The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #152703   Message #3572488
Posted By: Bill D
03-Nov-13 - 01:44 PM
Thread Name: BS: Shades of Hari Seldon
Subject: RE: BS: Shades of Hari Seldon
Discuss? Porn? Gee... it's obvious that, like the Polaroid camera, one of the first wide uses of the WWW was for porn. First to sell it, then to trade it, then to find ways to get it for free. Porn in its many aspects has been a staple since Pompeii and before.
As soon as early critics began to look for ways to ban and/or limit it, others were making sure there was NO way to do much about it. I'm sure Hari Seldon would have integrated THAT given into his equations. That was easy - the idea of predicting mass behavior of enormous populations is quite another thing.... like weather models, it's good for a few days, moderate for a few weeks.... and only vaguely useful for a few years.
We CAN do the math about many things like population growth & resources and show certain long-term patterns, but Seldon (as Asimov's surrogate) suggested the possibility of predicting human response to patterns... which is a nice Sci-Fi plot but almost laughable given the immense # of variables. One of humans' most defining characteristics is the ability to look at obvious facts and lie to themselves about them. (Heinlein's plot to have a big computer guide us rationally had a certain lure..but humans would always know where the power switch was)

So... I don't need Seldon to predict that porn will always be with us, in more teeny sub-categories than most of us can comprehend... but I dare him to tell us how the French will vote on immigration in 2255.