Anderson does not draw a straight line from nuclear forces to physiologies to psychologies to sociology. In Isaac Asimov's future history, Seldon's psychohistorical Plan is upset, although only temporarily, by a single mutant whereas Anderson's Psychotechnic Institute is, much more realistically, overwhelmed by the chaos of world events. And it is the science of psychotechnics, not any particular organization, that survives into the Galactic future.
The Foundation series remains throughout with a handful of individuals directing the destinies of quintillions whereas Anderson's Psychotechnic History is a genuine future history series with different kinds of stories about diverse one-off characters set in successive periods of a single long timeline.
The Psychotechnic League should be entitled The Psychotechnic Institute or The Psychotechnic History, Volume I. This series should be republished in a uniform edition between Robert Heinlein's Future History and Anderson's Technic History. This is the main line of development of American future history series.
6 comments:
The "science of history" thing was popular in the middle twentieth century; it's gotten steadily less so, because it's self-evidently fatuous if you actually study history, which is a web of low-probability accidents.
"...self-evidently fatuous..." We get good writing here without having to pay for it!
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Absolutely! I'm so sick of impossible Utopian fantasies! Real, actual progress came about came from humbler, more modest notions like free enterprise economics and the limited state, in whatever form. And works only as long as fallible, corruptible human beings don't get too arrogant and presumptuous.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Free enterprise was progress from feudalism. Free enterprise will be redundant when so much is produced technologically that everyone can have access to the products of technology without having to use money as a means of exchange. No one will any longer be making a profit by buying and selling nor will anyone need to.
This is not a fantasy but a reasoned argument.
Paul.
Sean: it's a reasoned argument, but a poor one, because it's been demonstrated that bad management can ruin the results of any system, no matter how technologically advanced.
I would also point out that really rich people are not playing the money game for what they can buy: they usually work very hard long, long after they could buy any conceivable luxury, much less necessities.
Elon Musk, for example, spends a lot of his time living in a $50K prefabricated home. He bought some mansions, but has since sold them all because they bored him. He really is focused on colonizing Mars.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I think you meant to address these comments to Paul. And I agree they adequately replied to his argument.
I even looked up Musk's cheapo prefabricated house! I have only admiration for what he has achieved, drastically shaking up and reviving a too long stagnant space program and seriously planning to found a colony on Mars.
I wouldn't object if Musk indulged himself in building a villa on Maui! (Smiles)
Ad astra! Sean
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