Prelude to Foundation (Foundation, #6)

by Isaac Asimov

A mathematician, however, who could back his prophecy with mathematical formulas and terminology, might be understood by no one and yet believed by everyone.”

All history shows that we do not learn from the lessons of the past.

supply the material for the news holocasts.” Then, thoughtfully, “Actually, I’m rather tired of it.” “The job?” Hummin nodded. “I’m sick of gathering together all the nonsense from every world. I hate the downward spiral.”

we’ve had fifty years of peace.” “Yes, but soldiers who are well-paid would resent having that pay reduced just because there is peace. Admirals resist mothballing ships and having themselves reduced in rank simply because there is less for them to do. So the credits still go—unproductively—to the armed forces and vital areas of the social good are allowed to deteriorate.

“How harmful overspecialization is. It cuts knowledge at a million points and leaves it bleeding.”

They work off all their resentments, enjoy all the smug self-satisfaction a young revolutionary would have, and by the time they take their place in the Imperial hierarchy, they are ready to settle down into conformity and obedience.”

I’ve seen many people with status, but I’m still looking for a happy one. Status won’t sit still under you; you have to continually fight to keep from sinking.

“You mean that something quite accidental came to be viewed as a tradition?”

The LPS—that is, ‘the least possible simulation’—gains in complexity faster than the object being simulated does and eventually the simulation catches up with the phenomenon. Thus, it was established thousands of years ago that the Universe as a whole, in its full complexity, cannot be represented by any simulation smaller than itself.

“You can have a billion rules, each covering a single phenomenon, and you can derive no generalizations from that. That’s what one means when one says that a system might be interpreted only by a model as complex as itself.

“I suspect that those elements of a population that have a smaller stake in the material natural world are more apt to find solace in what you call supernaturalism—the poor, the disinherited, the downtrodden. Insofar as supernaturalism overlaps religion, they may also be more religious.

Why, he wondered, did so many people spend their lives not trying to find answers to questions—not even thinking of questions to begin with? Was there anything more exciting in life than seeking answers?

“They make up things not to like. They say we smell. They say we’re dirty. They say we steal. They say we’re violent. They say we’re dumb.” “Why do they say all this?” “Because it’s easy to say it and it makes them feel good. Sure, if we work in the heatsinks, we get dirty and smelly. If we’re poor and held down, some of us steal and get violent. But that isn’t the way it is with all of us.

I still can’t quite grasp what you’re telling me. I find it impossible to believe that there would be such unreasoning feeling against harmless people.” Amaryl said bitterly, “That’s because you’ve never had any occasion to interest yourself in such things. It can all pass right under your nose and you wouldn’t smell a thing because it doesn’t affect you.”

At the slightest stress, human beings seemed to divide themselves into antagonistic groups.

“The Imperial forces must keep their hands off, but they find that they can do much even so. Each sector is encouraged to be suspicious of its neighbors. Within each sector, economic and social classes are encouraged to wage a kind of war with each other. The result is that all over Trantor it is impossible for the people to take united action. Everywhere, the people would rather fight each other than make a common stand against the central tyranny and the Empire rules without having to exert force.”

there have been many revolutions in Galactic history that have overthrown tyrannies, sometimes on individual planets, sometimes in groups of them, occasionally in the Empire itself or in the pre-Imperial regional governments. Often, this has only meant a change in tyranny. In other words, one ruling class is replaced by another—sometimes by one that is more efficient and therefore still more capable of maintaining itself—while the poor and downtrodden remain poor and downtrodden or become even worse off.”