Authors: Kim Stanley Robinson

Oral Argument (2 page)

That means nothing. Your feeling is not an explanation. Historical causation is complex. Technology is just one strand in a braid. What you call the Great Crash others call the Jubilee. It's been widely celebrated as such.

Yes, but those were odious debts, so people defaulted. Granted, maybe it was easier to do that because they weren't in danger of starving. Maybe the rentier class had lost its strangleholdâ

Not true. Most people think the crash resulted not from photosynthetic tattoos or the Big No but rather from another liquidity crisis and credit freeze, as in 2008. Possibly you've even heard people saying that the failure to regulate finance after 2008 was what led to the crash, and that the failure to regulate finance was a result of your decision in Citizens United and elsewhere. Possibly you've heard yourselves described as the cause of the crash, or even as the worst court in the history of the United States.

Sorry. This is what one hears when one is outside this room.

May I point out that I am not the one straying from the point. In the matter of this current hearing, which strikes me as a bit of a witch hunt to find culpability for the crash anywhere but at your own doorstep, I repeat that my clients never wanted the patent and renounce all claims to it. The patent was awarded to an LLC called SunSkin, which went bankrupt in the first year of the crash when its principal lender broke contract by refusing to pay a scheduled payment. Possibly the lawsuit against the lender will eventually be won, but as SunSkin no longer exists, it will be a bit of a Pyrrhic victory for them.

Well, as the lender was nationalized along with all the rest of the banks in the third year of the crash, if SunSkin's lawsuit ever comes to you, you may have to recuse yourselves as being a party to the defendants. Not that that kind of conflict ever stopped you before.

I don't know, can there be contempt of court if the court is beneath contempt?

I don't care, I brought my toothbrush. I'll be appealing this peremptory judgment at the next level.

Not true. There is most definitely a next level.

About the Author

Kim Stanley Robinson
's Three Californias trilogy --
The Gold Coast
,
The Wild Shore
and
Pacific Edge --
has been observed as "an intriguing work, one that will delight and entertain you, and, most importantly, cause you to stop and think" (
The Santa Ana Register
). His many other novels include
Escape from Kathmandu
and
Green Mars --
which won the Hugo and Locus Award for Best Novel. You can sign up for email updates
here
.