[liff] Niven's Laws

1614.

Larry Niven is one of the greatest living SF writers today. I always felt as though he was my generation's Robert Heinlein and Frederik Pohl all rolled into one iconoclastic-y guy (his Known Space futhistory cycle is part of SF canon today, but back in the '70s it was category-defining. And Ringworld is one of the great ones).

As SF writers are wont to do, he too distills his wisdom into a set of witty axioms (and in that observation, to be sure, is perhaps a great grand unifying Law of SF Writers). I find Niven's Laws particularly entertaining, because they seem to come from a place that gives Larry Niven his value: he differs with you without making you his adversary. Everyone fancies that their observations "make you think"; most of those people are just obnoxious boors looking for an excuse to be blunt and angry at you without having to account for being a twit. Niven's observations are the kind of actual "think-making" that everyone thinks they are doing but really aren't.

Niven's Laws, updated in 2002 in Analog magazine, run as follows (if you wan't the author's equally-witty (and equally-required reading) commentary on his laws, go hither):

• 1a) Never throw crap at an armed man.


• 1b) Never stand next to someone who is throwing crap at an armed man.


• 2) Never fire a laser at a mirror.


• 3) Mother Nature doesn't care if you're having fun.


• 4) Giving up freedom for security has begun to look naive.


• 5) Psi and/or magical powers, if real, are nearly useless.


• 6) It is easier to destroy than create.


• 7) Any damn fool can predict the past.


• 8) History never repeats itself.


• 9) Ethics change with technology.


• 10) Anarchy is the least stable of social structures. (It falls apart at a touch)


• 11) There is a time and place for tact.


• 12) The ways of being human are bounded but infinite.


• 13) When your life starts to look like a soap opera, it's time to change the channel.


• 14) The only universal message in science fiction: There exist minds that think as well as you do, but differently.
  Niven's corollary: The gene-tampered turkey you're talking to isn't necessarily one of them.


• 15) Fuzzy Pink Niven's Law: Never waste calories.


• 16) There is no cause so right that one cannot find a fool following it.


• 17) No technique works if it isn't used.


• 18) Not responsible for advice not taken.


• 19) Think before you make the coward's choice. Old age is not for sissies.


• 20) Never let a waiter escape.

Tags: Larry Niven, Niven's Laws, Neat Stuff

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