Well. Larry Niven is apparently bugfuck insane.
Now a fixture at Department of Homeland Security science and technology conferences, SIGMA is a loosely affiliated group of science fiction writers who are offering pro bono advice to anyone in government who want their thoughts on how to protect the nation.
The group has the ear of Department of Homeland Security Undersecretary Jay Cohen, head of the science and technology directorate, who has said he likes their unconventional thinking. Members of the group recently offered a rambling, sometimes strident string of ideas at a panel discussion promoting the group at the DHS science and technology conference.
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Niven said a good way to help hospitals stem financial losses is to spread rumors in Spanish within the Latino community that emergency rooms are killing patients in order to harvest their organs for transplants.
"The problem [of hospitals going broke] is hugely exaggerated by illegal aliens who aren't going to pay for anything anyway," Niven said.
Let's not forget that his fears are completely unfounded--undocumented immigrants don't receive a disproportionate amount of health care, and they do pay taxes into the system. But also, perhaps Niven is completely unaware that there are Spanish-speaking citizens of the U.S. who might also hear about these rumors? Wait, no. To Niven and his ilk, that's the whole point; despite directing all their rants towards "illegal aliens", they really mean that they just don't want any Latinos in the country at all.
And of course he's saying that he wants us to spread rumors that we're killing patients in order to drive away Latinos so that they'll die somewhere else. In short, he wants to kill Latinos without actually doing anything--although he might take up the direct approach later if the indirect way of killing them isn't effective enough.
What does any of this have to do with protecting the nation anyways? Oh no, we must kill off the sick and elderly before they topple our military and take over the Pentagon!
Via Sadly, No!
2 comments:
Damn. Niven used to write a decent stick, but apparently he's kind of gone off the rails.
Why does that happen? Why is it that someone manages to continue as a functioning human being for years, and then suddenly they're wearing their underpants on their head for the cameras and shouting "from my cold, dead, hands," "global warming is a fake," or "It's da (race/ethnicity of your choice)!" ?
I doubt I could say. I think part of it is that people can be perfectly reasonable and sane in regards to almost everything, except for one area that if you get them going on, you'll find that they're completely nuts. It just usually doesn't come up.
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