“Speaking about climate change is not a matter of intellectual luxury — the phenomenon is an actual fact.”

- Osama bin Laden, according to an Al Jazeera translation.

In fact, I noticed some time ago, that you could characterize Al Qaeda as an effort aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

It started in 1989, right after the publicity first started in 1988, and EVERYTHING it has done has been aimed at cutting greenhouse gases emissions – outside of China, of course.

In my opinion, it’s with that story that Isaac Asimov started to go wrong and spoil the series. He never carried through on his original idea. The earlier parts of the series I think did NOT contain the germ of the later ideas.

jimbo: I always thought of Obama as being the Mule to the Clinton’s Seldon plan…

Actually he was more like Frankenstein’s monster. He was supposed to be guaranteed to LOSE. You know, like Orville Faubus in the 1984 Arkansas Democratic primary Gubernatorial race. he was supposed to gather up the opposition, but lose.

I never heard anyone say it before, but I thought people could see that comparison to the Mule. Except that it’s not right. That’s not how he got elected, although it was Senator Ted Kennedy’s and Caroline Kennedy’s excuse for endorsing him (oratorical skills and all that)

The important thing about the endorsement was not the reason they gave for endorsing him, but that it was some OTHER reason than race. That made him a legitimate mainstream candidate and that was enough.

Nigel Ray: Didn’t Jimmy Carter try that same phrase, “New Foundation”, in one of his speeches?

Yes. This whole discussion would be very much up William Safire’s alley. He used to discuss these Presidential slogans phrases all the time. I think the reason was he was a little bit involved with a slogan for Nixon in 1969. We’d had the “Square Deal” of Theodore Roosevelt and the “New Deal” with FDR and the “Fair Deal” with Truman and the “New Frontier with JFK and the “Great Society” with LBJ. some people, I guess, figured Nixon needed something. Then he kept on looking for something similar with all future Presidents.

I think William Safire would find them in speeches when the President in mind didn’t call attention to it at all.

Here he is about Jimmy Carter’s 1979 State of the Union message:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1734&dat=19790126&id=U1UcAAAAIBAJ&sjid=p1EEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7195,2710173

The next year he notes in passing that it is forgotten:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1129&dat=19800126&id=z-sNAAAAIBAJ&sjid=rG0DAAAAIBAJ&pg=2949,3554777

Here is someone in U.S. News and World Report in 2009 noting that Obama had re-used a Jimmy Carter phrase:

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/robert-schlesinger/2009/04/14/barack-obama-goes-the-full-jimmy-carter-with-his-new-foundation.html

Here’s Krauthammer at the same time:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/16/AR2009041603379.html

And here’s the 1979 state of the Union message:

http://www.jimmycarterlibrary.org/documents/speeches/su79jec.phtml

Sobe says:
I am younger than most of the people in the administration by more than a decade and have read the Foundation novels, including the sequels to the original trilogy published by Asimov in the 1980’s. I have not, however, read the new Foundation novels published since Asimov’s death by different authors (heard they’re terrible).

However, there was a collection called “Foundation’s Friends” that came out before Asimov died. One of the stories, “The Originist,” by Orson Scott Card, is excellent. It’s about a contemporary of Hari Seldon’s whose eye was focused in a different direction.

In my memory Asimov appears as a sophomoric reductionist. Perhaps you and your friends perceive other, more interesting and admirable qualities. Finally, all I can say is that I hadn’t thought about Foundation in many years, but I read the Conspiracy because I delight in reading the thoughts of those learned in the law who tend toward conservative and libertarian commitments.

Not the same time. Clinton was elected in 1992. “New Coke” was introduced in 1985, just after the start of Reagan’s second term.

Sundog: To the extent that there’s any scientific basis for psychohistory at all, it’s based on the laws of physics that govern the behavior of gases.

Ooo! Nasty, cruel and I wish I’d said it. ;^)

Nigel Ray: Didn’t Jimmy Carter try that same phrase, “New Foundation”, in one of his speeches?I seem to remember an editorial cartoon from the period in which he was sitting on top of a pile of discarded metaphors, that featured it.Also, the people who think President Obama is a muslim will go nuts when they figure out that in the arabic translation of Asimov’s work, “Foundation” is rendered as “Al Queda”.

I have to say:
hahahahahahahaahahahah

Thanks, Bill Woods!

That’s not really an accurate summary. Hari Seldon explains that the actions of individuals can and do have an effect on the outcome of history, but an empire of thousands of inhabited planets has a great deal of historical “momentum”, and is not easily or quickly diverted from its current trajectory. When “Foundation” begins, the Empire has already been in decline for several centuries, and Seldon’s analysis shows that preventing its collapse is no longer possible. However, it is possible to shorten the interval of barbarism between the fall of the Empire and the rise of a Second Empire from 30,000 years to a single millennium. That is the purpose of the Foundation.

So Asimov isn’t “on both sides of the question.” History is not predetermined, but the ability of psychohistory to alter its course is limited. You could say that “individuals always lose to the laws of history,” but that’s equivalent to saying that they always lose to the laws of physics. Yes, they do, if they’re foolish enough to try to defy them. But if you understand physics or history well enough, you can take advantage of their laws to change the world in your favor.

I would say that ignorant or irrational individuals always lose to the laws of history. Those who understand those laws often succeed. The question, then, is which category President Obama falls into.

The Constitution stuff was not Asimov’s idea at all. Prior to the book’s publication, “The Stars, Like Dust” was serialized in Galaxy Science Fiction. The editor of that magazine, Horace Gold, insisted that Asimov insert a new subplot into the story. In his autobiography, Asimov writes: “Horace wanted me to introduce a new element of suspense. Everyone would have to be looking for a mysterious document, which would turn out at the very end to be a copy of the United States Constitution. I objected very strongly to that, saying it was corny and downright unbelievable. No one could suppose that an instrument of government suitable for a primitive nation forming a small part of a single world would be suitable for a stellar federation. Fred [Pohl] soothed me and said that I could explain that the document was merely an inspiration. It would satisfy Horace and I could take it out for book publication.”

When Asimov explained all this to his editor at Doubleday (which was publishing the book), the editor horrified Asimov by saying, “That sounds great. We’ll keep it in the book version too.” And the book was published that way. But Asimov hated Gold’s subplot, and it ruined the book for him. Of all the novels he wrote, “The Stars, Like Dust” was his least favorite.

I doubt that Heinlein had anything to do with it. The Mule wasn’t Asimov’s idea in the first place; editor John W. Campbell insisted that Asimov write a Foundation story in which the Seldon Plan is disrupted, and Asimov reluctantly agreed. Since it had been previously established that individual humans were unable to deflect the flow of history as predicted by Seldon’s mathematics, Asimov had to invent something that psychohistory could not have predicted: a mutant with the power to alter the minds of others and make them do his bidding.

I don’t recall the Mule being described as stubborn anywhere in the story. Nor is he really an individualist; when he succeeds in defeating and conquering the Foundation, the result is a straightforward dictatorship with the Mule as leader. And Asimov does not portray the Mule as a mustache-twirling villain. On a personal level, he comes across as a rather sympathetic character, who overcame a difficult childhood and survived many hardships to become the overlord of a large chunk of the galaxy. The Mule is certainly an adversary of the Foundation, but one cannot call him evil. (This is typical of Asimov, whose stories rarely a villain. Antagonists, yes, but they always have clear reasons for behaving as they do, even if we don’t agree with those reasons.)

Well, of course not. You may also have noticed that Asimov doesn’t provide technical specifications for building a working hyperdrive, even the spacecraft in the story are equipped with such drives. That’s because the Foundation series is FICTION. Hyperdrive and psychohistory don’t actually exist. They’re just premises that allow Asimov to tell the story he wants to tell.

In fact, if you examine the Foundation series closely, you’ll see that it’s not really science fiction at all. There is no actual science anywhere in the story. The Foundation series is speculative fiction that takes a sequence of real-world historical events — the decline and fall of the Roman Empire — and projects it into the distant future, expanding the scope of the story from part of a single planet to the entire Milky Way galaxy.

To the extent that there’s any scientific basis for psychohistory at all, it’s based on the laws of physics that govern the behavior of gases.

Not to anyone who has read his autobiography. In chapter 11 of “In Memory Yet Green,” Asimov describes how he, at age 12, enthusiastically supported Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1932 election. He writes, “This time my side won, and I was delighted. I never deserted Roosevelt either. His election made me a ‘New Deal Democrat,’ and I’ve never wavered thereafter. I have considered myself a ‘liberal’ ever since.”

Desiderius wrote: “I think this group is more likely to see New York as Trantor, with Washington as Land’s End . . .”

Folks, the Foundation reference is “Star’s End.” Land’s End is a clothing retailer.

William H. Stoddard: If we’re talking about the Foundation novels, I must mention Donald Kingsbury’s brilliant novel Psychohistorical Crisis, which deconstructs the whole idea of psychohistory, showing the central planning and monopoly of agency that it assumes and indeed requires, … I think Kingsbury is a brilliant writer (I was the one who nominated him for the award) and I would like to see him get more recognition and a wider audience—and in this context he’s totally relevant, I think.

Trouble is, Kingsbury doesn’t write enough! Where’s that sequel to Courtship Rite? Also, I don’t think novels are his strong suit. IMHO, the originals of “The Moon Goddess and the Son” and “Historical Crisis” were better than the expanded versions.

pst314: “I had the impression that Asimov was modeling a future, galactic empire based on the history of the Roman Empire.”Yes, indeed. Asimov said many times that he read Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” from cover to cover in his youth, and that it inspired his Foundation series. … I think the story of the general who failed to destroy the Foundation because he was too successful and popular, and thus a threat to the Emperor, was taken directly from something in Gibbon.

Bel Riose = Belasarius.

“I think the story of the general who failed to destroy the Foundation because he was too successful and popular, and thus a threat to the Emperor, was taken directly from something in Gibbon.”

That’s Gibbon’s take on Belisarius.

Deconstruction in order to rebuild on the New Foundation, for a “better America” is the reasoning behind proposals (and for actions) that would overload the present systems (including the legal system)fiscally and bureaucraticaly.

This was intended to establish the “New Totalitarianism;” and while it has some resonance from Italy’s embrace of Corporate Socialism following WW I, it has stumbled through incompetence (of the players, not of the public).

Are we lucky – or what???

But, in the spirit of FDR, I’d say “The Raw Deal” feels right to me.

And all you guys with the peevish one-liners, oy.]

PersonFromPorlock: Incidentally, what’s wrong with the ‘Old Foundation’ — the Constitution?

I wish you hadn’t brought that up. You made me remember what Obama has said on that subject.

I think that as Richard said it [slavery] was a ‘nagging problem’ in the same way that these days we might think of environmental issues, or some other problem where you have to balance cost-benefits, as opposed to seeing it as a moral problem involving persons of moral worth.

And in that sense I think we can say that the Constitution reflected an enormous blind spot in this culture that carries on until this day…

And

…as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasn’t shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change.

SuperSkeptic: Third, pyschohistory only “worked” when there was a critical mass of people, so to speak, so the parallels to some current economic theories ring true to me.

It also required strategic intervention by people with psychic mind-control powers to make the predicted events happen.

Heh. It’s a good bet he would have been hostile to Hayek’s message.

And ironically, Asimov admitted that he never understand economics at all–although that didn’t stop him from expressing opinions on matters of economic policy.

Yes, indeed. Asimov said many times that he read Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” from cover to cover in his youth, and that it inspired his Foundation series. He inserted a number of hints at this, such as a character named Pirenne, which is also the name of a famous French (Belgian?) historian who developed a competing theory of the Fall. I think the story of the general who failed to destroy the Foundation because he was too successful and popular, and thus a threat to the Emperor, was taken directly from something in Gibbon.

Just out of curiosity, how do you see Lucretius as embracing the uncertain? As an atomist, he was pretty much a determinist – except for those random swerves in the atom field that supposedly account for ‘free will.’

He did get elected in MA. Are you sure that he doesn’t have psychic powers like the Mule?

Or, more accurately, just “Empire.”

Though I admit the other suggestions in the comments are good, too.