among the group’s approximately 24 members is Larry Niven, the bestselling and award-winning author of such books as “Ringworld” and “Lucifer’s Hammer,” which he co-wrote with SIGMA member Jerry Pournelle.
Niven said a good way to help hospitals stem financial losses is to spread rumors in Spanish within the Latino community that emergency rooms are killing patients in order to harvest their organs for transplants.
“The problem [of hospitals going broke] is hugely exaggerated by illegal aliens who aren’t going to pay for anything anyway,” Niven said.
“Do you know how politically incorrect you are?” Pournelle asked.
“I know it may not be possible to use this solution, but it does work,” Niven replied.
“I cannot guarantee I’m going to be a great help to Homeland Security,” Niven said earlier.
Pournelle said that once mobile phone technology and the devices tacked on them to take pictures and record video become more ubiquitous, then ordinary citizens will be empowered to take security into their own hands — a prediction some have said already has come to pass.
“My guess is we won’t need quite so many paid agents of the state to do that for us, which means maybe we can try being a republic instead of an incompetent empire,” he said, then railed against the Transportation Security Administration for treating passengers like “subjects” rather than “citizens.”
The 45-minute panel discussion quickly deteriorated as federal, local and state homeland security officials, and at least one congressional aid, attempted to ask questions, which were largely ignored.
Instead the writers used their time to pontificate on a variety of tangentially related topics, including their past roles advising the government, predictions in their stories that have come to pass, the demise of the paperback book market, and low-cost launch into space.
David Brin, keeping on the topic of empowering citizens with mobile phone technology, delivered a self-described “rant” on the lack of funds being spent to support citizen reservists to back up the military, homeland security officials and first responders in times of crisis.
“It is impossible for you to succeed without us!” he shouted at the assembled officials, while banging his fist on the table and at one point jumping off his chair to wave a mobile phone in their faces.
SIGMA is the brainchild of Arlan Andrews Sr., who noted that many of the writers have advanced degrees, have jobs with the government or have been hired to advise the government in the past.
“If you like the ideas these people have, and you’re from the government, feel free to come talk to them,” Andrews said.
March 23, 2008 at 9:04 am
Jeff, some of these people have been government advisers for years. I think it all started with Reagan’s Star Wars project, but it might go back beyond that.
March 23, 2008 at 9:49 am
Wait, are you saying that’s NOT a joke?!
March 23, 2008 at 10:00 am
It sure reads like an Onion article…
March 23, 2008 at 10:01 am
Wow.
That’s horrifying.
They don’t speak for me.
Where’s BoingBoing when you need it? They could do a better job just by putting together a greatest hits mixtape e-mail and getting it forwarded across the Company.
March 23, 2008 at 10:10 am
Not that what Larry Niven suggested about hospitals isn’t troubling in any context… but it really sounds to me like the author of this article has a bone to pick. The author calls them “rambling”, “ranting,” and “strident.” He characterizes Pournelle as “railing” and says the panel “quickly deteriorated” when Niven et al started to “pontificate about tangentially related topics.”
Whether their ideas are loony or not, this is a pretty atrocious and biased piece of journalism. Sounds like a highly skeptical reporter took the most inflammatory moments of the panel and posted them out of context.
March 23, 2008 at 10:11 am
Oh man, the stuff about lying to Latinos is really sick and nasty and makes me want to never read a Niven book again. Truth is, though, that I only read one (The Mote in God’s Eye) and the whole time I was like, wow, this guy really knows close to nothing about what actual human beings are like. The aliens seemed much more plausible then the manly men and fembot females. Ugh, and Homeland Security wants to listen to him.
March 23, 2008 at 10:34 am
No, not a joke and there are many writers assisting with this project. These guys are the front runners, the public face. I know that Walter Jon Williams recently blogged about being invited to participate in one of the sub committees on the west coast. As to what’s quoted here, it does raise questions about either the journalist’s prejudice or the effectiveness of these particular participants.
Oz
March 23, 2008 at 10:47 am
oh god
what the hell, Niven, what the hell?
I don’t even mind the evil so much, at this point in the decline of the culture I’ve gotten used to it
but the stupidity
this is like something a nasty and not very bright thirteen year old might think was clever policy
March 23, 2008 at 10:51 am
David: If those are direct quotes, I can’t imagine how the context would help much. I also have had first-hand experience of some of those writers in terms of their convention appearances. Rambling wouldn’t even begin to cover it. I won’t make excuses for the journalist if this is completely slanted, but I think if you were attending something where people made statements like the ones above…it’d stick in your mind.
Jeff
March 23, 2008 at 10:53 am
Anyway, I posted it originally in part, quite literally, to know if it was a joke. Any further information on the context would be useful. But, again, it’s impossible to put Niven’s statement in any context that would make it better.
JeffV
March 23, 2008 at 10:53 am
I’m gonna up the ante: my proposal is that illegal aliens who try to get medical care and whose papers are found not to be in order should be dragged into windowless hospital rooms by burly staff nurses and waterboarded.
“Spreading rumors” is for those who lack the Pure Strength Of Will to do what must to be done to safeguard our nation’s hospitals’ profits
let’s see if I can get invited onto this panel
I will report back and let you all know if they are in fact “rambling,” “ranting” and “strident”
(my money is on: yes)
March 23, 2008 at 11:18 am
A bit of historical background – Norman Spinrad on the story of SF involvement in the Star Wars project.
March 23, 2008 at 5:13 pm
I always suspected that everything that came out of Washington was pretty much pure fiction, but to have it confirmed like this…
March 23, 2008 at 7:20 pm
Other governments have used (SF) writers for a long time (to good effect). However, I think they focus them to solve specific problems or try to imagine the next level of technology (and then how to use it, or get around it). This seems more like “Hey, what do you all think about all the problems facing the US?” Maybe the DoHS aught to hire some good convention planners and study panel planning and management.
March 24, 2008 at 2:19 am
[...] (Via Jeff V.) [...]
March 24, 2008 at 9:20 am
Niven’s never forgiven the brown, black and yellow people for moving to LA and spoiling the view of rich white oil heirs like himself.
March 24, 2008 at 12:19 pm
I saw Kathy Goonan over the weekend and I believe she participated in this government meeting (although it may be another). She told me that she spoke about good education being the most important weapon the United States has.
If this is the meeting she attended, I can say that after reading the write-up it is indeed totally biased and dismissive of everything anyone said:
“It is impossible for you to succeed without us!†he shouted at the assembled officials, while banging his fist on the table and at one point jumping off his chair to wave a mobile phone in their faces.”
Whatever my feelings about David Brin–I just can’t see him doing the above.
March 24, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Oh and please do NOT think that I’m defending Niven’s comments in any way, shape, or form.
March 24, 2008 at 1:10 pm
And it looks like have to retract my disbelief at Brin’s antics–a friend just confirmed that he certainly could have behaved that way. Yikes!
March 24, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Well, it’s good to know there were some voices of sanity there, at whatever meeting she was at–I can’t think of anyone more reasonable or interesting in this context than Goonan.
March 24, 2008 at 4:50 pm
I’m proud to say I work in a hospital where NO ONE is turned away. Everyone is treated the same with or without insurance.
March 24, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Or green cards.
March 24, 2008 at 8:53 pm
blaming illegals for the failure of the healthcare system in this country is like blaming one mouse for the myriad of holes in the dike, when angry, sweaty guys with dirty pickaxes are standing around kicking clods of dike off their pickaxes and saying “Somebody should do something about those mice.”
it’s not even close to the biggest problem.
Frankly, I’ve had this chat before with Republicans around these here (Texas) parts. So, you know *every single level of the food production process from rising the grain out of the earth to slaughtering cattle to packaging to shipping to preparation*?
Yeah, you really want all these nice, hardworking people sweating in those places to not become incubators for zany diseases.
But, that’s enough ranting for one subject. I am no longer a health insurance agent, and I am quite happy to say that, thank you. (I promise I wasn’t one of the evil ones.)
March 25, 2008 at 4:03 am
I was watching a series on SF on video last week and this topic of sf writers and Reagan’s Star Wars program. Larry Niven was on camera. This group invited Arthur C Clarke to join them, and he refused, disgusted with sf writers involvement with the militarization of space. Clarke had a huge argument with Heinlein, and, at the time of this program, they hadn’t spoken since.
March 25, 2008 at 10:23 am
Jeff,
There might have been two distinct meetings at different times with different groups. Still trying to sort it out with those who might actually know the facts :-)
March 27, 2008 at 10:29 am
Although I am a member of Sigma, I haven’t actually participated, yet, in any of their DHS meetings. But I gather that often the idea is to be as outrageous and as off-the-wall as you possibly can be; an out-of-the-box thinktank session. Obviously, Niven is going to be Niven. As mentioned, most of these people have worked for or consulted for the government throughout the years in many contexts.
The meeting that I attended had to do with small arms, and thinking up futuristic scenarios and solutions. I did find out about it via Sigma, but it was not a “Sigma Presence” meeting.
Since I know nothing about small arms, which the committee that invited me knew–they invited me on the strength of an abstract in which I put forth my experience in various thinktanks–I gave a talk about neuroplasticity and education, ending with a vision of nanotech seed Montessori schools dropped all over the world to engender world literacy, science education, and communication ability (cellphones for all, even children, and total internet access). I prefaced my talk by saying that anything I could possibly think of had already been thought of by DARPA, and that I therefore wanted to talk about something that I was pretty sure had never been considered before. IN WAR TIMES (a plug: it has been chosen by the ALA as the Best Adult Genre Novel of 2007-08, which I suppose is a school year thing) and the book I am working on try to explore the biological roots of war, with an eye to figuring out how to, if not change human nature, ameliorate the circumstances that push us into wars. “Memory Dog,” a recent Asimov’s story, is about that subject as well.