james_nicoll: Science Fiction Writers Versus the Enemies of America!

james_nicoll (

james_nicoll) wrote,
@ 2008-03-20 23:39:00

Science Fiction Writers Versus the Enemies of America!
"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."

Some high points:

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.

Ah, Larry, you giddy liberal you.

If you read on, you'll get to see Brin having his very own Khrushchev moment.

Seen on instant_fanzine

(Post a new comment)

	talheres 2008-03-21 03:58 am UTC (link)
	I remember a piece by Brin awhile back complaining about how the right to privacy is a threat to an open society. I'll never understand why people look up to that guy. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	It was in Salon talheres 2008-03-21 04:04 am UTC (link)
	The premise being that if everyone doesn't know what kind of pr0n you're downloading, then how can we ever know what the government is keeping behind our backs? Or something like that. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	Or was it in Wired? talheres 2008-03-21 04:05 am UTC (link)
	It's been awhile since I've read it. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Or was it in Wired? ross_teneyck 2008-03-21 04:08 am UTC (link)
	In fairness, if I remember his argument correctly, it was something like: 1) Privacy is dead; get used to it. The authorities will be spying on you. 2) Therefore, the only remaining choice is: do you want to be able to spy on the authorities as they're spying on you, or not? (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

Re: Or was it in Wired?

talheres
2008-03-21 04:49 am UTC (link)

2) Therefore, the only remaining choice is: do you want to be able to spy on the authorities as they're spying on you, or not?

It sounds like a naive argument, (not like I think every citizen out there counts as a government or corporate worker, of course) considering what can be done to whistleblowers these days. The protections simply aren't as great anymore, not like I'm een implying that they've ever been truly been safe. Plus, there is that little matter of assuming just because some facts become well known, justice will be delivered. Not that I'm overjoyed by state secrecy, but having people be aware of certain facts doesn't always mean a revolution will take place. (Unless I'm reading this incorrectly)

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

Re: Or was it in Wired?

mindstalk
2008-03-21 04:55 am UTC (link)

I think you're missing the point. He sees technology as giving two choices:

1) government and corporations watch us, while remaining in secrecy

2) government and corporations watch us, while we watch them, and each other.

It's not that privacy is bad (though he does think transparent accountability works better than secrecy, and that the cypherpunks were nuts), but privacy is dead for the common people. So, what then?

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

Perhaps I should of added that

talheres
2008-03-21 05:46 am UTC (link)

I already conceded I misinterpreted the thing, since it's been years since I've read it.

As for what we can do-Well, apparently just give up, if you decide to agree with his line of reasoning. I don't. Perhaps it's a sign I'm insane, but just because the odds are awful, I don't see it as a reason to give up. Keep your ideals in tact anyway. Brin's is not the type of political pep talk people need if they really want change (and no, I'm not thinking of Obama).

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Perhaps I should of added that mindstalk 2008-03-21 06:10 am UTC (link)
	No, giving up would be accepting path 1, where the government watches us from the shadows. Brin advocates 2, fighting to make sure that the powerful are held as accountable as the rest of us. (Reply to this) (Parent)

Re: Or was it in Wired?

heron61
2008-03-21 05:24 am UTC (link)

Universal surveillance is inevitable, with everything from street cameras to the fact that most people already have camera phones, and in 5 years, we're likely to have at least 1% of the population videoing their entire lives (life-logging) and putting the records online, a number that's just going to rise over time. In public places, privacy is dying and will soon be dead. This isn't a political argument, this is a technological fact.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Or was it in Wired? talheres 2008-03-21 05:49 am UTC (link)
	It's not impossible for people to change the government. Just because it's bad now doesn't mean everything is set in stone. Maybe it'll take ten years, maybe a hundred. But things can change. (Just because I'm a cynic doesn't mean I can't also be an idealist.) (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Or was it in Wired? mindstalk 2008-03-21 06:12 am UTC (link)
	What does the government have to do with what he said? (Reply to this) (Parent)

Re: Or was it in Wired?

heron61
2008-03-21 07:14 am UTC (link)

It's not just about government surveillance, it's also about everyone taking photos and vids of everyone else. Once that happens (as it already is), privacy is dead, even if the government is not involved. You already have teens taking phone vids of their teachers and fellow students performing various embarrassing activities and posting these vids on-line. The only possible solution would be some sort of ludicrously draconian law prohibiting people from either taking or posting images of people w/o their permission, and in addition to being unenforceable, I find that idea vastly worse than any supposed problem it might attempt to solve.

The most hopeful thing (from my PoV at least) about all this, is that teens today have far less of a sense of privacy than most older people - many automatically assume everything they do in public or post online could be blogged or posted as a vid and is thus fully public info. From my PoV, that's an entirely sensible attitude.

As for the government getting into the act, if you have people posting an increasing number of images on-line, all the government needs is a good search program and good facial and image recognition software, they don't even need their own cameras.

In any case, in 20 or 100 years, I'm assuming that whatever we might be then will have gotten over the increasingly outdated assumption that anything done in public doesn't stand a significant chance of being recorded and placed on-line by someone.

On a related note, one development I'd love to see is cameras strapped to the forehead of every on-duty cop, with public feeds. Police brutality won't stand up to that sort of thing very long (and in addition, it protects the few good cops in the cases where someone wrongly alledges that they did something wrong).

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

Re: Or was it in Wired?

robertprior
2008-03-21 02:00 pm UTC (link)

The most hopeful thing (from my PoV at least) about all this, is that teens today have far less of a sense of privacy than most older people - many automatically assume everything they do in public or post online could be blogged or posted as a vid and is thus fully public info. From my PoV, that's an entirely sensible attitude.

From my experience, most teens actually have a very well developed sense of privacy—they just haven't realized that stuff posted online might been seen by someone other than their peer group. They may take pictures of each other and post them to Facebook, but as soon as they see an adult with a camera pointed their way they get very aggressive in defense of their "rights"—which apparently include the right not to be photographed.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

	neonchameleon 2008-03-21 11:54 am UTC (link)
	With Brin, I find it best to dial down his rhetoric about a dozen notches - and then he normally has a good point. In this case the point is that trying to maintain privacy now may be like closing the barn door while the horse is jumping the farm gate. But if we try for accountability, we may get something useful in its place. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	msagara 2008-03-21 04:05 am UTC (link)
	... There are times when I wish people would keep their rather black humour to themselves. Because I assume that's what Niven intended. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	badgerbag 2008-03-21 04:08 am UTC (link)
	Ugh! I wish I could join you in your assumption, but I can't. Even if so... just not funny. Ugh, ugh, ugh. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	vito_excalibur 2008-03-21 04:22 am UTC (link)
	Why would you assume that? (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	msagara 2008-03-21 04:28 am UTC (link)
	Why would you assume that? Because it has that comment-at-a-panel feel, and because I cannot actually conceive of anyone suggesting something like that in anything other than a blackly humorous way. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	movingfinger 2008-03-21 04:37 am UTC (link)
	Had he proposed that at a con panel and, as he did at this one, and then asserted that the idea would work, as he did at this one, the audience would have turned him inside out to make him provide examples to back the statement up. You can make any stupid assertion you like on a panel, but expect to be called on it; the audience is smarter than Homeland Security. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

schizmatic
2008-03-21 01:22 pm UTC (link)

the audience is smarter than Homeland Security.

Uh, the whole point of the cited article is that the folks who invited them were not sitting at the feet of the writers to learn wisdom, but rather kind of agog as what was supposed to be a discussion of how to improve national security turned into a con panel.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

vito_excalibur
2008-03-21 04:55 am UTC (link)

Right, because people never show their ass in public like this.

I don't buy it; I'm really tired of the "can't you take a joke" defense, when there's absolutely no reason to believe that the person was joking. For future reference, it may be helpful to note that jokes can often be distinguished from regular speech by a simple metric: do they include some kind of humorous content?

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

brooksmoses
2008-03-21 05:16 am UTC (link)

They can be distinguished that way, yes. Or they can be distinguished more correctly, which will give you different answers.

I would not consider a bit of humorous wordplay within a conveying of honestly- and earnestly-meant content to be a "joke". Nor would I consider a joke which was intended to be funny and failed at it to not be a joke. (Many jokes fall into this category due to being genuinely offensive; the joke-nature does not preclude offensiveness.)

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

redbird
2008-03-21 12:12 pm UTC (link)

On the other hand, such a thing meant as a joke often carries information about the teller's actual beliefs or biases. And if someone tells a joke and it goes over flat, they could say "just joking, guys" and change the subject. The mere fact that something is stupid and offensive if taken seriously does not mean that the speaker was joking.

[minor edit for grammar]

Edited at 2008-03-22 01:10 am UTC

(Reply to this) (Parent)

don_fitch
2008-03-22 11:46 pm UTC (link)

That comment struck me as being typical of Niven (and many other (hard) science-fiction authors). Taken as a purely-logical nuts-&-bolts approach, yes, it would probably work and might the the most effective method. The next step is to figure out the unintended consequences & whether it's a good idea or a really bad one. (I rather doubt that he'd argue strongly for it being good.) But yeah, that Purely Speculative Approach is much more appropriate for a Convention Panel than for the context in which he employed it.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	vito_excalibur 2008-03-23 12:21 am UTC (link)
	The "most effective method"...? If the goal is to keep from losing any money on hospitals, shutting down all hospitals would work even better. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	mindstalk 2008-03-21 04:57 am UTC (link)
	He's hardly incapable; he wrote "The Roentgen Standard". I'd have to read a full transcript, or watch video, to gauge the mood and tone. Assuming the reporter was without bias or error. (Reply to this) (Parent)

robertprior
2008-03-21 02:11 pm UTC (link)

Did you read "The Roentgen Standard"? Make all money out of radioisotopes. Easy to catch forgers, encourages fast circulation and thus good for the economy, and so on. Written tongue firmly in cheek.

This has the same feel to it, especially considering that in Niven's future history humanity is a blended mix. And Niven often takes one outrageous idea and runs with it, just to see where it ends up.

Looking at this idea, the key thing is that illegal immigrants are discouraged from coming to hospitals, as a way of keeping costs down. Reading the news in the US, there's a push in some quarters to force schools, hospitals, etc to call Immigration/Homeland Security when they suspect someone is an illegal. If you are an illegal, and you know that visiting a hospital will get you deported, then you won't go. Same effect. So, is it moral to keep people away from hospitals by one fear, but not by a different fear?

That's how I would interpret Niven's suggestion: playing with ideas and assumptions.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

	heron61 2008-03-21 05:25 am UTC (link)
	I'd love to think that was true. Reading an exchange where Jerry Pournelle came across as considerably less horrifying than Larry Niven is an odd and terrible experience. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	tanac 2008-03-21 04:09 am UTC (link)
	Having read the entire page now, I'm still not sure if it's satire or it's real. Help? Satire? Please? (Reply to this) (Thread)

	brooksmoses 2008-03-21 05:10 am UTC (link)
	The site's too large to be satire. Lousy sensationalist reporting without much editorial oversight, of the sort that's liable to be getting the tone all wrong and is a shining example of why one should never talk to reporters, though.... Most of their product-related stuff is clearly coming straight off the press releases. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	ross_teneyck 2008-03-21 04:12 am UTC (link)
	Instead the writers used their time to pontificate on a variety of tangentially related topics Well, that was predictable. (Reply to this)

	kristine_smith 2008-03-21 04:14 am UTC (link)
	I kept looking for an Onion byline. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	heron61 2008-03-21 05:25 am UTC (link)
	Would that there were. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	nihilistic_kid 2008-03-21 04:33 am UTC (link)
	bin Laden doesn't stand a chance now! (Reply to this)

	james_nicoll 2008-03-21 04:52 am UTC (link)
	So is there a membership list for SIGMA? (Reply to this) (Thread)

	kd5mdk 2008-03-21 05:03 am UTC (link)
	Is it made up of people who cause trouble in SFWA? Edited at 2008-03-21 05:04 am UTC (Reply to this) (Parent)

	james_nicoll 2008-03-21 05:00 am UTC (link)
	Is it really six years since Brin's most recent SF novel or am I overlooking one? (Reply to this) (Thread)

	stephenshevlin 2008-03-21 10:29 am UTC (link)
	There was a YA SF novel last year, SKY PEOPLE or something like that. Oh, and the Hugo noms are out: http://www.denvention.org/hugos/08hugonomlist.php (Reply to this) (Parent)

	gehayi 2008-03-21 07:22 am UTC (link)
	Sounds like Larry Niven was being sarcastic. And alluding to an urban legend. (Reply to this)

	pompe 2008-03-21 08:28 am UTC (link)
	Hilarious! (Reply to this)

	kameron_hurley 2008-03-21 10:17 am UTC (link)
	No, really... this was s serious piece? (Reply to this)

	redbird 2008-03-21 12:10 pm UTC (link)
	Oy vey iz mir! Send him to remedial classes in public health and epidemiology. (Reply to this)

	mmcirvin 2008-03-21 12:37 pm UTC (link)
	Again with the organ harvesting. It's all about organ harvesting for him, isn't it? (Reply to this) (Thread)

	There Will Be Organs carloshasanax 2008-03-21 03:09 pm UTC (link)
	Could be worse. He's a ~~Plainfield~~ Doheny. Murder, suicide, bowling, milkshakes. Oh, I'm sorry: keeshonden, Steuben glass, and good works for the little people of Los Angeles. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	timgueguen 2008-03-22 06:11 pm UTC (link)
	Of course if such a policy as Niven postulated were put in place it would be interesting to see how long it would take for some sort of epidemic to result from illegals avoiding emergemcy room treatment of something nasty and infectious until it was too late. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	grimjiminember 2009-05-26 10:23 pm UTC (link)
	Like a hopped up mutation of H1N1? Cf., The Bladerunner by Alan E. Nourse. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	grimjiminember 2009-05-26 10:21 pm UTC (link)
	The URL has been archived (relocated) to: http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2008/March/Pages/ScienceFictionMavensOfferFarOutHomelandSecurityAdvice.aspx (Reply to this)

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