U.S. Mission for Sci-Fi Writers: Imagine That (Novelists Plot the Future Of Homeland Security)

The Washington Post ^ | May 22, 2009 | David Montgomery

[Stoat]

The line between what's real and what's not is thin and shifting, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has decided to explore both sides. Boldly going where few government bureaucracies have gone before, the agency is enlisting the expertise of science fiction writers.

Crazy? This week down at the Reagan Building, the 2009 Homeland Security Science & Technology Stakeholders Conference has been going on. Instead of just another wonkish series of meetings and a trade show, with contractors hustling business around every corner, this felt at times more like a convention of futuristic yarn-spinners

Onstage in the darkened amphitheater, a Washington police commander said he'd like to have Mr. Spock's instant access to information: At a disaster scene, he'd like to say, "Computer, what's the dosage on this medication?"

A federal research director fantasized about a cellphone that could simultaneously text and detect biochemical attacks. Multiple cellphones in a crowd would confirm and track the spread. The master of ceremonies for the week was Greg Bear, the sci-fi novelist whose book "Quantico" featured FBI agents battling a designer plague targeting specific ethnic groups.

(edit)

The cost to taxpayers is minimal. The writers call this "science fiction in the national interest," and they consult pro bono. They've been exploring the future, and "we owe it to mankind to come back and report what we've found," said writer Arlan Andrews, who also is an engineer with the Navy

 

 

[Stoat]

My apologies for the severe editing of this article...this was done in order to remain in compliance with Free Republic posting rules pertaining to the posting of articles from the Washington Post.  Please click on the main article link to read the full story.

 

[Stoat]

He's looking for ways to break old habits of thought.

"We're stuck in a paradigm of databases," McDavid said later. "How do we jump out of our infrastructure and start conceptualizing those threats? That's very cool."

[Dallas59]

Until Homeland Security respects average Americans and Vets....

Let them eat Rokeg blood pie.

[cranked]

Cue the Twilight Zone music ping.

[Cindy]

Interesting, but....

there’s so much else going on in real time.

THANKS Stoat for the ping.
I do enjoy looking at futuristic thinking and technology.

[Axenolith]

Imagine a future where American Citizens are armed and educated enough, and the nation is feared or respected enough, to not need a nanny bureaucracy filled with sycophants trying to justify their subsequent year budgetary increases...

[Bhoy]

Yeah well the stories i imagine are of the struggles between the Bilderbergers and a rough & ready underground that they still can’t get to. People who can do things and improvise whose children are snatched (& implanted with chips so they can’t escape) because they have traditional education & can function at high level while their own children are useless druggies and perverts (think Caligula et al & the barbarians ....
better plot. better movie.

[CodeMasterPhilzar]

U.S. Mission for Sci-Fi Writers: Imagine That (Novelists Plot the Future Of Homeland Security)

Similar to a plot thread in the novel "Footfall" by Niven and Pournelle.

[anymouse]

I’m not much of a Sci-Fi reader but I have met Greg Bear, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. Would like to say they are all nice guys, but anyone who knows Pournelle, knows that he is disagreeably ornery just because he can get away with it.

[CodeMasterPhilzar]

I would believe that. I used to read his columns in Byte (I think it was)... Got the impression he liked things his way.

[Travis McGee]

Future fiction about homeland security? No way! Really?

[haroldeveryman]

I’m trying to make sense of this. The Dept of Homeland Security was organized to guard the “homeland” against terrorist attacks on US soil. But the Obama administration has decided that there really isn’t a “War on Terror”, just “overseas contingency operations”.

The Beltway crowd in the DHS never was too excited about looking for terrorists, and just need “a mission they can believe in”. So they began to compile a list of “right wing extremists”, i.e., people with military backgrounds who had Ron Paul bumper stickers and don’t like gay marriage or infanticide. Unfortunately, that plan went over like a turd in a punchbowl with the “unenlightened” element of our population.

Now in its desperation, the DHS has resorted to hiring science fiction writers to suggest things to do with taxpayer money? Why doesn’t out Messiah just put the DHS out of its misery and decrease the budget deficit that he “inherited”? Comeon! How does that add to his list of “jobs saved”?

[TLI]

If you didn't post them I was gonna.

Not so much fiction as it is future, any more...

[GeronL]

Multiple cellphones in a crowd would confirm and track the spread. The master of ceremonies for the week was Greg Bear, the sci-fi novelist whose book "Quantico" featured FBI agents battling a designer plague targeting specific ethnic groups.

Let me guess... launched by white racists?? Probably targeted those innocent and poor arabs too.

[GeronL]

these ‘novelists’ are likely all lefties

[VietVet]

Pournelle sure isn’t!

Vietvet

[GeronL]

was he there? cool.

[anymouse]

http://www.jerrypournelle.com

Jerry still does. But I cut him some slack, as he has done a lot.

[JohnBovenmyer]

Pournelle is an admitted former communist who converted to more or less libertarianism. He’s no friend of lefties now.

[GeronL]

economically, I am pretty libertarian too.

libertyfic.proboards.com