read it as a child, so a long time ago, but didn't we all read it as a parable about Marxism & politics not science -- if you assume psychohistory is real math, i guess it does read silly but that's because the silly idea was meant to be Marxism, wasn't it?
didn't they kind of astrology like just assume Seldon's predictions were relevant ea. time "he" appeared? to the 20th c. reader i don't think they appeared to be?
i think i may have read something on the topic by Norman Spinrad when he wrote reviews/criticism in the 80s?
but everything SF (& even some fantasy) written in that era had an awareness of the Cold War conflict, when i was 7th or 8th grade a teacher pointed it out, and once you see as a late 20th c. person you can't unsee it
Born when Nixon got re-elected in a landslide, and even raised in red diapers, but that doesn't always guarantee I see what others see. :>
I also have tried three times to get through the whole series and never made it. I have finished many other SF epics, so clearly I just didn't get hooked into the story fully for whatever reason.
@jpaskaruk
Personally, I've never seen much merit for that. There's too much "American individualism, 1 smart boii vs societal doom - the myth" in it for me to take the Marxism idea seriously.
The series is what it presents itself as - the fall of what's thought of as an unbeatable empire and what comes next. You can throw on whatever empire fits your analytical ability best - Roman is the most obvious inspiration, but you can label it British or American and view it through those lenses too.
People get lost in the sauce of psychohistory itself, but I've always seen it as a metaphor for prevailing societal philosophy - be that religious, economical, ethical, or whatever else.
The interesting story is not whether psychohistory is correct or how it works. The interesting story is told around what people do when they assume "psychohistory" (prevailing philosophy) is correct, and what happens with people who don't subscribe to that "truth."
More explicitly - the story is the founding of a new empire under the vision of a singular truth. Is a singular truth good? What happens if this idea is false, or incomplete? Is there room to question this truth? Are people who don't believe in this new empire's philosophy even allowed to exist? If an idea leads to prosperity but requires dogmatic belief - is this good, or worthwhile?
"The interesting story is not whether psychohistory is correct or how it works. The interesting story is told around what people do when they assume "psychohistory" (prevailing philosophy) is correct, and what happens with people who don't subscribe to that "truth."
@jpaskaruk@peachfront@ergative@bookstodon Its conceit is "what if Marxist historical determinism were real", but it calls Marxism, "psychohistory". But it's like weather forecasting, not weather control, though, so there's no Marxist dogma for running things.
Determinism is so much fun to play with, even if there is really no way to determine whether determinism has any actual merits.
The recent series Devs is almost kind of a reboot/prequel almost - sort of, "what if psychohistory was developed as a routine on a really big and fast quantum computer?"
@peachfront@ergative@bookstodon media literacy is understanding that semi-mystical SF mechanics are meant to
a) represent something real
and/or
b) point to a personal/societal problem
or
c) move the plot along because the author is lazy (Star Wars) or because the author is uninterested in dealing with real life limitations like slower than light travel and at-maximum lightspeed communication
but I guess if the mechanic is personally atrocious on a surface level, that can make a book unreadable
Personally, I get stuck a lot more on old sci-fi that's pro eugenics and moral panics, like Dune.
I read Foundation as a teenager, found the psychohistory concept silly for exactly the reasons you stated, but liked what I didn't know yet to call "competence porn".
I've never re-read because yeah, Asimov has been thoroughly suck-fairy'd for sure.