NYT: Pentagon's New Goal: Put Science Into Scripts

[DeepModem Mom]

Pentagon's New Goal: Put Science Into Scripts
By DAVID M. HALBFINGER
Published: August 4, 2005


LOS ANGELES, Aug. 3 - Tucked away in the Hollywood hills, an elite group of scientists from across the country and from a grab bag of disciplines - rocket science, nanotechnology, genetics, even veterinary medicine - has gathered this week to plot a solution to what officials call one of the nation's most vexing long-term national security problems.

Their work is being financed by the Air Force and the Army, but the Manhattan Project it ain't: the 15 scientists are being taught how to write and sell screenplays....

***

Exactly how the national defense could be bolstered by setting a few more people loose in Los Angeles with screenplays to peddle may be a bit of a brainteaser. But officials at the Air Force Office of Scientific Research spell out a straightforward syllogism:

Fewer and fewer students are pursuing science and engineering. While immigrants are taking up the slack in many areas, defense laboratories and industries generally require American citizenship or permanent residency. So a crisis is looming, unless careers in science and engineering suddenly become hugely popular, said Robert J. Barker, an Air Force program manager who approved the grant. And what better way to get a lot of young people interested in science than by producing movies and television shows that depict scientists in flattering ways?

Teaching screenwriting to scientists was the brainstorm of Martin Gundersen, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Southern California and sometime Hollywood technical adviser, whose biggest brush with stardom was bringing a little verisimilitude to Val Kilmer's lasers in the 1985 comedy "Real Genius."...


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/04/movies/04flyb.html

[iconoclastic cat]

1. But the fundies hate science! What'll they think?

[Porcupine]

2. If they study Law they do less work and earn 3x as much

Oh and nobody threatens to ship their job to China or make them obsolete at 50. As I recall 50 year old lawyers and docters can still change jobs. Not so for 50 year old engineers.

[MisterP]

3. their biggest gripe is "The Day After Tomorrow"--did they even see

"The Core," or do they just dig their spoons in whenever Dow or Crichton urps?

[Trillo]

4. More Corporate Media Manipulations.

Don't let the "science" angle fool you.

This is about controlled media, where business tycoons create whole advertising campaigns based upon the idea that, yes, you too can write a screenplay and strike it rich, thereby creating a flood of proposals (supply) while demand for them remains flat or declining.

Now, they're dragging scientists into the old-time scam. The economy must be really bad.

Perhaps scientists should also consider writing a "novel". Everyone knows that if you've written one of those you must be a gazillionaire.

[jody]

5. AFOSR doesn't understand reality. For every $11 we spend on

students with learning disabilities, we spend two cents on gifted students.

Without taking anything away from students with learning problems, it is simply stupid to deny every possible opportunity for gifted students who can take us into the 22nd century.
:bounce:

[Dover]

6. What slack? They're exporting jobs to foreign scientists, or importing

them to the States, because they'll work cheaper.

Is that in the script?

But it's nice to have confirmation that the Pentagon IS using Hollowood to get out their propaganda.

[Dogmudgeon]

7. But they're right, you know.

Although the brass is ostensibily trying to please their masters, they do have insight into the problem. They know full well that the country is undergoing a massive dumbing-down now, and I don't mean the "Jaywalking" kind. Most of the personnel whose MOS trains them to work with military information technology know that once they muster out, they'll be flipping burgers.

The military knows that scientific achievement has to be promoted, or within a few decades, we may find ourselves involved in a defensive war we're too stupid to fight.

Take a look at this page: http://www.ndu.edu/info/ReadingList.cfm

I've browsed the links and have even read some of the books. The Pentagon does not want a nation of dumb-ass worker bees -- they know we need a nation of well-educated, autonomous, creative citizens. Without that, America will revert to a series of colonies under imperial control.

Although none of us like war-mongering, the Pentagon planners are not the mongers -- that title goes to Team Bush. But Team Bush cares not one whit for the collective intelligence of the American people, only their economic exploitability. The war mongers tend to be in industry, not in the Situation Room in Omaha NB or Fairfax VA. It's been like that since WW2, and with many of the same players.

Ten-to-one the conservatives will gripe about this. They aren't particularly interested in intelligence; they want people who can take orders and execute plans requiring high levels of skill. They want their lackeys to be smart enough to argue persuasively and work diligently for Authority, and then to shut up. It's all an exploitation game for them, which is why "No Child Left Behind" is heavily biased toward teaching kids how to ace standardized tests.

The Pentagon wonks, in their service to the devil, see how their fellow Americans could be plunged into a hell by the robotic agenda. This kind of "Artificial Intelligence" is dangerous. They know that if American kids stop being interested in the arts, letters, and sciences, we'll be doomed. This is not a program to simply build more machines of war -- it is a program to make sure that we can at least fix the old machines the next time a Hitler comes to power. And if we get lucky and peace should happen to break out, an American slave state will be the ultimate outcome of a nation of ninnies.

Don't sell the military short. They are our brothers, our sisters, our parents and children, our friends and neigbors. They are US. While they have feet of clay and many, many flaws, treason to the American people isn't among them.

--p!

[DeepModem Mom]

8. Thanks for this post, Pigwidgeon. nt

[SillyGoose]

9. Pentagon's New Goal: Put Science Into Scripts (NYT)

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 3 - Tucked away in the Hollywood hills, an elite group of scientists from across the country and from a grab bag of disciplines - rocket science, nanotechnology, genetics, even veterinary medicine - has gathered this week to plot a solution to what officials call one of the nation's most vexing long-term national security problems.

Their work is being financed by the Air Force and the Army, but the Manhattan Project it ain't: the 15 scientists are being taught how to write and sell screenplays.

At a cost of roughly $25,000 in Pentagon research grants, the American Film Institute is cramming this eclectic group of midcareer researchers, engineers, chemists and physicists full of pointers on how to find their way in a world that can be a lot lonelier than the loneliest laboratory: the wilderness of story arcs, plot points, pitching and the special circle of hell better known as development.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/04/movies/04flyb.html?
(more at link)

[Dudley_DUright]

10. Cool, where do I sign up?

I always wanted to "go Hollywood". :smoke:

[Cocoa]

11. this exchange is hilarious

And then there was one they could not agree on: "Falling Down," the 1993 film starring Michael Douglas as a downsized defense-industry engineer who has a violent breakdown in Los Angeles. "Why'd they have to make him look like that?" said Diandra Leslie-Pelecky, a physics professor at the University of Nebraska, of Mr. Douglas's crew cut, black-rimmed glasses and pocket protector. "He's a good-looking guy. None of my friends look like that."

But Mr. Marcu, who works at a defense-industry plant, begged to differ. "I hate to say it, but people inside those defense plants look like that," he said. "You should see the people at my company."

:rofl:

[xxqqqzme]

12. well, I've been hooked on watching

'NUMB3RS' (CBS?) re-runs on Friday night. Wonder if it was re-newed?