{"id":7248,"date":"2015-04-11T17:01:22","date_gmt":"2015-04-11T22:01:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=7248"},"modified":"2015-04-11T17:01:22","modified_gmt":"2015-04-11T22:01:22","slug":"the-science-fictional-foundation-under-paul-krugman-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=7248","title":{"rendered":"THE SCIENCE FICTIONAL FOUNDATION UNDER PAUL KRUGMAN, PART ONE"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cobdencentre.org\/2015\/04\/the-science-fictional-foundation-under-paul-krugman-part-one\/\" target=\"_blank\"><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">THE SCIENCE FICTIONAL FOUNDATION UNDER PAUL KRUGMAN, PART ONE<\/span><\/a><\/h3>\n<p>Paul Krugman, a few years ago, wrote at length to extol the\u00a0<i>magnum opus<\/i>\u00a0of science fiction grandmaster, Isaac Asimov, the\u00a0<i>Foundation Trilogy<\/i>. Prof. Krugman\u2019s reflections thereon are of keen interest.<\/p>\n<p>I met Asimov once, 40+ years ago, at a world science fiction convention. I even got him to autograph my Science Fiction Book Club copy of \u201c<i>The Foundation Trilogy<\/i>.\u201d This compilation of three novels is an SF classic. I, then and since, found it too dull to read in full. (Asimov\u2019s\u00a0<i>I, Robot<\/i>\u00a0then was much more engaging to this long-ago SF geek. But nothing Asimov wrote really rivaled Heinlein\u2019s early, nor Arthur C. Clarke\u2019s best, novels.)<\/p>\n<p>Prof. Paul Krugman, galactically more influential than me, declares that he found the the\u00a0<i>Foundation Trilogy<\/i>\u00a0his formative inspiration. Therein hangs a tale: one of technocracy, which he exalts, versus mere common sense.<\/p>\n<p>Prof. Krugman\u2019s reflections were published in the\u00a0<i>UK Guardian<\/i>\u00a0at the end of 2012:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/books\/2012\/dec\/04\/paul-krugman-asimov-economics%20\" target=\"_blank\"><i>Paul Krugman: Asimov\u2019s Foundation novels grounded my economics<\/i><\/a>\u00a0(apparently, a reprint of Prof. Krugman\u2019s introduction to the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/preview\/sites\/ralphbenko\/efke45jhej\/www.foliosociety.com\/book\/FDT\" target=\"_blank\">Folio Society<\/a>\u00a0edition of the same). Prof. Krugman there wrote, \u201cI grew up wanting to be Hari Seldon, using my understanding of the mathematics of human behaviour to save civilisation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There is an unsubtle irony to Prof. Krugman\u2019s opening observation that:<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>THE SCIENCE FICTIONAL FOUNDATION UNDER PAUL KRUGMAN, PART ONE Paul Krugman, a few years ago, wrote at length to extol the\u00a0magnum opus\u00a0of science fiction grandmaster, Isaac Asimov, the\u00a0Foundation Trilogy. Prof. Krugman\u2019s reflections thereon are of keen interest. I met Asimov once, 40+ years ago, at a world science fiction convention. I even got him to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[614,4281],"class_list":["post-7248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-paul-krugman","tag-science-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7248"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7249,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7248\/revisions\/7249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}