Why are some of the 'good' sci-fi writers insane rightist nutjobs who think they're realists?

What the hell? And this is a man whose books I've admired for years. This shit just gets ugly sometimes. Why doesn't someone just tell me now that Asimov kept his cellar full of buried hitchhikers?

If (if said "if!") one accepts certain premises, the "insane rightist nutjob" conclusion follows.

I find Niven's comments and the ethnic reference disturbing, of course. Still, if an SF writer had suggested we spread this rumor so that stupid people and conspiracy theorists stayed away from the hospital, quite a few people would have had a laugh and moved on, and not questioned any prejudices found in that attitude.

The SIGMA are responsible for convincing the Bush Administration to commit to some of the more idiotic, sci-fi sounding ideas. Stuff like Total Information Awareness, biometric passports and this nonsense about magic liquid bombs.

We need real science advisers, not sci-fi war pornographers trying to promote their latest wingnut wank fantasy.

Wow.
As much as I love the Known Space stories etc. this may be irredeemable. He did coin the term "organlegging" and has obviously thought alot about organ harvesting but this... Wow. Another example of a great writer sliding down to the Valley of the Crazy Old Coots. It's hysterical that his buddy Jerry Pournelle, always the more reactionary of the two, calls BS on this scheme.

Better get a Spanish translator over to snopes, STAT!

@aspiringexpatriate: Well, I guess it just goes to show you: apparently, politics and sanity have nothing to do with being a good sci-fi writer.

This reminds me of the circle of writers that Robert Heinlein led during WWII, whose job it was just to think up outlandish things that might be useful. Is this the same organization?

This reminds me of the time Ursula LeGuin spread the rumor about robotic rape squads that went after working women in shoes to keep them barefoot in the kitchen.

actually harvesting the organs might work even better. Though I guess in either case there could be a few unintended consequences.

Just how far can you go before your public rants are considered hate crime?

The problem of hospitals going broke is hugely exaggerated by transnational corperations who aren't going to pay for anything anyway.

Ok, now based solely on the actual direct quote, what he said isn't that outlandish. That illegal aliens use services without paying for them in any way is a common complaint, even among many liberals. (I know there's a huge complicated bunch of issues involved, but if you ask the average Joe/Josie, I'd say most people find it at least a little unfair).

So if we're in the context of a think-tank where the object is to come up with solutions to problems, no matter how nutty, finding some way to get a specific subset of people to visit hospitals less often is a solution. It's even a pretty interesting, science-fictional solution (government omni-presence controls populace through absolute information control).

So to me, this was just Niven brainstorming. He didn't say, "I really think this should be policy, I hate those dirty Mexicans."

I'm not saying he doesn't feel that way, I just don't have the evidence to make that judgment based on the content of this post. I'm remaining agnostic about Niven being a crazy right-wing nutjob.

(It should go without saying that I would find the idea abhorrent if put into practice. I just don't think we should rush to excommunicate someone just for discussing it.)

I think this is probably being represented out of context for shock value. Homeland security pays writers and producers from every part of the industry to sit in a room with them and spit out the most unedited comments on a ever rolling series of topics.

I could most definitely see a scenario presented where a biohazard attack has caused mass panic in a major urban area (like L.A., Houston, et al) and emergency rooms are being overwhelmed with people that need immediate treatment along with everyone that thinks they need and deserve immediate treatment. Of course rioting is occurring outside the hospitals. What could be done to control the situation?

Shame on you, Annalee Newitz, for not fleshing this item out with context to give a more honest picture. You've certainly created a shocking post, lacking any kind of detail or journalistic integrity, and received all sorts of rush-to-judgment responses from readers... Hazaa for you...

(gathers up car keys so he can go off and spread rumors)

@DearEditor: if saying something crazy was a crime i think we'd all be in jail for one reason or another.

the focus is clearly on the wrong part of the story, the fact that there are talented artists that have batty political ideals comes as a suprise to no one but the extreamly naive. the disturbing information is that someone is listening to them, there's no such thing as a 'well quailified nut.'

I agree that one should try to separate the artist from the art. Niven has always been a pervert, and Gyrus is entirely correct to label him as a military pornographer.
That said, he was a pretty fair scribbler once upon a time. Sure, he's a self-indulgent, lazy convention fanficker now, but once he flirted with real greatness in his writing, regardless of his politics, personality or personal hygiene.
Prior to reading this, I neither knew nor cared what he thought of the struggles of the Hispanic-speaking economic refugees in this country.
Now I just don't care ... his books are still good, and he is (evidently) still a horse's ass.

Oops... my last paragraph dropped away:

This idea would very easily prompt one of the moderators to expand the scenario to include the crisis of trauma centers closing left and right in southern California and how that would impact the scenario - - then run into how the same technique to get people to flee could be used to... and so on.

@DearEditor:

Isn't "hate crime" just another way of saying "thought crime?"

"A Modest Proposal" couldn't ever get written in days like these. Swift would be strung up.

Why not spread those rumors on Larry the Cable Guy, since poor whites abuse the system as much as Spanish-speaking immigrants (many of which are here legally)?

Anyway, Niven is nearly 70, so he pays for little of his health care anyway. Why not spread those rumors among nursing homes so old people will just die and stop leaching resources?

@michaelk42: No, a "hate crime" is a real crime with a unique motive. A thought crime is some paranoid bullshit.

And SIGMA? What, they couldn't get the rights to X-Men or SHIELD? Douchebags playing grownups.

I've read the original article, it doesn't appear Annalee took anything out of context. I'm continually surprised at the lack of empathy from my fellow citizens toward anyone who needs help; especially when it comes to health matters. When did the poor and disenfranchiesed become the enemy? Good enough to mow your lawn, but not good enough to use your ER.

Niven might want to just focus on writing fiction. Greg Bear, on the other hand, probably has good ideas.

@zeppelined: I don't think his inferring that illegal immigrants effect the cost of healthcare in this country is outlandish, but I think the problem comes with him implying that hispanics are superstitious paranoid Jose Jimenez types who would be afraid of Mr. Chupacabra MD.

@Dr. Spaceman: That's one theory. Others of us think murder is murder, and whether you do it because you're racist or just a thug shouldn't matter.

And when someone proposes that saying something should count as a hate-crime, that's definitely thought-crime territory.

@zeppelined: Ok, now based solely on the actual direct quote, what he said isn't that outlandish. That illegal aliens use services without paying for them in any way is a common complaint, even among many liberals.

Too bad it's flat out wrong. Illegal Imigrants don't use much of the social well fare programs the US has. They distrust government services, especially one sin a country they've entered illegally. When they go to hospitals it's rare and only for serious problems, a cost that is built into the budget of any metropolitan hospital.

Even in context, it's a horribly racist statement. It's ignorant and further spreads a right wing myth that is xenophobic, destructive and just plain cruel.

Whatever idiot decided that a bunch of hack sci-fi writers should consult on government policy matters should loose their job.

@Garrison Dean: I don't think he was implying that that community is specifically more prone to be susceptible to such a disinformation campaign - there's nothing in this post that would suggest that. Merely that if you're trying to solve a "problem," you might as well target the supposed source of said problem.

I think we can all agree white people are rubes as much as the stereotypical frantic latino mother of nine. How many flock to see the Virgin Mary in a cloud or on the side of an old building?

He just said start a rumor! He didn't say "do it"! I think what he is talking about is emergency rooms used as primary care.

I say "Larry Niven for president". I like his "outside the box" thinking.

@michaelk42: "A Modest Proposal" couldn't ever get written in days like these. Swift would be strung up.

Nivin is no Swift and trying to spin ignorant remarks as satire stinks so bad, Jerry Pournelle could smell it.

@braak:
[quote]This reminds me of the circle of writers that Robert Heinlein led during WWII, whose job it was just to think up outlandish things that might be useful. Is this the same organization?[/quote]

Any references? Didn't think Heinlein became an author til after the war.

@tetracycloide: Really, though, the idea that the government takes advice from nutjobs isn't especially surprising, either.

@mattclary: Hmm. The reference I have is only from this paper, examining L. Ron Hubbard's war record. The fellow quotes Heinlein, but I've got no vested interest in believing it:

[www.xs4all.nl]

He is apparently quoting Heinlein's introduction to Sturgeon's Godbody in 1986.

Also, to be fair, he doesn't precisely say that Heinlein was a writer at that time, just that he was supervising a circle of science fiction writers.

Regurgitating bad reporting of events without context doesn't make the result any less a pool of steaming vomit or alleviate the "writer" of responsibility for their reporting...

The source material lacked any specific context to the moments of the quote - this posting only amplifies the lack of integrity of the source.

@zeppelined: Thats true. I just wish we could hear what he said so we can get the tone in his voice.

I personally think they should go through with it just so I can see Dateline NBC do a piece called. Emergency Rooms: Medical Miracles or Mexican Murder Farms?

Ahhhh, found this...

[en.wikipedia.org]

"During World War II, he did aeronautical engineering for the Navy, recruiting Isaac Asimov and L. Sprague de Camp to work at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard."

Heinlein was actually out of the Navy by WWII

@Garrison Dean: That's "*Dr.* Chupacabra, MD", thank you!

Ahhhh, now I remember why I stopped reading Niven stories.

These are the same people who convinced Reagan the Star Wars was a good idea.

"My guess is we won't need quite so many paid agents of the state to do that for us, which means maybe we can try being a republic instead of an incompetent empire," he said, then railed against the Transportation Security Administration for treating passengers like "subjects" rather than "citizens."

Sounds like they aren't all loons. That's not exactly what I'd call "right wing."

I love SF, but many of its grand old men are crazy rightwingers. This is good too: how Jerry Pournelle, Niven, Heinlein and Poul Anderson convinced the Reagan administration to fund Star Wars. Norman Spinrad gives us the inside perspective:

[mondediplo.com]

Since when was this a rumour? They arrested a guy recently for doing almost exactly this...

With private health care in the U.S., it seems entirely plausible that this is already happening...somebody looks at a young body that's suffered major trauma, and decides that the profit of the organ transplant surgery is higher than the profit of the profit of keeping that traumatized body alive.

That's organ harvesting, even if you try to call it something else.

Or do you think that your "for profit" hospitals make rational decisions based on the "health of the patient?"

But there is a problem in hospitals along the Mexican border.
Pregnant women cross into the country just to have their baby as a US citizen. The hospital doesn't get any money.
Several San Diego hospitals are having serious financial problems.

@darcymcgee: Seeing as a single scandal like that would destroy every member of staff in the hospital higher than the janitor, the hospital itself, and damn near everyone remotely associated with it, I'd say yeah, the rational decision is to keep folks alive.

Anyway whilst this might be based on faulty premises, he probably wasn't asked anything about the premises, and was just told to create a solution. Which he did. It's a good solution, for the objectives desired. If you want different objectives met, that's fine, but how much say Niven has in formulating these objectives is another matter.

Great. And how would Niven deal with the subsequent public health crises created by engendering fear of medical professionals in an entire community? Idiot.

I have A Mote in God's Eye sitting on my shelf unread. I'll still get to it, but it looks like Niven has joined Orson Scott Card in the Rest Home for Reactionary Has-Been SF Writers.

@Greasy Thumb Guzik: Ditto El Paso. Women in labor sit around the hospital grounds till just before the moment of truth, go into the ER, and voila, anchor baby. They haven't any assets (at least not traceable), so the hospital has to eat the cost. And if the baby's sick... even more.

What I love about the immigration debate when its framed like this, as an accounting of services used by illegals (hospitals/schools/etc), we never look at it from both sides, only how much it costs us.

How about the fact that in my state, illegals who actually go to college (something they're fighting to eliminate in some quarters), end up creating a net profit for the community colleges they attend? Not being eligible for scholarships or in-state tuition, they pay an average of $1800/per over what any other students do. Oh and its not like they're getting ESL help at that point, to succeed you have to think most of those students are more or less assimilated Americans, which is the goal, isn't it?

Thats not even getting into how much those vegetables you just bought 3 for 2 dollars at the supermarket or whatever would have cost if industrial farmers had to pay legal workers minimum wage to pick them for you.

What I'm getting at is attacking illegals like they're a disease vector (basically niven's solution) composed of individuals or some type of criminal underclass is not only not going to get rid of them, but its going to just make the situation worse for all concerned. The problems that have caused the migration of 10 million or more illegal immigrants to the U.S.A. need to be addressed by reforming their countries of origin and addressing the diplomatic and economic hardship people experience around the world.

Thats not to say we can't have any damn Sticks, I just don't see the point if there aren't ever going to be any Carrots either ;)

@knyne: Could you stand hearing that Arthur Clarke was gay?