but, here's a few notes on the first few stories as i focus on some other things for the day.
i need to pick up the pace, clearly.
- callistan menace: we don't know there aren't giant caterpillars on callisto, and i'd be surprised if we don't one day find some life form that traps it's prey using magnetic fields. but, the story has no actual point to it, no conclusion and no context. it's not even a chapter of a book, it's an idea to be developed, in the abstract.
- ring around the sun: delivering letters by spaceship is hilariously pre-internet, as a concept. this story has a purpose, namely the foolishness of young men.
- the magnificent possession: this is clearly about asimov's views on the corporate dominance in the field of chemistry, and reality not aligning with his expectations, before entering the field. you have the politician, the capitalist and the mobster (if they're not all the same thing), and the silver spoon that smells like shit, on top of it. i can sort of relate to that, as an adult. it's an interesting potential device to go into these three characters, but it's only a few pages long, and doesn't begin to actually do so. it's a shame - it's a good premise.
- trends: appears to predict neo-liberalism, even if his concept of space travel in 1973 is a little bit optimistic. well, we got to the moon in 1969. and the dark side of the moon in 1973. it's a reminder that moore's law has it's limitations, that these exponential growth curves are just delusional economic theories. but, the prediction of neo-liberalism (and of the kind of ludditism that defined the 60s counterculture, which was the mirror image of neoliberalism, and a prerequisite of it's ability to actually function) is indeed some insight.
“I know, I know. You’re going to tell me of the First War of 1914, and the Second of 1940. It’s an old story to me; my father fought in the Second and my grandfather in the First. Nevertheless, those were the days when science flourished. Men were not afraid then; somehow they dreamed and dared. There was no such thing as conservatism when it came to matters mechanical and scientific. No theory was too radical to advance, no discovery too revolutionary to publish. Today, dry rot has seized the world when a great vision, such as space travel, is hailed as ‘defiance of God.’ “
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However, the masses didn’t take it that way. It seems strange, perhaps, to you of the twenty-first century, but perhaps we should have expected it in those days of ‘73. People weren’t very progressive then. For years there had been a swing toward religion, and when the churches came out unanimously against Harman’s rocket-well, there you were.
standing in 2021, the united states has actually left space travel up to the market, and is getting leapfrogged by not just china and the eu (the russians have long ceded ground, as well), but also by india and japan. we have idiots like elon musk and jeff bezos making fools of themselves in public, while the eu does all of the actually interesting work. meanwhile, the public cares more about religious freedom, as the continent sinks into the sea.
he also predicts the coming of jihad to destroy advanced civilization, which is something currently in the process of happening, as well as the role of the supreme court in facilitating the power of religion to overturn science. we can only hope the pendulum swings once again.
so, he got something with this. but, i wish it was longer and explored the issue in more depth.
- the weapon too dreadful to use: the idea of life on venus was once taken pretty seriously, before we understood that it was a ball of gaseous sulfuric acid, overtaken by a runaway greenhouse effect. there's a comical exploration of descartian dualism here which is not particularly believable nowadays but is a silly enough mechanism to topple the arrogance of slavery with, nonetheless. remember that asimov was writing from the united states in the late 1930s, here.
