Foundation
Jun. 10th, 2022 03:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lhexanFrom a comment on Madison Scott-Clary's Patreon account.
I read Asimov's Foundation in graduate school and found it awful. There was a scene that sticks with me in which one professor tells another to calculate the future of humanity based on such and such assumptions, and the other one pulls out a pocket calculator and does so in the space of a paragraph.
Foundation was an unholy combination of Marxism and Great Man theory. It was Marxist in that it claimed humanity passes through a deterministic series of historical phases, each defined by conflict between certain classes. Then it also claimed that each such phase ended with a (calculable) fulcrum requiring a Great Man to resolve correctly.
The only good thing I'm inclined to say about Foundation is that it was (I think) the first novel to portray scientists as heroes.
I read Asimov's Foundation in graduate school and found it awful. There was a scene that sticks with me in which one professor tells another to calculate the future of humanity based on such and such assumptions, and the other one pulls out a pocket calculator and does so in the space of a paragraph.
Foundation was an unholy combination of Marxism and Great Man theory. It was Marxist in that it claimed humanity passes through a deterministic series of historical phases, each defined by conflict between certain classes. Then it also claimed that each such phase ended with a (calculable) fulcrum requiring a Great Man to resolve correctly.
The only good thing I'm inclined to say about Foundation is that it was (I think) the first novel to portray scientists as heroes.
no subject
Date: 2022-12-26 02:05 am (UTC)I'll give Dichronaut a look and let you know what I think. Mathematical maturity should be no problem, I'm gaining that by the week!
Yeah, Dreamwidth is indeed lovely. The population is low, though gradually increasing. Its aesthetic belongs to a previous era of the Internet, but in a good way: it doesn't hide or omit helpful functionality for the sake of elegance. You can actually find old content in a reasonable span of time, not that I've got much in the way of that on this new journal.