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Sci-Fi Writers Dream Up Ideas For US Government

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the mote-in-uncle-sam's-eye dept.

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."

3 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. Re:An Improvement by Un+pobre+guey · · Score: 0, Troll

    "Ideas, created with pure thought and imagination, that are offered to the government" sounds like the kind of insane bullshit spouted by political and religious extremists. We don't want this. We want government to be based on a factual, informed, and insightful understanding of reality. The Evangelical Talibanization of American society and government is what we should be escaping, not promoting. I know, I know, these are sci fi writers, not Commercial Christianity preachers like the last administartion. It is a slippery slope, though.

  2. morons huh? by circletimessquare · · Score: 1, Troll

    in my experience, overly judgmental and overly critical people, such as yourself, i have often found to be the biggest morons around

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  3. Re:An Improvement by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 0, Troll

    If you knew WTF you were talking about, you'd be well aware that these people understand the stupidity of movie plot threats precisely because they spend a great deal of time trying to invent plausible scenarios themselves.

    I call bullshit. These people do not have an education or specialization in public policy or any other field applicable to non-movie-plot threats. Their entire careers are based on writing entertaining fiction and not the drudgery of high quality infrastructure planning.

    Many of these guys and gals have been consulting for the government long before DHS existed.

    Well if that's true, which I kinda doubt, then it was just as stupid to be hiring them back then as it is now.

    --
    When information is power, privacy is freedom.