AltSci Cell

Once in a while a person finds an author who writes enough for a person to really like that author. The ideas that come across are coherent, consistent, and moving. Cory Doctorow is such an author for me. He understands technology, he is brilliant at coming up with plausible futuristic scenarios and he conveys ideas that are as important as anything we will face today. I've met him twice, once at Toorcon San Diego 2006 and once yesterday at a reading. He answered my question quite well. His new book "Little Brother" focuses on a revolution of ideas and values in present day America. He pits students against a tyrannical DHS frighteningly similar to the DHS we know today. He explains with incredible clarity why a war against an abstract noun is invalid and a system designed to protect people from rare events at the cost of their freedom is no more than common tyranny.

My question was: "What brought you to the idea of the probability of rare events and the detectors being useless?" He explained that the problem is that lurid rare events are much less of a threat than common events that harm a person. In his book he explains that trying to find a needle in a haystack is incredibly difficult when the margin of error of detection is so high. Any system designed to trade freedom for really poor results should be rejected.

We live in a country where basic freedoms are being trashed, we are at war with a country who has not attacked us, and the general populous will never revolt against it. We're basically in a downward spiral. With a new president and a possible solution to the war and removal of nationwide wiretaps and institutional torture, we can have hope for a new tomorrow. But persevering and incredible diligence is required still. We cannot afford to allow any screwups to send us back to our downward spiral if we get a chance to fix it. Tell the next president, Mr. Obama that we we're expecting nothing less than a complete change in the way our government is running.