Wonder if they'll get paid:

'nuff said.

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Interesting. The group is: Jerry Pournelle, Arlan Andrews, Greg Bear, Larry Niven and Sage Walker.

Quoting:

The writers make up a group called Sigma, which Andrews put together 15 years ago to advise government officials. The last time the group gathered was in the late 1990s, when members met with government scientists to discuss what a post-nuclear age might look like, says group member Greg Bear.

Which sounds a bit like an idea in Niven & Pornelle's Footfall. It does sound like this isn't a regular gig, though. It's interesting that Pournelle is not always the most complementary on the subject of the Homeland Security Department.

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I thought they were already using fiction writers.

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I'm not at all complementary on HS - largely because it's 99% BS. A knee-jerk reaction.

I think, though, it's safe to say that if he were still alive today, Heinlein would be asked to be in that group. I'd like to see Dave Drake, John Ringo, and David Freer in that group, too.

Now that I think on it- I don't know of anything -off hand- that any of the current group (mentioned in the paper) has written that has come to pass - with the possible exception of Niven (when he was writing with Steven Barnes)

"Why offer their ideas to the government instead of private companies that pay big bucks?"

"To save civilization," Ringworld author Larry Niven says. "We do it in fiction. Why wouldn't we want to do it in fact?"

I like my anti-terror plan. Leave them their guns and bombs, but take away their Gods.

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Ringo, Linda Evans, and many of the Baen crew have written as such for many years. Some you like; and, some not so. Big deal! They---like others---write what gives them pleasure: and a bit of cash. Confuse agenda and fiction at your perusal. Many of the authors are just as frustrated as the next person. Why not play with torture in one story? How about enlarging a womans role in war? I think these people are just trying. No agenda.

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Ok; that's one thing they got close. If I recall, it was wrist picture phones.
And how many Sci-fi things were way off mark? We are already around a decade past the Eugenics war, Hal, and lots of other things.

This is the old blind squirrel analogy again. Get any group together to talk about the future, and you're probably going to get the same predictions.

Besides; isn't most sci-fi a product of the fear or hope generated from current events anyway? I see circular thought going on here.

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Tom Clancy is not technically a SF writer, but he foresaw hijacked planes flying into buildings back in 1994 (actually, into a stadium). Too bad nobody paid attention.

Or is THAT where Al-Qaeda got the idea?

Seriously, part of the job of Homeland Security is (or should be) dreaming up the most outrageous scenarios in order to prepare for them. SF writers are good at that, although technothriller writers like Clancy are probably better choice.

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Seriously, part of the job of Homeland Security is (or should be) dreaming up the most outrageous scenarios in order to prepare for them.
Can you show that they are not doing this? I'll try to keep politics out of it (difficult considering the topic being discussed). Objectively, look at the number of sucessful attacks on U.S. soil and compair that to the number of groups out there who would love to carry out such an attack. This isn't stone-clad proof of anything, but it's a decent indicator. Also, on a personal level, how safe do you feel when you are out in public (from a terroristic attack standpoint, not domestic crime or accidents). Again, not proof but it's a good indicator. Lastly, just how much did the Sept. 11 attacks disrupt this country? From an emotional standpoint, a lot. That's understandable. What happened shouldn't happen anywhere, in any country, for any reason. Yet it hardly brought America to its knees. If anything, it did quite the opposite.

Anyway, my point is it is easy to criticize any type of government program that appears as "big brother"ish as the Dept of Homeland Security. But from a community like the one here at BAUT, why aren't these subjects considered as objectively and analitically as, say, the properties of light or dark matter studies are in the Q&A section? Yes, OTB is a less formal area of the boards. I just find it interesting that the same thought processes don't always apply to these types of topics (I know, I'm guilty of it too).

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I think you're conflating a couple of different books (by different authors).

Clancy's 1994 Debt of Honor ended with an airplane (not technically hijacked, but flown by a disgruntled pilot) crashing into the capitol building, killing the majority of congress and the President.

Thomas Harris' 1975 Black Sunday involved a blimp that was rigged to explode over the Super Bowl.

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.... and if I remember correctly (age is catching up to me) this is not the first time the DoD has used SF writers.

I vaguely remember reading something like this several decades ago... maybe in 'Omni' magazine....

Well; the article did say this...

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

Fazor. When you ask to prove a negative you scare me. However; and what ever, bad things have happened. Seems to me that a bit of water torture and like methods would help answer what you have raised.

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They should be trying to plug up the really easy scenarios before they worry about the implausible ones.

Not the first time they used Larry Niven, either--I remember a Niven essay in which he said that he and several other SF authors came up with the Star Wars missile defense plan. Arthur C. Clark, also in the group, was the dissenter, whose own proposal was to use a shotgun rather than a bullet approach: blast a bucket of sand into retrograde orbit.

Actually, I can't remember if the DoD asked them to do this or if they did it on their own and sent them the proposals.

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Yes bad things have happened. If you can think of a way from making bad things impossible from ever happening, well you'll most likely get one of those nifty little Nobel awards for your trophy case.

All I asked to prove was that the DoD or any of it's related branches does not train for worst-case scenarios, as was implied by the post I quoted. I can garuntee that they can and do train for such scenarios (we certainly did as police officers).

The rest of my post was to put some perspective on things. It's easy to let person feelings and opinions influence your views on anything dealing with government. I merely pointed out some things one can look at to quantify the issue. I never said that the number of actual attacks compared to the number of groups plotting such attacks was good (although I suspect that it is). I never said that everyone indeed feels safe from terrorstic attacks. Personally, I know I have the thought in the back of my mind whenever I'm at a mass-gathering, such as a sporting event.

Additionally, if you are reffering to reports of prisoner abuse and tortue as I think you are, just remember that the reports we get through the media are oft highly sensationalized and nealy always one-sided. This is the same media that complaines the government has grossly overstepped thier authority, then on the next page gripes that there was not enough done to stop such and such attack. News articles are highly opinionated and purposely tout the extreeme; that's how they get readers.

But my biggest point is this; it is not enough to say that this policy or that policy is wrong, bad, ineffective, or unconstitutional. You must evidence (but not here, beacuse this is not the place) WHY you believe it is so, and more importantly, how it can be done better. Theres quite a famous historical quote that would work here, but it escapes me at the moment.

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