Asimov

In Issac Asimov’s “Lecture on Humanity”, given in 1973, he makes many predictions about the 21st century. He says, among other things, we’ll need population control, a shift in our view of education, a change in food production, and we’ll have to realize “we’re a world without war” (10).

As a young, intelligent member of the 21st century, what do you think of Asimov’s predictions? Have any of them come true? If they haven’t, should we work toward making any of them a reality? Why or why not?

Asimov makes many interesting predictions, although I disagree with many of them, and think many of them are ridiculous. I agree that we are in a “mess”, but I’m not sure his predictions and solutions to the mess are very plausible. Humans evolve and discover themselves at the cost of nature—our technology uses finite natural resources, creates “dust” (although I’m not sure how devastating this really is to the earth), and ultimately technology is helping us to survive longer and overpopulate the earth. But this is the way of nature-- every species reproduces and tries to survive regardless of their impact on other species. But as Asimov says, we are not like other species, we can reason, and plan ahead to avert the inevitable results of overpopulation. Yes, we need to put a stop to overpopulation if we (humans) do not wish to suffer. We SHOULD put our brains to use and stop reproducing at the ridiculous rate that we are, but unless the whole world bans together into a giant dictatorship, there is NO WAY that the thousands of cultures, governments, religions, and races in our world are just going to hold hands and mutually agree that we should all just stop having babies.

I don’t think that reason triumphs over our primal instincts to reproduce. In my opinion, it’s just not going to happen. Now, I do think that nature will eventually take its course, maybe something like the Black Death will spread again, and bring the world’s population down, and send the world into chaos. Or maybe someone will drop a nuke (even though he doesn’t believe it’s going to happen, but I will address this later) and things will start over for humankind. But I do not believe that the matter of overpopulation will cause people to stop having babies until it really becomes a life threatening matter to everyone. And he was wrong about his prediction that we would have figured out the solution to this problem by now. There are around 7 billion people on earth—and the number will continue to increase exponentially. More food could be a solution to the problem, but only a temporary one. And besides, how do we make more food? By using more oil?  Maybe  a realistic solution would be for our government to invest more in solar power etc. to run Americas industry and produce electricity ( because once again I think it’s almost juvenile to speak for other complex governments and peoples, which he shouldn’t pretend he knows anything about).

Moving on

I’m supprised he takes such an unscientific approach in his lecture if he is in fact speaking to a bunch of engineers. His prediction that education will be for all ages and races and everyone in general in the future could have been devised by an uneducated 12 year old. It’s well acknowledged in the scientific community that as you grow older your brain becomes less able to absorb new information and adapt. One of my favorite sayings is: “you don’t stop playing because you grow old, you grow old because you stop playing”. The simple truth behind this saying is that as you grow older you lose the ability to adapt to the world, and accept what society deems is “normal”. That’s why older people are not able to learn and accept the ways of mainstream society—because the new ways are foreign to them. Just like animals, young human beings are quicker to learn, and absorb new information. There’s a reason our society is youth centered-- if it wasn’t, then we would have dumb adults! And with the limited resources we already have, how can we afford to spend them on 70 year olds? Yes ideally education should be continued throughout our lives so that we can enrich ourselves, but adults have something they call “jobs”, and not everyone has a lucrative and not time consuming job to frolock about learning new things. Just his words “apply it all over the world in a fair and non-selective manner” sound cheesy. What a great solution, because I’m sure there won’t be power hungry controlling murderous dictators like there are today, but oh wait, today is the future he spoke of.

Actually I do agree that the world should be ruled by people of all different specialties, but who doesn’t? Is this a revolutionary idea?

            I think one of Asimov’s greatest flaws is his notion that everyone thinks like him. Not everyone in the world cares enough for the human species enough to not drop a bomb. It’s been done before, and it will be done again. Just the fact that people like Kim Jong-ll exist is enough evidence that people do inhumane things—like dropping nukes and fighting wars.

Lastly, people will always look to expand, reproduce, and evolve (it’s the nature of life) so I agree that we will probably one day (if the human race survives) colonize to other planets so that we can destroy them for our own good. Risk is “risking everything” yet miraculously, somehow, racism, sexism, and ageism still exist. This is proof enough that people are willing to risk everything. Because it’s true, if ism’s stopped existing than the world could collectively seek to stop overpopulation, but people, as he says, just aren’t that smart—they’re stupid.

What other elements of Asimov’s lecture appeal to you? What do you make of his humor? Of his anecdotes? Explain what we can learn from his pointed sarcasm and from some of the stories he shares with us.

        I thought he was relatively humorous, but it was an easy to be, considering the unscientific casual nature of the approach he took to his “ingenious” theories. To tell the truth, I thought some of his humor was a bit sexist (“wash a dish”) and some of it childish (his sex jokes). Nonetheless, he was humorous, and it made his spiel more interesting.

And, finally, how does this lecture reflect qualities of synoptic philosophy and critical analysis? Give a specific example.

    To be perfectly honest, I more  cleary saw how it did NOT reflect eh qualities of synoptic philosophy. He did not consider ANY cultural, racial, or sexual influences that our society would have on the future, as I mention before. ß my example of how he didn’t use it. I do give him credit though for pondering the future, for asking questions (even if I don’t agree with his answers).