Isaac Asimov: Man of 7,560,000 Words (1969) | Hacker News Reader

Isaac Asimov: Man of 7,560,000 Words (1969)

nytimes.com

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For those looking for an introduction, here are some of my favorite short stories.

The Profession: http://www.inf.ufpr.br/renato/profession.html

The Last Question: http://www.physics.princeton.edu/ph115/LQ.pdf

The Last Answer: http://www.thrivenotes.com/the-last-answer/

Nightfall: http://www.astro.sunysb.edu/fwalter/AST389/TEXTS/Nightfall.h...

The Last Question is surely one of Asimov's greatest short stories. I'll never forget reading it as a young teen and being astonished by the imaginative technological evolution of Multivac.

You may also enjoy this: "The Last Question" converted into comic form [1]

[1] https://imgur.com/gallery/9KWrH

Here are a couple that raise some interesting ideas on a couple topics that often come up here on HN.

The Dead Past: http://www.rednovels.com/ScienceFiction/Asimov41/27323.html

"In a Good Cause-": http://www.rednovels.com/ScienceFiction/Asimov41/27354.html

The first concerns issues of privacy, surveillance, and government control of information flow. It also was the starting point for an article by Alex Kozinski, Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on how the scope of the 4th Amendment is determined by what society considers acceptable and how we are greatly reducing that scope by the way we are voluntarily giving up so much privacy online [1].

(Read the Asimov story before reading Kozinski's article, because Kozinski opens with major spoilers for the story).

The second story concerns idealism vs. pragmatism, pacifism vs. militarism.

For those new to Asimov, don't try to infer Asimov's beliefs from either of these stories. He personally would have been on the sides that ultimately were shown to be wrong in both of these stories. I believe I read somewhere that in the case of "In a Good Cause-" he deliberately set out to write a story whose point was opposite of his beliefs.

[1] http://www.stanfordlawreview.org/online/privacy-paradox/dead...

Thank you for that link.

"What I will be remembered for are the Foundation Trilogy and the Three Laws of Robotics. What I want to be remembered for is no one book, or no dozen books. Any single thing I have written can be paralleled or even surpassed by something someone else has done. However, my total corpus for quantity, quality and variety can be duplicated by no one else. That is what I want to be remembered for."

- Yours, Isaac Asimov (20 September 1973)

He achieved it.

Ask "Who is the the author of the best sci-fi story of all time?" and the answers will vary (though Asimov is a likely choice).

Ask "Who is the most prolific sci-fi writer of all time?" and, and you'll hear Asimov.

Also, I'd have added The Fantastic Voyage to the list. That has a movie.

Just finished up a hardbound copy of "Asimov on Physics", and was able to find "Asimov on Chemistry" overseas for a good price. Definitely my favorite author, and the Foundation Series are my favorite books. Hard to believe he started those when he was 19; genius.

Anybody think a collapse is happening like in foundation (i.e. falling back from nuclear to primitive fossil fuels)?

My favourite author as well! I've read all of his fiction, but very little of his non-fiction. I love the "extended" Foundation series (including the Empire and Robots sub-series) but my favourite book is The End of Eternity (arguably the first one in the extended series).

Something very similar is happening to collapse, yes. But it's under weight of complex law. We technologists don't like to think about the law, and usually don't have to since the limitations on our actions are usually intrinsic to the field, but society is law, and law is society. When the law gets too complex for any real human to know, to follow, or to enforce, you get a strange kind of tyranny. You get, for example, business models predicated on millions of petty injustices (bank late fees, parking tickets, pay day loans etc).

I call it "The Tyranny of Complexity". And we, the programmers, have had a big part in creating it, which is why I believe we have a moral obligation to end it. Some simple rules, for example, about how bills must be submitted for a vote, e.g. written in long-hand by the sponsoring congressman, or rescinding an equal or greater amount of law before passing a new one, would help. But computers allow for the asymmetrical enforcement of contracts, strongly favoring the business over the consumer (favoring the highly connected node over the less connected nodes) and we can and should address that, too. Too often we suffer petty abuse in silence, and lack the tools to redress our grievances with our abusers.

Eventually this will yield a true collapse, but it will take a while. Trump might accelerate things, but even not-Trump won't stop it.

The "increasing unnecessary complexity leads to collapse" hypothesis was very adeptly explored in the context of the collapse of many ancient societies by archeologist Joseph A. Tainter in his book Collapse of Complex Societies[1]. Briefly, he argues that most civilizations rely on some sort of wealth producing trick. As they grow they increase societal complexity to maintain that trick. After a while, the complexity produces negative marginal returns, after which the response of the society is to further increase complexity resulting in further negative marginal returns and eventually leading to collapse.

The only civilization that was able to escape these collapse dynamics was the Eastern Roman Empire which underwent a radical simplification of administration in the latter half of the first millennia and thus greatly outlasted the Western Roman Empire, which could not adapt.

[1]. http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Complex-Societies-Studies-Arc...

Thanks for that. I won't buy from Amazon anymore because of the way they treated me as a seller (they refunded a customer's money after they claimed they didn't recieve the item, after attempting to return the item), but it's certainly available on Alibris http://www.alibris.com/The-Collapse-of-Complex-Societies-Jos.... A note to anyone else wanting this book: it's expensive. $50 for the paperback, $225 for the 1988 hardcover. It must have been a textbook.

I just (like two days ago :) finished reading the Foundation series. Psychohistory loses some of its magic for twenty-first century readers in the face of chaos theory and black swans.

If we are facing a societal collapse, we will have a hard time bootstrapping a reboot because we've consumed most of the easily accessible fossil fuels. We're in a virtuous cycle of high technology and fossil fuels that continue to support access to more fossil fuels.

> black swans

To be fair, he does have a black swan event in the form of the Mule.

>I just (like two days ago :) finished reading the Foundation series. Psychohistory loses some of its magic for twenty-first century readers in the face of chaos theory and black swans.

Chaos theory might be good for the weather (or the stock market and other such micro/fast events) but it might not apply that well to human societies in long term trends (which are not that chaotic and unpredictable, most of history reads like a continuous narrative with cause and effects quite very much at play).

He also predicted the possibility of "black swans" ruining psychohistories predictions and had an agency (let's call it a "second foundation") to influence things and handle those situations.

That said, there were rumors of a Foundation based tv series. I wonder how that's going...

http://www.ign.com/boards/threads/asimovs-foundation-trilogy...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0804484/

There are a number of people foreseeing a collapse.

Here is my favorite:

http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/

The problem if we collapse as a society is we have exhausted all the surface minerals and fossil fuels. If we collapse back to the Neolithic we can never climb back out of the hole. As a species we are one and done.

This article was very early in the story of the Asimov's prolific nature (or practice). He had written 108 books at the time, and published over 500 at the time of his death.

I've often thought that the most valuable thing (out of many valuable things) one could learn from Asimov would be his work ethic. He wrote in one of his autobiographies that he never got writers block because he was always writing. Even vacations included time for writing.

"The world is the oyster for Asimov, and for the future there are vague plans for almost everything therein save two. No mysteries are on the schedule, and no books on computers. He has been asked to write his autobiography, but counters this with the remark, "What can I say?" "

Of course, those rash statements were made in 1969, but Asimov's typewriter just kept going.

He eventually published a two-volume autobiography (about 1500 pages!), and then a condensed version called I, Asimov. He also published SF mystery novels (Caves of Steel, et al.), and straight-up mystery short stories (collected in the Black Widowers stories), which are quite enjoyable.

He also had a couple non-SF mystery novels ("Murder at the ABA" concerning a murder at the American Bookseller's Association convention, and "A Whiff of Death" concerning the murder of a chemistry graduate student...I'm not counting this as SF because there is nothing fictional about the science in it, it simply takes place in a university chemistry department).

There were also some SF mystery short stories, such as the Wendell Urth series of stories, which are collected in the "Asimov's Mysteries" short story collection along with some that are not part of any series.

I read all of his SciFi books and short stories. They are still my absolute favorites.

I'm still searching for similar authors. I have read many other SciFi books but none has impressed me so much as some of the work and ideas by Asimov.

Maybe someone has some other recommendations for me?

Vernor Vinge is very good -- try "A Fire Upon the Deep" and "A Deepness in the Sky".

Ray Bradbury comes to mind since he, like Asimov, tends to focus on the human element in his stories.

Check out Cixin Liu! His style is quite different, but I'm sure that you won't be disappointed.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Three-Body-Problem-Cixin-Liu/dp/07...

It probably won't help very much to simply name the other big names (you surely know about Heinlein and Clarke), but I was surprised to find Theodore Sturgeon's stories to be quite intriguing, even though he seems not as well-known as aforementioned contemporaries. Try some of his short stories to get a feel for his oeuvre.

Asimov's peers during the formative years/decades of science fiction (the 'Golden Age' of SF) are all worth reading: A E Van Vogt, Robert Heinlein, James Schmitz, Murray Leinster, Jack Williamson, and many more. Arthur C Clarke - of similar gargantuan SF stature - was Asimov's pal; their friendly barbs at each other are hilarious.

Each writer has a unique style and outlook, and they're all worth reading. You'll find many unforgettable stories (such as 'The Humanoids', by Jack Williamson). Indeed, writers like James Schmitz were so far ahead of their time that they're still awaiting re-discovery.

I taught myself physics and learned to think scientifically by reading his collected monthly essays from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. I owe Asimov a huge debt and I'm very glad I got to tell him that once. I miss seeing him at SF cons.

I was lucky enough to start reading the foundation series in chronological order at the start of this month and finished already. It was an amazing amalgamation of thoughts on possibilities, human nature, the potential of technology and the meaning of life and how we fit into it (particularly in Foundation and Earth).

My favorite part of reading the books though is realizing how things that seem impossible are always being made possible. Computers have evolved near to the point where they were in his foundation novels - space tech not so much - but with passion and resources so much can be created. It's humbling and empowering to see the world through his eyes.

I had a great time reading that series - I chose to do the long version, like the complete narrative that included the Robot novels. But the bummer part is that there's one book, Robots and Empire, that appears to be out of print - it's the only book I couldn't buy for Kindle or iBooks, and I didn't realize until I had already somehow skipped past it and spoiled something for myself. Still haven't read it.

It's superb! And essential background to the ideas in the later Foundation novels.

There are 42 new/used physical copies readily available on Amazon...

If you've read all the Foundation + Robots stuff, there are 2 more Asimov books I've found that also have some allusions/references to the Foundation universe:

1) The End of Eternity (Again plays with the idea of a "babysitter" organization for the world -- like foundation/2nd foundation was but in a totally different manner, and in the end has some references to the Foundation universe).

2) Nemesis

3) Peeble in the sky (which he wrote many years before).

Time was when I would read almost anything Asimov wrote. I even have his Guide to the Bible and Shakespeare, as well as his autobiographies. His editorials in the magazine, "Asimov's Science Fiction" would be the first thing I read.

I haven't read Asimov recently, but his ideas and words form a core part of my younger self.

My favorite book of his -- besides Robots of Dawn -- was Nemesis. Absolutely incredible. Such a FEEL to that story.

I have a vivid memory of the last phrase of "Foundation and Empire". It was a shock to discover the Preem Palver was the First Speaker.

"But now there was a somber satisfaction on the round and ruddy face of Preem Palver – First Speaker"

This is from memory, so I can't find a source, but I remember doing the math at one point and coming up with 1800 published words per day from the point of his first book being published until the day he died.

Asimov was my favorite Golden Age SF Writer.

And by Golden Age I mean roughly 13 years old.

More than his fiction, his books on science had a tremendous influence on me during my larval stage. I still have my old copy of "Asimov's Guide To Science" on my bookshelf.

Everybody is commenting about loving Aasimov, but did anyone read the article? I read it 3 times and it still makes no sense to me. What is this all about?

It just a summary of who he is and how he operates.

What exactly seems difficult to understand in the article?

It's a profile of Asimov, describing his office, his typical work day, and his work ethic in general.

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