The Sword and Laser discussion
This topic is about
Foundation
2012 Reads
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FOUND: Do dated ideas hurt your enjoyment of the story?
Matthew wrote: "I had this exact problem when reading Stranger in a Strange land. The social interactions and characterizations were so dated they were simply unbelievable. The characters generally appeared stupid..."Romeny and Ryan will be broken-hearted to hear you say that. They think they are the future.
Anne wrote:"Romeny and Ryan will be broken-hearted to hear you say that. They think they are the future."Please don't turn the discussion in that direction, we are talking about something serious, important, and that can actually make a difference in modern society one way or another.
The problem with dated technology -- paper, storage mediums, capacity, etc -- is that calling it dated assumes we will always have what we have, only more of it. In other words, that we will keep moving forward, that there will be no event that causes us to have to retreat to a previous format, that what we have now or might have to stop using will not be forgotten and will eventually be improved upon.I think it was Tom who cited examples of this: we used to be able to fly commercially at supersonic speeds. We can't do that anymore. We used to have a manned reusable spaceship. We don't have those anymore. All it takes is one massive (I mean MASSIVE) crippling collapse of cloud storage or the internet as a whole to send everyone running back to paper. Or maybe spiraling off in some entirely new direction that is inconceivable to us at this point but will seem so obvious in the future.
Looking backward, it's amazing how long certain habits have been around. Smoking, for example. I don't find it implausible that people will be doing it thousands of years from now. We've been drinking booze since the Egyptians (at least), and people have been smoking since at least 5,000 BC. Why wouldn't we be lighting up for another 5,000 years?
Finally got around to digging this up. At the beginning of this year, Charles Stross posted a series of essays on science-fiction world-building on his blog. This one on the improbability of predicting the future even a few decades from now is particularly germane to this discussion.
I think it was Tom who cited examples of this: we used to be able to fly commercially at supersonic speeds. We can't do that anymore. We used to have a manned reusable spaceship. We don't have those anymore. I'm not sure those are good examples of technology moving backwards - in Foundation, the periphery worlds go back to fossil fuels because nobody on the planet knows how to build or repair a nuclear reactor anymore. That's hardly equivalent to NASA retiring the shuttle so they can spend their resources on sending robots to Mars instead.
(Likewise, the Concorde doesn't exist anymore because that particular venture ceased to be profitable, but we still have Virgin Galactic.)
Sarah wrote: "That is why I don't like Stephen King. I feel like he is too descriptive and leaves nothing for my imagination. It's all his imagination. "This is exactly what irritates me about much science fiction. Much of Foundation reads like a play. It's dominated by dialogue. Characterization seems to begin and end with some singular physical description. When it's done badly, as with Frank Herbert (please stop talking about Yueh's purple lips), I feel like it's part laziness, part failure of the imagination. I'd rather err on the side of "painting every leaf on the tree," which seems to be a convention of fantasy.
I don't think that inaccurate portrails of the future take me out of the book. I think I read all sci-fi like I do the sub-genre of steampunk. I read it like an alternate future. In steampunk the idea of the future is that science went forward with steampower rather than just electricity. So as the reader I always look at it with the basis of starting with that springboard would this plot or science be plausable. So with Foundation in our real history we didn't go all out with nuclear power, but if we had would Asimov's future be plausable? I don't like to take the "fiction" out of my "science-fiction". Taking the imagination out takes out all the fun. :)
Besides that, again, we're talking about a galactic empire that's interconnected. We know that our current global economy wouldn't be able to run without near-instantaneous access to information. 1) The key point to the Foundation series is that Seldon foresees a time when Imperial civilization disintegrates. He can be presumed to have wanted a method of storing knowledge that wasn't dependent on any technology at all.
2) Remember when it was written. At the risk of being the Old Guy here, I wonder how many of you who are bothered by this are younger and grew up in a world where computer networks were just always around. I didn't... I was a kid in the 60s and so remember times when there were no personal computers, no networks, no cell phones. The world he posits is thus dated but not, to me, foreign.
Rick wrote: "Besides that, again, we're talking about a galactic empire that's interconnected. We know that our current global economy wouldn't be able to run without near-instantaneous access to information. ..."
I would say you are right, except Dune was published in the 60's, and doesn't feel dated at all to me.
Mod
I wonder the same thing. I had mentioned earlier I'd love to get a chart of some kind attaching age ranges to the various opinions (oversimplified, but seems to cover most of what's been said I think):
a) Didn't notice/care
b) Noticed but didn't mind
c) Noticed and it lessened the book in some way
I still liked the book, but I can't say one way or the another if the sense of dated ideas was a detriment. For all I know I might have liked it more if I had been able to read it before the computer age.
I grew up in the late 80s/early 90s and have had a computer nearly all my life. But I remember pre-modem/internet days, so that might be what puts me in that middle category.
Rob wrote: "I grew up in the late 80s/early 90s and have had a computer nearly all my life. But I remember pre-modem/internet days, so that might be what puts me in that middle category."I was born in 1978, and I remember very clearly our first computer (no modem, ran DOS, giant floppies). I'd put myself in the "noticed but didn't mind" category when it comes to this book.
Joshua wrote: "I would say you are right, except Dune was published in the 60's, and doesn't feel dated at all to me. ."
Yes, but Herbert used made up tech for the most part. OTOH, '...family atomics..'... i.e. atomic weapons were still state of the art in mass destruction.
Didn't they use slide rules in the space ships?
I think its funny that there is a whole cottage industry of speculative fiction built around technology powered by hot water, but we have trouble accepting nuclear power, analog tech, and tobacco in Foundation.I think the problem here is that we're looking at things purely in terms of technological progress, but that is rarely the only factor in how a culture works and adapts. Even today, we have nuclear power, but we still run mostly on fossil fuels. There are social, legal, and cultural reasons for this, and when I encounter something seemingly dated like nuclear power in a future civilization, I just assume that the society has its own reasons as well.
I only felt the absense of internet a dated point, right in the begining, (view spoiler) but that didn't bother me at all. Is natural that the book is dated in some ways. He still is very comtemporary in other aspects.
Jamie wrote: "I think its funny that there is a whole cottage industry of speculative fiction built around technology powered by hot water, but we have trouble accepting nuclear power, analog tech, and tobacco i..."Exactly. I would say I'm on the young side, at 26, but I didn't really notice or care about dated-ness because I thought the point of the book was not technology per se but advances in the study of human behavior and psychology and I enjoyed the focus on what influences societies and governments, getting back to basics like the power in manipulating knowledge, religion, and trade. The mentions of paper didn't really stand out to me and they do mention how low Terminus is on metals.
People have brought up Dune and I saw many connections between the two: human civilization that is thousands of years removed from Earth, chapter intros with excerpts from histories published even further in the future, the need to stick to one path to prevent disaster and stagnation for humanity. I like Dune better, but I think that advances in mathematics and sociology predicting a dark age for humanity and trying to prevent it is more scientifically plausible than an extremely intelligent and gifted man taking a bunch of drugs, becoming prescient, and single-handedly guiding humanity... If I could enjoy Dune as much as I did I sure couldn't turn up my nose at Foundation for being implausible.
Katie wrote: "...because I thought the point of the book was not technology per se but advances in the study of human behavior and psychology and I enjoyed the focus on what influences societies and governments, getting back to basics like the power in manipulating knowledge, religion, and trade."I'm only about halfway through, but this is almost exactly what I was thinking the point of the book was, too. It allowed me to ignore that Asimov's "future" feels like the ride at Epcot Center in Disney.
Katie wrote: "People have brought up Dune and I saw many connections between the two: human civilization that is thousands of years removed from Earth, chapter intros with excerpts from histories published even further in the future, the need to stick to one path to prevent disaster and stagnation for humanity."That's the difference, though. In Dune, there are reasons given in the setting why technology and social organization have stagnated. Because of the Butlerian Jihad, research into computers is forbidden. They have energy weapons, but they also have shields, and the combination of both is destructive, hence the use of swords. The Imperium depends on a single resource located on a single planet, and communications and transportation are jealously controlled by a single organization with a vested interest in creating and maintaining the social order to their benefit.
All these constraints explain why the Imperium in Dune is organized via throwback space-feudalism. You can argue whether you find them plausible, but at least the explanations are there to be argued with. Whereas in Foundation, we're given an advanced, literate, industrialized society with no explanation for the lack of scientists and engineers across planets that were regularly making use of nuclear power and starships right up until the Empire's decline.
I like Dune better, but I think that advances in mathematics and sociology predicting a dark age for humanity and trying to prevent it is more scientifically plausible than an extremely intelligent and gifted man taking a bunch of drugs, becoming prescient, and single-handedly guiding humanity."
I'm not sure Herbert intended that to be plausible, especially given that (view spoiler).
Rick wrote: "Joshua wrote: "I would say you are right, except Dune was published in the 60's, and doesn't feel dated at all to me. ."
Yes, but Herbert used made up tech for the most part. OTOH, '...family ato..."
Dune had good reason mentioned in the series as to why the tech lagged in some ways, and in others far exceeded our own. Herbert put Dune after a singularity in which earth was conquered by AI. This made AI something that was taboo, and caused mentats to be educated. Also, the characters were written well enough that they felt real. This is the biggest asset to suspension of disbelief. If I like or care about a character, it is much easier to overlook the fact that he smokes like a chimney in a spaceship, reads a newspaper, and speaks like a bad 40's movie.
Joe wrote: "I'm not sure Herbert intended that to be plausible, especially given that (view spoiler). "Now that I think about it, what I like about Dune, 1984, Ender's Game, and even Hitchhiker's guide is that they approach sci-fi more like fantasy than the Foundation series. The books mentioned are all character driven, and the tech is simply a way of putting a character in a situation where they are forced to deal with the great questions which have little to do with tech.
In foundation, a premise is laid and extrapolated very well, and the idea is intriguing, but I would have loved to see what the book would have become with a co-writer who could write dialog, and cross out half of the smoking references and replace them with ANYTHING else, I mean, does every bit of dialog have to begin with a drag on nicotine? I think this would stick out to me even if I read it in a world where everyone smoked. Can't someone be drinking a hot or alcoholic beverage, taking a dump, or even picking his nose in between speaking and listening?
It never bothered me, First i thought it as a sort of alternate future (like Steampunk but for the future) with dated technology. The ideas behind Psychohistory it what really drives the story for me.Also, if on the same planet, we currently have people who've gone almost completely digital while some other are completely digital illiterate, it's not hard for me to think that across the galaxies, tech would vary.
I wasn't bothered in the least by any of the tech or the smoking. I was born in 1970. So I remember a time before cable TV, the Internet, PCs, cell phones, etc. Also, consider the things from ancient civilizations that became "lost" in the dark ages and had to be "rediscovered". As others have rightfully pointed out, it's very easy to consider that they have better filters. Tabacco could have been genetically altered so it's not so harmful/addictive. A little imagination goes a long way on that part. Just because I get my news from the Internet doesn't mean that 10,000 years in the future they still will. It's vary plausible that with the massiveness of the Empire and the decline that we might fall back - rediscover - tried and true methods such as newspapers printed on actual paper.And for the record pocket sized electronic calculators became available in the 1970s after the advent of the microprocessor by Intel. Since Foundation was original published as a series of short stories starting in 1942, I'd say that Seldon pulling out a hand held calculator was pretty imaginative of future tech on the part of Asimov but that's just my opinion on the matter.
Mayetra wrote: "Tabacco could have been genetically altered so it's not so harmful/addictive. A little imagination goes a long way on that part."That isn't the point. The tobacco still produces smoke. Even if the smoke was harmless, it would still require some form of ventilation system that would otherwise not be required. It just doesn't mesh with a resource strapped world.
The final thing I will say on the smoking topic, is something I have said repeatedly. It was simply mentioned too much. It is similar to the Conan books, in which Conan is constantly called Catlike (at least it is only Conan that is "catlike"), and in Dune where Yueh's stained lips and forhead mark are constantly mentioned (At least Yueh dies early enough that it stops before becoming annoying.) The topic was , "Do dated ideas hurt your enjoyment?"
I guess that this thread has helped me realize that dated ideas don't really hurt my enjoyment, but poor writing does. I think that is why I enjoyed Asimov's Nightfall (there was a co-writer), the Tyrannous Prescription (The ideas were presented raw) and his short stories, ( they were too short for the poor writing to annoy).
When I first looked at this thread, I was going to say no, I wasn't bothered by dated technologies because they can be considered part of the book's charm. Then I reached the part of the book where we finally meet a female character (Part V). She's awful, and the only other women we encounter are referred to as housewives who won't be happy without all the latest gadgets. One could argue that these gender norms could be considered symptoms of the "barbarism" of the Periphery, except that the Foundation should be above that. We don't hear about any women in the Foundation. To me, this might be one of the most dated elements of the book and one that did detract from my reading experience.
I recently read the two prequel novels that Asimov wrote toward the end of his life, and his portrayal of women is drastically different. Though they still lack nuance (they've been promoted to angels), they play a vital part in the development of the Foundation. What a difference forty years (and the women's lib movement) can make!
Catherine wrote: "When I first looked at this thread, I was going to say no, I wasn't bothered by dated technologies because they can be considered part of the book's charm. Then I reached the part of the book whe..."
The second book has a prominent and interesting female lead that is the only real character in the whole story. To say any more would be a spoiler, but I'll just say if you like Scooby Doo plots, you will like Foundation and Empire.
Joshua wrote: "That isn't the point. The tobacco still produces smoke. Even if the smoke was harmless, it would still require some form of ventilation system that would otherwise not be required. It just doesn't mesh with a resource strapped world."Maybe I missed something in my reading, but I felt like the smoking that I actually noticed often happened planet-side and I pictured the planets having breathable atmospheres, so no complicated air-scrubbing needed in buildings. As for on spaceships, maybe they had advanced ventilation systems that weren't resource heavy or maybe like a bunch of smokers in a crowded bar they really didn't care if their air got clean. Modern Americans are fussier about the health effects of smoking, but not so much when this book was written. It didn't really bug me. And why do I feel like I remember a movie or two with people smoking on submarines or deep in the bowels of large ships, which seems just as silly if you think about it? People go to great lengths for their vices.
I guess we all have pet peeves and it's one of those things where once you start noticing it, you can't stop, such as a lecturer saying "um" too much.
I certainly felt Dune was a way better book. It had better characters, a better story. Even though I don't subscribe to much of Herbert's philosophy at least it was well communicated. If I wasn't reading these threads I would be hard pressed to draw any of the "insights" others seem to have from Foundation - I can't help but feel Asimov gets too much credit for ideas that weren't even new in his day - such as history moving in phases - old news and the cartoon version of. Psychohistory had promise as a premise but I think he botched it.
The fact that it's an older book is one of the reasons I've held off on reading it for so long. I knew it would have parts that seemed silly (like a transmuter) or were flat out incorrect.
Walter wrote: "I knew it would have parts that seemed silly (like a transmuter) or were flat out incorrect. "What's so silly about a transmuter?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_...
Particle accelerator can be used as transmuters too.
The main problem is the cost of the energy needed.
The idea of the cyclical nature of history was first written about in Al Muqiddimah by Ibn Khaldun - translated into many languages and used at the Ivy League schools here in the US. From wiki:
Some modern thinkers view it as the first work dealing with the philosophy of history[1] or the social sciences[2] of sociology,[1][3][4][5] demography,[3] historiography[4][6] or cultural history.[7][8] and economics,[9][10] The Muqaddimah also deals with Islamic theology, political theory and the natural sciences of biology and chemistry. Ibn Khaldun wrote the work in 1377 as the preface or first book of his planned world history, the Kitab al-Ibar (full title: Kitābu l-ʻibār wa Diwānu l-Mubtada' wa l-Ħabar fī tarikhi l-ʻarab wa l-Barbar wa man ʻĀsarahum min Đawī Ash-Sha'n l-Akbār "Book of Lessons, Record of Beginnings and Events in the history of the Arabs and Berbers and their Powerful Contemporaries"), but already in his lifetime it became regarded as an independent work.
Ibn Khaldun starts the Muqaddimah with a thorough criticism of the mistakes regularly committed by his fellow historians and the difficulties which await the historian in his work. He notes seven critical issues:
"All records, by their very nature, are liable to error...
1....Partisanship towards a creed or opinion...
2....Over-confidence in one's sources...
3....The failure to understand what is intended...
4....A mistaken belief in the truth...
5....The inability to place an event in its real context
6....The common desire to gain favor of those of high ranks, by praising them, by spreading their fame...
7....The most important is the ignorance of the laws governing the transformation of human society."
Ibn Khaldun often criticized "idle superstition and uncritical acceptance of historical data." As a result, he introduced the scientific method to the social sciences, which was considered something "new to his age", and he often referred to it as his "new science" and developed his own new terminology for it.[11]
His historical method also laid the groundwork for the observation of the role of state, communication, propaganda and systematic bias in history,[3] leading to his development of historiography.
If today we built a nuclear reactor that fit in a belt buckle, though, would we not still be using nuclear power for pretty much everything far into the future? I saw it more as an alternate future thing, where nuclear technology became so advanced that no other form needed to be developed.
And why did none of them get radiation poisoning? (sorry, needed sorta-levity here)
Jim wrote: "I actually enjoy this kind of dated-ness sometimes. It shows that the work is a product of it's time and makes me think about all the wonderful crap we have that no one could have conceived of. Lik..."Yes this exactly. The Foundation is the 'future' of the 40s and it's interesting to see what that future holds. The future of the 2010s is different of course, but probably just as inaccurate in its own ways. I think Singularity fiction is to current scifi what FTL travel was to the Golden Age.
So folks should be a bit more humble IMO. :)
Stan wrote: "My VHF and cassette tapes are worn out, and I do not own anything which can play them."Those aren't digital. They have more in-common with paper than with digital formats IMO.
Because the point of digital is that the data isn't bound to the medium. You can make perfect copies. This requires an unbroken hand-off between storage formats. So it's perfect, unless you are worried about the end of civilization, which I think is relevant here. :)
Stan wrote: "Also remember smoking world wide is still very common. It's in heavily legislated countries like America where you see a decline "
There are probably even more regulations (certainly more uniform regulations) here in Europe and smoking is as popular as ever. Smoking being unpopular in the US is cultural, with the laws just catching up. In Europe it's the other way around, the political elites are ahead of the culture.
Because the point of digital is that the data isn't bound to the medium. You can make perfect copies. This requires an unbroken hand-off between storage formats. Digital media isn't bound to one medium, but it is bound to particular codecs and file formats. Digital media must be constantly upgraded or it will become unreadable.
What's more accessible, a WordPerfect document, or a paper book? A 3GPP video from a 10 year-old cell phone, or a VHS tape?
Mod
‘I think the least important thing about science fiction for me is its predictive capacity.’
He goes on to say how Sci-Fi is wrong way more often than it's right.
So Asimov predicted future tech based on nuclear power, and was wrong. So what?
The Full Article is a pretty good read, and part 1of3 of the interview they did.
The details of the technology don't bother me. For example, it is the concept of an encyclopedia that matters and not the actual implementation. It has been 25 years since I read Foundation; it is amazing to me how well it has held up over time.
I still believe nuclear power could be the way of the future. Who's to say the tech. won't be cleaned up and improved, especially when you're talking thousands of years from now.I'm a nuclear medicine technologist and inject people with radiation every day so I'm a little biased in favour of anything with "nuclear" in it. =)
Why would anyone believe they won't be using nuclear power in the future? Pocket sized reactors are a stretch, but for large scale power production, nuclear reactions are as good as it gets.
Alterjess wrote: "What's more accessible, a WordPerfect document, or a paper book? A 3GPP video from a 10 year-old cell phone, or a VHS tape? ."This problem I think is exaggerated. For one - I just double checked and VideoLAN can read 3gp files. And LibreOffice will give the old college try with random WordPerfect. And that's just stuff I have installed.
But now that its 2012 you can do something which wasn't really an option in the 90s and only use formats that have widespread usage and are older than 10 years old for archiving. So yes I think a PDF will be easily readable by archivists in 500 years, +/- the end of civilization. The more obscure formats can be the stuff of library science PhD dissertations in the 2300s. :)
Ulmer Ian wrote: "So yes I think a PDF will be easily readable by archivists in 500 years, +/- the end of civilization. The more obscure formats can be the stuff of library science PhD dissertations in the 2300s. :)" I can't help but think of the other series I'm reading right now, The Dark Tower by Stephen King. For those who haven't read it (I'm just reading it for the first time) it mostly takes place in a world where machinery and technology are all breaking down, the world has "moved on" and no one knows how the technology works or can be repaired. I can fully believe that if planets became too specialized and suddenly became cut off from each other, then you couldn't necessarily count on keeping computers running on all of them.
I also think of an article I read once about how memory works and if we are confident that some knowledge is held somewhere that we can refer back to, we don't remember it as well. i.e. We use our ability to quickly Google something as a subconscious excuse not to hold the knowledge in our own brain. I can well believe that skills and knowledge could be lost quite easily if a planet's population was counting on it being stored somewhere or someone else being in charge of remembering it. "Oh that's why we have an IT department, so I don't have to know how to fix/work such and such on my computer."
It's not brought up specifically in Foundation but there is the possibility of something like an EMP knocking out computers and then how would one read PDFs...but then paper can be destroyed easily in water or fire. Every medium can be lost, can be damaged, there is no truly permanent or durable way to store information.
Ulmer Ian wrote: "So yes I think a PDF will be easily readable by archivists in 500 years, +/- the end of civilization. The more obscure formats can be the stuff of library science PhD dissertations in the 2300s. :) ..."PDF is a bad example. In it's original form, as a read only format on all computer systems, it was great. But Adobe has made so many additions (form fill, databases, scripting etc) that the massively bloated reader now has to be updated regularly to keep up. Will PDF survive long term? Probably, but not as the end-all do-all format that Adobe want it to become.
As to the idea of being able to copy something from an old to new medium just because it's digital, that's simply not true. As someone already mentioned, things like DRM and copyrights are there specifically to stop you doing that. For example, how many people do you know who copied their old DVD collection to BluRay?
For example, how many people do you know who copied their old DVD collection to BluRay? My husband is a film critic whose DVD collection is over 5000 discs. I can't even imagine the time & money it would take to either upgrade to Blu-Ray or make digital backups.
I like to think that books like Harry Potter and Game of Thrones which obviously aren't science fiction at all actually take place so far in our future that their science seems like magic to little barbarian me.
I can't say that I really noticed this when reading the book. Not so much that it hurt my enjoyment of it at any rate. For the most part any lack of sci-fi tech fit in with the idea of a universe where knowledge of technology and the resources to produce it were both in decline.
I approached this novel from the other direction - I was continually amazed at ideas and concepts that still hold up today. For example, of course Asimov could not conceive of an iPod 60 years in advance of it's invention, but he could conceive of a 3D video recording device, with facility for controlled playback with pan and zoom controls. In other cases he was talking about atomic energy based devices, perhaps because of the fascination with atomic power at that time; but basically talking about a form of battery/power source that is smaller and longer lasting than what we have currently - I'm sure the folks that supply your local hardware store are still working on smaller and longer lasting batteries for their line of cordless equipment!!!
The core notions of the book are somewhat timeless. The tech actually is a little wonky at points but he does dwell over much on them. The notion of societal structures as technologies and weapons of control are still relevant.
Rob wrote: "This idea has been touched on in some of the other topics, but I wanted to bring it to forefront with it's own topic for discussion. I'm trying to keep spoilers minor by not really touching on pl..."
I have to agree that there are alot of technology issues with what he has written, (1951), and where we are on a technological scale today (2012). And as I read the book these things became apparent. however it didn't spoil my enjoyment of the book.
I did however reallize that some of the words that are around today, that we use to describe modern technology where around in 1951, even though the modern technology wasn't around then. Probably due to naivety on my part. (I can't give an example, but I do remember thinking, 'oh they had that word back then (1951))
My feelings are similar to Jim's post. I take note of the out-dated technology, but it makes me appreciate the product's time and our own progress.
The Sword and Laser
Books mentioned in this topic
Stranger in a Strange Land (other topics)The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (other topics)
The Space Merchants (other topics)
A Christmas Carol (other topics)
The old people in the book seem older than I would expect from their age, and we're only 60 years removed from the publication of the book. In 12,000 years having people to have the same life expectancy is almost a bit shocking.
And living as we do, with the internet and all its resources in our pockets, the thought of information not being available is anathema.