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Older sci-fi can be great until it starts being laughably anachronistic. I'm re-reading the Foundation series and there are some howlers. From a hologram contin

Older sci-fi can be great until it starts being laughably anachronistic. I'm re-reading the Foundation series and there are some howlers. From a hologram continually insisting that his viewers can go ahead a smoke cigarettes (as he won't mind), to a breathless description of what is just an automatic train ticket kiosk, to a machine that 'types' by translating voice into neatly hand-written words on a page (where if you misspoke, you need to start from scratch again like a typewriter.) I think it's hard for many modern readers to digest science fiction that was written before the transistor was invented. Some things just seem ridiculous.

DanBC 8y ago
I just read it as alternate time-line, a bit like steampunk.
rudolfwinestock 8y ago
That reminds me of a story which I read in Ray Bradbury's collection, _The Illustrated Man_. The captain of a rocketship (that's the word used) is obsessed with finding a supposed miracle-worker. They land on a planet where the locals tell them of a man who healed a child's broken arm with just a touch. The captain demands evidence and is presented with a painting of the child with a cast around his arm. The captain derides the painting, saying that it could be fake, whereupon his next-in-command points out "Photography is an unknown art on this world." That's right. They have faster-than-light space travel, but image manipulation is unthinkable.
- ecocentrik 8y ago
  Can you travel faster than a photon without knowing how to capture a photon? I love the idea. Maybe CCDs just have a different cultural significance for them.
- coldtea 8y ago
  Wait, who said the locals have "faster-than-light space travel"? We only know that the visitors on the rocket-ship have it. It could very well be that the visitors have a rocketship (ie. faster-than-light space travel) and "Photography" (since the next-in-command mentioned it), but the locals don't have either.
  - huntie 8y ago
    I think the parent meant that the visitors think that a photograph can't be manipulated and is thus a perfect record. Today of course editing photos is commonplace.
    - grkvlt 8y ago
      But they are shown a painting which is pretty obviously just whatever the person creating it wanted it to be, nobody would ever accept it as a perfect record of reality. I don't understand how photography comes into things?
      - sls 8y ago
        I'm not familiar with the story, but this is what I take from the comment above: * captain arrives in FTL ship looking for evidence of a thing * captain isn't satisfied with a painting offered as evidence, because it could be fake * aide says that photography is unknown to the natives, implying that the production of a photograph would be taken by the captain as having more evidentiary value => captain knows about FTL but is unfamiliar with the technology required to produce false but convincing photographic images
        handojin 8y ago
        Of course if it's a FTL ship photographs themselves can't really have any evidentiary value...
        coldtea 8y ago
        Well, even today that we know Photoshop, a photograph still has more evidentiary value than a painting (which has absolutely none), so there's that...
        grkvlt 8y ago
        Ah, makes more sense. Of course, 'captain knows about FTL' is not necessarily a given, much like 'driver knows about internal combustion engine' for cars - he may just be pressing buttons randomly (cf. the Heechee series by Frederick Pohl[0]) for instance. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heechee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heechee
- mrob 8y ago
  >They have faster-than-light space travel, but image manipulation is unthinkable. See "The Road Not Taken" by Harry Turtledove, where the idea is that humans developed advanced technology only because they failed to figure out the trick for easy FTL travel.
  - crooked-v 8y ago
    That story's a bit "ehh" for me, not least of which in the way that it posits war of any sort without corresponding technological improvement. The opportunity to shoot new and exotic people has never stopped people from inventing new and exotic ways to shoot those new and exotic people.
    - marktangotango 8y ago
      It actually has, it’s often cited how long the Chinese had gun powder, but the Europeans perfected its use in war (so the analysis purports).
dfan 8y ago
Science fiction futures exist in a two-dimensional space; one axis is the time the story is set in, and the other axis is the time the story is written. You just have to get used to the fact that "2000 as written in 1950" is different from "2000 as written in 1990".
- ianai 8y ago
  I like seeing 20xy from the view of 19ab. It’s informative in a way and sometimes we have stuff they wanted!
- grkvlt 8y ago
  There's an xkcd (sorry, but I promise it's relevant) that graphs something similar to this[0] but using 'number of years from the time the story was written' as the second axis. If you look at it you can see a line indicating 'stories set in 2015' at the top of the graph - it would be interesting to plot a series of these isochronology lines and compare the stories that lie on them, although for SF you probably need more detail at the top right... 0. https://xkcd.com/1491/ https://xkcd.com/1491/
- rsaarelm 8y ago
  John Clute calls the "as written in" year the Real Year of a science fiction book. It's quite an interesting concept when you start thinking in terms of it.
- Freak_NL 8y ago
  Honestly, I find it very refreshing to read SF from different decades — if only to occasionally get away from the dystopias of today's tomorrow. Sure, space rockets with paper printouts (Heinlein's juvenile bildungsroman Starman Jones) may seem silly today, but I find that it adds to the flavor of yesterday's tomorrows.
  - CydeWeys 8y ago
    And there is still a lot of paper used on the space station in the form of manuals. You need documentation that you absolutely, positively can always read, regardless of whether your computers go down from cosmic rays, electricity goes out, etc.
dmead 8y ago
I have similar issues with cyberpunk novels. Telling me how the internet is supposed to work is not a fun time for me. Though, for foundation they do have other cool tech that is definitely still completely futuristic. (i'm thinking about personal shields, psycohistory and shiny spacecraft like int he starwars prequels)
coldtea 8y ago
>From a hologram continually insisting that his viewers can go ahead a smoke cigarettes (as he won't mind) What exactly is anachronistic about it? Modern society might be full of health freaks, but one hopes that future societies will have gotten over this. Besides, future medical technology might cure cancer and find ways to keep vital organs in great shape whatever you drink/eat/smoke, in which case smoking might see a resurgence.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- plink 8y ago
  Or consider Woody Allen's perspective on health science in his futuristic comedy "Sleeper".
- russellbeattie 8y ago
  It's from a time when it was common for people to just light up wherever they wanted. It wasn't too long ago this ended (at least in California), so it jumped out at me. I probably didn't even notice when I first read the series in the 1980s.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    Yeah, my response was tongue in cheek, but I think such habits can come and go. It's not so much about learning "hey, it's bad for you", but about a social trend. People know alcohol is bad, but they still drink as much as in the 60s...
ACow_Adonis 8y ago
Really? Maybe this is just me, but I read science fiction specifically because its one of the few genres (when written well, as opposed to the "sturgeons-law" filler based on "tech/fantasy gimmick of the week") that expands themes and ideas above and beyond the themes, ideas and perspectives available in "everyday" literature. Even in your example, i'm not sure what it is that is laughable or anachronistic. Perhaps this is just me coming at it from the anthropology/sociological perspective, but since i find so much about our current society and beliefs (including perspectives, beliefs and behaviours of those in the tech sector and those talking about tech) as so comically insane, reading about these alternative technological visions seems like passing the lowest barrier of "suspension of disbelief" necessary. And since its science-fiction, that's a barrier I thought most people would have passed by the time they've decided they're going to pick up a science-fiction book... "I read books about (maybe even believe in) strong-AI, but reading a book where a hologram tells humans they can smoke or drink (given that humans are illogical creatures often needing to be pointed out simple logical inductions and that they CURRENTLY smoke and take drugs and have done so for most of human history) is just so laughably anachronistic!" But you know, I like things like "I, Pencil" so breathless descriptions of automatic train ticket kiosks might just be my thing.
- 8bitsrule 8y ago
  Indeed. I'll continue to enjoy George Pal's 'Time Machine' film, despite the fact that I haven't seen any store-window mannikins for a couple of decades. A great story is great despite its setting, not because of it. 'Moby Dick' will continue to be powerful despite the expiry of whale-hunting; 'Sherlock' still spellbinding despite the extinction of persian slippers, pleasant landladies and street-cabs. Quite sure there'll never be an AI character quite as interesting.
trukterious 8y ago
What gets me are the psychic powers -- Sci-Fi's weird obsession with mumbo-jumbo parapsychology such as ESP which ran I think roughly from 1955 to 1980. In the Foundation series it manifests as the mental powers of the Second Foundationers (their ability to directly seize control of other people's minds, above and beyond their mathematical skill and knowledge of 'psychohistory').
- fractallyte 8y ago
  This was due to John W Campbell, editor of Analog Science Fiction (which he renamed from Astounding SF), the premier hard SF magazine of the time (and now too?). Campbell was one of the most influential figures in science fiction history who cultivated a 'stable' of authors; Asimov was his most famous protégé. Campbell's interest in psi was inflamed further by SF luminaries H Ron Hubbard and A E Van Vogt, who started the Dianetic movement a while before Scientology became a 'thing'. (Since Scientology turned into such a cult, it must be pointed out that Van Vogt had nothing to do with its development). But I'm counter-intrigued: why are so many people in this discussion (and in the article's comments) so vehemently opposed to psi? It's been comprehensively debunked, but Campbell had a neat (and plausible) explanation for that, which no one ever addresses. And many of the most striking anecdotes of psi phenomena have never been adequately explained. This is reminiscent of a consensus reality (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_reality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_reality), which SF readers in particular should be less susceptible to...
  - musha68k 8y ago
    What was Campbell’s explanation if I may ask? Being a big fan of Aldous Huxley I was pretty astonished but none the less entertained by his apparent believe in the supernatural which might have been due to him having lost most of his eyesight when he was in his teens. In case you are interested, there is a lecture where he talks about this stuff over at the psychedelic salon: https://psychedelicsalon.com/podcast-578-1-enemies-of-freedom-2-life-after-death/ https://psychedelicsalon.com/podcast-578-1-enemies-of-freedo... https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Aldous_Huxley https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Aldous_Huxley https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Bates_eye_method#Aldous_Huxley https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Bates_eye_method#Aldous_Huxley
madengr 8y ago
Reliable computer dictation is still science fiction.
- TheCoelacanth 8y ago
  Right, which makes technology that can reliably take dictation, but can't delete a word without whiteout extra hard to believe.
platz 8y ago
which is why Metropolis deserves every bit of praise it gets.
benibela 8y ago
This is especially weird in the Perry Rhodan series. Written since the 60s it might now be the longest scifi series ever. So there they have spaceships of 2.5 km diameter that can fly faster than 100 million times the speed of light shooting bombs of teratons of TNT each and have force fields that can withstand those bombs, but when they want to bring data from one computer to another, they put holes in a punchcard and have someone carry the punchcard
- jejones3141 8y ago
  Don't forget the Directrix in the Lensman series, where as the space battle approaches, the crew rush to hand out huge binders of pre-calculated possible maneuvers... done by hand with some help from slide rules.
  - benibela 8y ago
    Although the Lens must have enormous computation power, since it can crack any encryption instantaneously. I have always wondered what happens if the Lensman tries to read an one-time-pad
- jarofgreen 8y ago
  I think it's Arthur C Clarke who's short stories have a bit of this. They have a man going off in his incredible spaceship to discover the universe ... and keenly recording the data on his tape computer.
- marktangotango 8y ago
  I found a set of English translations of those back in the late 80s but only bought the first 10 or so iirc, you’re saying it’s still on going? That’s remarkable!
NeedMoreTea 8y ago
I really enjoy that a lot of the time, and also love alternative histories. So much of what we have is a combination of effort, a personality, a huge dose of luck, and being at the right time. So much is simply fashion. Almost none is inevitable. A few chance changes and there's no internet, or Babbage completed his Analytical Engine, or the early electric vehicles are the type the world settles on to develop instead of internal combustion. Or a different set of changes and we get Man in the High Castle or Rocket Ship Galileo.
j9461701 8y ago
I wonder what parts of modern sci-fi we will regard as hopelessly outdated in a hundred years, as we might view many elements of the Foundation series? Perhaps we'll achieve Ghost in the Shell-style brain encapsulation, and so view any sci-fi story that doesn't feature people trivially swapping bodies as needed - despite having FTL and laser guns - as hopelessly outdated and silly. Perhaps we'll become increasingly invested in our digital lives and robot servants, to the point we view old sci-fi that involved physically sending humans to other worlds just to stand around on them as extremely dangerous and wasteful? Though on a somewhat different angle, I've quite enjoyed watching many fantasy stories "update" themselves to be more amenable to a modern audience. For example magic powers have slowly morphed from Gandalf style vague mutterings and the occasional flashlight to basically being programs that a wizard can download, swap, upgrade, etc. It makes me wonder if one day when humanity has achieved immortality, if we'll "backport" it to our fantasy stories and suddenly every human kingdom has some magical doodad that makes them live forever?
- crooked-v 8y ago
  > For example magic powers have slowly morphed from Gandalf style vague mutterings and the occasional flashlight to basically being programs that a wizard can download, swap, upgrade, etc. That's a poor example, though, because that's closer to the classical depiction of magic than the "vague mutterings" type. The ancient Greeks and Romans had pretty firm rules on how to conduct prayers and ceremonies, how to handle certain mystical phenomena, etc., for example. In Western pop culture, magic being all about unexplainable forces was an invention of Victorian romanticism.
- int_19h 8y ago
  > magic powers have slowly morphed from Gandalf style vague mutterings and the occasional flashlight to basically being programs that a wizard can download, swap, upgrade, etc. There's a (not particularly good) Russian fantasy book series where the premise is literally that - it's the usual "regular guy ends up in a magic world" kind of set-up, except that the guy is a software developer, and he discovers that magic is a great deal like OOP, and that his skills translate remarkably well. Of course, it's mostly just a Mary Sue story - the author being a Java developer, so far as I can tell - but it's interesting that someone else came up with this metaphor and developed it to that extent.
drdeadringer 8y ago
I don't consider the items you mention as "laughably anachronistic". Many of the things you mention can be social items that come and go with the times. One example is my visits to Mystic Seaport, specifically the whaling ship Charles W. Morgan. Inside the museum, you could type in your name and receive a printout of the ship's crew manifest with your name included, all the names written in cursive as if you were there 150 years ago. "But computers murder cursive!" ... well maybe, but I was still there enjoying the experience. "But computers have nothing to do with connecting humans with there past!" ... and yet there I was tapping on a touchscreen and receiving a printout of a "150 year old manifest" of the ship I just walked through with my name on it. Yes that smoking in a spaceship while you hunch over your portable typewriter the size of a suitcase is outdated, but people still have flexible imaginations which accommodate such things. I don't see the problem.
crooked-v 8y ago
Another example that's strangely funny in retrospect because of how far it is off the mark despite simultaneously predicting actual advances: the Sector General series (started in 1962, last book published 1999) starts out with universal translator earbuds that are remotely driven by a central computer system, but the characters have to go to a wall phone to contact someone. The series also has some unfortunate anachronism in treatment of gender (a future galactic society, but of course women can't be doctors, only nurses), though the author did piece-by-piece retcon that out into more egalitarian social standards as he wrote the sequel books.
fouc 8y ago
Honestly the anachronistic technology is cute in a sort of steampunk/cyberpunk way, I don't think it detracts from the story. It's also not hard to imagine it's all taking place in a parallel universe that diverged down a different path of technological development.
fernly 8y ago
A couple of years ago I wrote a lengthy deconstruction of a Heinlein story[1], and had to note a number of unfortunate anachronisms that result from the basic fact that this future world had no computers, none. Their absence shows up in so many subtle ways! So often you say, "wait, why don't they just look it up? ...check an app? ...ask Siri?" When Heinlein wrote that particular story there was no such thing as a graphics terminal, or a computer smaller than a refrigerator, and he didn't make the imaginative leap. [1] http://thispageintentionally.blogspot.com/2016/08/a-close-reading-of-heinleins-menace.html http://thispageintentionally.blogspot.com/2016/08/a-close-re...
- hguant 8y ago
  It's funny that you say this, because one of my favourite Heinlein stories entirely revolves around the tricks you can pull with a super computer. In _Moon is a Harsh Mistress_, you see examples of deep fakes, real time statistical analysis, subversion of encryption/secure communications by getting the co-operation of central telecoms, all of which are things that are just now becoming possible with computers. To your point about graphics terminals and the like, you're correct that Heinlein didn't foresee the use of screens the way we use them, but then again, he also predicts that the best way to talk to an AI is to talk to it ("Ho there Mike" as opposed to "Ok Google"...).
  - int_19h 8y ago
    Access to Mike is a very limited resource in that book, though - it's not on the equivalent of the local Internet (indeed, there doesn't seem to be one). The only reason why the protagonists succeed with their plans is because they manage to secure that access without any of the opposition aware of it.
kwccoin 8y ago
I am not sure I care the details that much. Foundation is like HK 2 China and hence I always imagine that angle. Each reader may have a different angle. But the SF can you a virtual world to conceptualise. Unlike movie a book let you to do so. From time to time I read something in bed, I still recall there is a paragraph in H G Well story (a man from mars) which has a television on his watch. Given only then 1 out of 100 has television in my block, it is a shocking future ...
YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
Talk about missing the forest for the trees. The main subject of the Foundation Series was an imaginary science that could predict future developments in human society. The technology items you discuss are just filler, secondary details that serve to flesh out the world of the novels. Just like "psychohistory" itself, they're not supposed to be accurate predictions of future tech. I don't know why we're supposed to find them laughable. Is it because we are so much smarter than Asimov so we can all have a good laugh at his naive imaginings of then-future technology (never mind our ~50 years of hindsight)?
- watwut 8y ago
  I don't think Asimov was that great on human society and psychology aspects of writing. His characters are not realistic/complex enough for that kind of analysis. They tend toward simple. He was good at drama, detective story, adventure aspects in cool environment. Those work very well.
  - thom 8y ago
    Yes, I for one find it hard to relate to his stories about how maths, psychology and technology could be used in targeted ways to affect the broad sweep of history.
jarofgreen 8y ago
My favourite example of this is Arthur C Clarke seemingly failing to pick up on robots. He was the first to realise that geo-stationary satellites would be great for broadcasting media (I think that's the exact distinction?) but, for example, he has a short story where whole space stations of crews of men are working away, just to relay and broadcast TV to the planet below. Robots, dude. It's all robots. Tho I disagree that it ruins the story. You have to take any story on it's own terms, and accept it to a certain degree. There is plenty of other stuff in his short stories to enjoy.

DanBC 8y ago

I just read it as alternate time-line, a bit like steampunk.

rudolfwinestock 8y ago

That reminds me of a story which I read in Ray Bradbury's collection, _The Illustrated Man_. The captain of a rocketship (that's the word used) is obsessed with finding a supposed miracle-worker. They land on a planet where the locals tell them of a man who healed a child's broken arm with just a touch. The captain demands evidence and is presented with a painting of the child with a cast around his arm. The captain derides the painting, saying that it could be fake, whereupon his next-in-command points out "Photography is an unknown art on this world." That's right. They have faster-than-light space travel, but image manipulation is unthinkable.

ecocentrik 8y ago
Can you travel faster than a photon without knowing how to capture a photon? I love the idea. Maybe CCDs just have a different cultural significance for them.
coldtea 8y ago
Wait, who said the locals have "faster-than-light space travel"? We only know that the visitors on the rocket-ship have it. It could very well be that the visitors have a rocketship (ie. faster-than-light space travel) and "Photography" (since the next-in-command mentioned it), but the locals don't have either.
- huntie 8y ago
  I think the parent meant that the visitors think that a photograph can't be manipulated and is thus a perfect record. Today of course editing photos is commonplace.
  - grkvlt 8y ago
    But they are shown a painting which is pretty obviously just whatever the person creating it wanted it to be, nobody would ever accept it as a perfect record of reality. I don't understand how photography comes into things?
    - sls 8y ago
      I'm not familiar with the story, but this is what I take from the comment above: * captain arrives in FTL ship looking for evidence of a thing * captain isn't satisfied with a painting offered as evidence, because it could be fake * aide says that photography is unknown to the natives, implying that the production of a photograph would be taken by the captain as having more evidentiary value => captain knows about FTL but is unfamiliar with the technology required to produce false but convincing photographic images
      - handojin 8y ago
        Of course if it's a FTL ship photographs themselves can't really have any evidentiary value...
      - coldtea 8y ago
        Well, even today that we know Photoshop, a photograph still has more evidentiary value than a painting (which has absolutely none), so there's that...
      - grkvlt 8y ago
        Ah, makes more sense. Of course, 'captain knows about FTL' is not necessarily a given, much like 'driver knows about internal combustion engine' for cars - he may just be pressing buttons randomly (cf. the Heechee series by Frederick Pohl[0]) for instance. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heechee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heechee
mrob 8y ago
>They have faster-than-light space travel, but image manipulation is unthinkable. See "The Road Not Taken" by Harry Turtledove, where the idea is that humans developed advanced technology only because they failed to figure out the trick for easy FTL travel.
- crooked-v 8y ago
  That story's a bit "ehh" for me, not least of which in the way that it posits war of any sort without corresponding technological improvement. The opportunity to shoot new and exotic people has never stopped people from inventing new and exotic ways to shoot those new and exotic people.
  - marktangotango 8y ago
    It actually has, it’s often cited how long the Chinese had gun powder, but the Europeans perfected its use in war (so the analysis purports).

dfan 8y ago

Science fiction futures exist in a two-dimensional space; one axis is the time the story is set in, and the other axis is the time the story is written. You just have to get used to the fact that "2000 as written in 1950" is different from "2000 as written in 1990".

ianai 8y ago
I like seeing 20xy from the view of 19ab. It’s informative in a way and sometimes we have stuff they wanted!
grkvlt 8y ago
There's an xkcd (sorry, but I promise it's relevant) that graphs something similar to this[0] but using 'number of years from the time the story was written' as the second axis. If you look at it you can see a line indicating 'stories set in 2015' at the top of the graph - it would be interesting to plot a series of these isochronology lines and compare the stories that lie on them, although for SF you probably need more detail at the top right... 0. https://xkcd.com/1491/ https://xkcd.com/1491/
rsaarelm 8y ago
John Clute calls the "as written in" year the Real Year of a science fiction book. It's quite an interesting concept when you start thinking in terms of it.
Freak_NL 8y ago
Honestly, I find it very refreshing to read SF from different decades — if only to occasionally get away from the dystopias of today's tomorrow. Sure, space rockets with paper printouts (Heinlein's juvenile bildungsroman Starman Jones) may seem silly today, but I find that it adds to the flavor of yesterday's tomorrows.
- CydeWeys 8y ago
  And there is still a lot of paper used on the space station in the form of manuals. You need documentation that you absolutely, positively can always read, regardless of whether your computers go down from cosmic rays, electricity goes out, etc.

dmead 8y ago

I have similar issues with cyberpunk novels. Telling me how the internet is supposed to work is not a fun time for me. Though, for foundation they do have other cool tech that is definitely still completely futuristic. (i'm thinking about personal shields, psycohistory and shiny spacecraft like int he starwars prequels)

coldtea 8y ago

>From a hologram continually insisting that his viewers can go ahead a smoke cigarettes (as he won't mind) What exactly is anachronistic about it? Modern society might be full of health freaks, but one hopes that future societies will have gotten over this. Besides, future medical technology might cure cancer and find ways to keep vital organs in great shape whatever you drink/eat/smoke, in which case smoking might see a resurgence.

deleted 8y ago
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plink 8y ago
Or consider Woody Allen's perspective on health science in his futuristic comedy "Sleeper".
russellbeattie 8y ago
It's from a time when it was common for people to just light up wherever they wanted. It wasn't too long ago this ended (at least in California), so it jumped out at me. I probably didn't even notice when I first read the series in the 1980s.
- coldtea 8y ago
  Yeah, my response was tongue in cheek, but I think such habits can come and go. It's not so much about learning "hey, it's bad for you", but about a social trend. People know alcohol is bad, but they still drink as much as in the 60s...

ACow_Adonis 8y ago

Really? Maybe this is just me, but I read science fiction specifically because its one of the few genres (when written well, as opposed to the "sturgeons-law" filler based on "tech/fantasy gimmick of the week") that expands themes and ideas above and beyond the themes, ideas and perspectives available in "everyday" literature. Even in your example, i'm not sure what it is that is laughable or anachronistic. Perhaps this is just me coming at it from the anthropology/sociological perspective, but since i find so much about our current society and beliefs (including perspectives, beliefs and behaviours of those in the tech sector and those talking about tech) as so comically insane, reading about these alternative technological visions seems like passing the lowest barrier of "suspension of disbelief" necessary. And since its science-fiction, that's a barrier I thought most people would have passed by the time they've decided they're going to pick up a science-fiction book... "I read books about (maybe even believe in) strong-AI, but reading a book where a hologram tells humans they can smoke or drink (given that humans are illogical creatures often needing to be pointed out simple logical inductions and that they CURRENTLY smoke and take drugs and have done so for most of human history) is just so laughably anachronistic!" But you know, I like things like "I, Pencil" so breathless descriptions of automatic train ticket kiosks might just be my thing.

8bitsrule 8y ago
Indeed. I'll continue to enjoy George Pal's 'Time Machine' film, despite the fact that I haven't seen any store-window mannikins for a couple of decades. A great story is great despite its setting, not because of it. 'Moby Dick' will continue to be powerful despite the expiry of whale-hunting; 'Sherlock' still spellbinding despite the extinction of persian slippers, pleasant landladies and street-cabs. Quite sure there'll never be an AI character quite as interesting.

trukterious 8y ago

What gets me are the psychic powers -- Sci-Fi's weird obsession with mumbo-jumbo parapsychology such as ESP which ran I think roughly from 1955 to 1980. In the Foundation series it manifests as the mental powers of the Second Foundationers (their ability to directly seize control of other people's minds, above and beyond their mathematical skill and knowledge of 'psychohistory').

fractallyte 8y ago
This was due to John W Campbell, editor of Analog Science Fiction (which he renamed from Astounding SF), the premier hard SF magazine of the time (and now too?). Campbell was one of the most influential figures in science fiction history who cultivated a 'stable' of authors; Asimov was his most famous protégé. Campbell's interest in psi was inflamed further by SF luminaries H Ron Hubbard and A E Van Vogt, who started the Dianetic movement a while before Scientology became a 'thing'. (Since Scientology turned into such a cult, it must be pointed out that Van Vogt had nothing to do with its development). But I'm counter-intrigued: why are so many people in this discussion (and in the article's comments) so vehemently opposed to psi? It's been comprehensively debunked, but Campbell had a neat (and plausible) explanation for that, which no one ever addresses. And many of the most striking anecdotes of psi phenomena have never been adequately explained. This is reminiscent of a consensus reality (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_reality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_reality), which SF readers in particular should be less susceptible to...
- musha68k 8y ago
  What was Campbell’s explanation if I may ask? Being a big fan of Aldous Huxley I was pretty astonished but none the less entertained by his apparent believe in the supernatural which might have been due to him having lost most of his eyesight when he was in his teens. In case you are interested, there is a lecture where he talks about this stuff over at the psychedelic salon: https://psychedelicsalon.com/podcast-578-1-enemies-of-freedom-2-life-after-death/ https://psychedelicsalon.com/podcast-578-1-enemies-of-freedo... https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Aldous_Huxley https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Aldous_Huxley https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Bates_eye_method#Aldous_Huxley https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Bates_eye_method#Aldous_Huxley

madengr 8y ago

Reliable computer dictation is still science fiction.

TheCoelacanth 8y ago
Right, which makes technology that can reliably take dictation, but can't delete a word without whiteout extra hard to believe.

platz 8y ago

which is why Metropolis deserves every bit of praise it gets.

benibela 8y ago

This is especially weird in the Perry Rhodan series. Written since the 60s it might now be the longest scifi series ever. So there they have spaceships of 2.5 km diameter that can fly faster than 100 million times the speed of light shooting bombs of teratons of TNT each and have force fields that can withstand those bombs, but when they want to bring data from one computer to another, they put holes in a punchcard and have someone carry the punchcard

jejones3141 8y ago
Don't forget the Directrix in the Lensman series, where as the space battle approaches, the crew rush to hand out huge binders of pre-calculated possible maneuvers... done by hand with some help from slide rules.
- benibela 8y ago
  Although the Lens must have enormous computation power, since it can crack any encryption instantaneously. I have always wondered what happens if the Lensman tries to read an one-time-pad
jarofgreen 8y ago
I think it's Arthur C Clarke who's short stories have a bit of this. They have a man going off in his incredible spaceship to discover the universe ... and keenly recording the data on his tape computer.
marktangotango 8y ago
I found a set of English translations of those back in the late 80s but only bought the first 10 or so iirc, you’re saying it’s still on going? That’s remarkable!

NeedMoreTea 8y ago

I really enjoy that a lot of the time, and also love alternative histories. So much of what we have is a combination of effort, a personality, a huge dose of luck, and being at the right time. So much is simply fashion. Almost none is inevitable. A few chance changes and there's no internet, or Babbage completed his Analytical Engine, or the early electric vehicles are the type the world settles on to develop instead of internal combustion. Or a different set of changes and we get Man in the High Castle or Rocket Ship Galileo.

j9461701 8y ago

I wonder what parts of modern sci-fi we will regard as hopelessly outdated in a hundred years, as we might view many elements of the Foundation series? Perhaps we'll achieve Ghost in the Shell-style brain encapsulation, and so view any sci-fi story that doesn't feature people trivially swapping bodies as needed - despite having FTL and laser guns - as hopelessly outdated and silly. Perhaps we'll become increasingly invested in our digital lives and robot servants, to the point we view old sci-fi that involved physically sending humans to other worlds just to stand around on them as extremely dangerous and wasteful? Though on a somewhat different angle, I've quite enjoyed watching many fantasy stories "update" themselves to be more amenable to a modern audience. For example magic powers have slowly morphed from Gandalf style vague mutterings and the occasional flashlight to basically being programs that a wizard can download, swap, upgrade, etc. It makes me wonder if one day when humanity has achieved immortality, if we'll "backport" it to our fantasy stories and suddenly every human kingdom has some magical doodad that makes them live forever?

crooked-v 8y ago
> For example magic powers have slowly morphed from Gandalf style vague mutterings and the occasional flashlight to basically being programs that a wizard can download, swap, upgrade, etc. That's a poor example, though, because that's closer to the classical depiction of magic than the "vague mutterings" type. The ancient Greeks and Romans had pretty firm rules on how to conduct prayers and ceremonies, how to handle certain mystical phenomena, etc., for example. In Western pop culture, magic being all about unexplainable forces was an invention of Victorian romanticism.
int_19h 8y ago
> magic powers have slowly morphed from Gandalf style vague mutterings and the occasional flashlight to basically being programs that a wizard can download, swap, upgrade, etc. There's a (not particularly good) Russian fantasy book series where the premise is literally that - it's the usual "regular guy ends up in a magic world" kind of set-up, except that the guy is a software developer, and he discovers that magic is a great deal like OOP, and that his skills translate remarkably well. Of course, it's mostly just a Mary Sue story - the author being a Java developer, so far as I can tell - but it's interesting that someone else came up with this metaphor and developed it to that extent.

drdeadringer 8y ago

I don't consider the items you mention as "laughably anachronistic". Many of the things you mention can be social items that come and go with the times. One example is my visits to Mystic Seaport, specifically the whaling ship Charles W. Morgan. Inside the museum, you could type in your name and receive a printout of the ship's crew manifest with your name included, all the names written in cursive as if you were there 150 years ago. "But computers murder cursive!" ... well maybe, but I was still there enjoying the experience. "But computers have nothing to do with connecting humans with there past!" ... and yet there I was tapping on a touchscreen and receiving a printout of a "150 year old manifest" of the ship I just walked through with my name on it. Yes that smoking in a spaceship while you hunch over your portable typewriter the size of a suitcase is outdated, but people still have flexible imaginations which accommodate such things. I don't see the problem.

crooked-v 8y ago

Another example that's strangely funny in retrospect because of how far it is off the mark despite simultaneously predicting actual advances: the Sector General series (started in 1962, last book published 1999) starts out with universal translator earbuds that are remotely driven by a central computer system, but the characters have to go to a wall phone to contact someone. The series also has some unfortunate anachronism in treatment of gender (a future galactic society, but of course women can't be doctors, only nurses), though the author did piece-by-piece retcon that out into more egalitarian social standards as he wrote the sequel books.

fouc 8y ago

Honestly the anachronistic technology is cute in a sort of steampunk/cyberpunk way, I don't think it detracts from the story. It's also not hard to imagine it's all taking place in a parallel universe that diverged down a different path of technological development.

fernly 8y ago

A couple of years ago I wrote a lengthy deconstruction of a Heinlein story[1], and had to note a number of unfortunate anachronisms that result from the basic fact that this future world had no computers, none. Their absence shows up in so many subtle ways! So often you say, "wait, why don't they just look it up? ...check an app? ...ask Siri?" When Heinlein wrote that particular story there was no such thing as a graphics terminal, or a computer smaller than a refrigerator, and he didn't make the imaginative leap. [1] http://thispageintentionally.blogspot.com/2016/08/a-close-reading-of-heinleins-menace.html http://thispageintentionally.blogspot.com/2016/08/a-close-re...

hguant 8y ago
It's funny that you say this, because one of my favourite Heinlein stories entirely revolves around the tricks you can pull with a super computer. In _Moon is a Harsh Mistress_, you see examples of deep fakes, real time statistical analysis, subversion of encryption/secure communications by getting the co-operation of central telecoms, all of which are things that are just now becoming possible with computers. To your point about graphics terminals and the like, you're correct that Heinlein didn't foresee the use of screens the way we use them, but then again, he also predicts that the best way to talk to an AI is to talk to it ("Ho there Mike" as opposed to "Ok Google"...).
- int_19h 8y ago
  Access to Mike is a very limited resource in that book, though - it's not on the equivalent of the local Internet (indeed, there doesn't seem to be one). The only reason why the protagonists succeed with their plans is because they manage to secure that access without any of the opposition aware of it.

kwccoin 8y ago

I am not sure I care the details that much. Foundation is like HK 2 China and hence I always imagine that angle. Each reader may have a different angle. But the SF can you a virtual world to conceptualise. Unlike movie a book let you to do so. From time to time I read something in bed, I still recall there is a paragraph in H G Well story (a man from mars) which has a television on his watch. Given only then 1 out of 100 has television in my block, it is a shocking future ...

YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago

Talk about missing the forest for the trees. The main subject of the Foundation Series was an imaginary science that could predict future developments in human society. The technology items you discuss are just filler, secondary details that serve to flesh out the world of the novels. Just like "psychohistory" itself, they're not supposed to be accurate predictions of future tech. I don't know why we're supposed to find them laughable. Is it because we are so much smarter than Asimov so we can all have a good laugh at his naive imaginings of then-future technology (never mind our ~50 years of hindsight)?

watwut 8y ago
I don't think Asimov was that great on human society and psychology aspects of writing. His characters are not realistic/complex enough for that kind of analysis. They tend toward simple. He was good at drama, detective story, adventure aspects in cool environment. Those work very well.
- thom 8y ago
  Yes, I for one find it hard to relate to his stories about how maths, psychology and technology could be used in targeted ways to affect the broad sweep of history.

jarofgreen 8y ago

My favourite example of this is Arthur C Clarke seemingly failing to pick up on robots. He was the first to realise that geo-stationary satellites would be great for broadcasting media (I think that's the exact distinction?) but, for example, he has a short story where whole space stations of crews of men are working away, just to relay and broadcast TV to the planet below. Robots, dude. It's all robots. Tho I disagree that it ruins the story. You have to take any story on it's own terms, and accept it to a certain degree. There is plenty of other stuff in his short stories to enjoy.