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Comments on Paul Krugman's Asimov Inspiration
Dr. Paul Krugman has an interesting connection with sf; his career choice was inspired by a well-known work by Isaac Asimov. (Read
the complete story)
| "I heard him say he did not know how many people watch science fiction; then he changed his mind and corrected it to say he did not know how many people read science fiction. Did I just have a hallucination?" ( 10/14/2008 7:19:46 PM) |
| "I think from now on whenever I see Krugman's picture in the paper the caption in my head is just going to be I AM HARI SELDON ... as in, 'The glass cubicle was no longer empty. A figure occupied it -- a figure in a wheelchair. It said, "I am Hari Seldon." The voice was old and soft. "It is fifty years now since this Foundation was established -- fifty years in which the members of the Foundation have been ignorant of what it was they were working toward. It is necessary that they be ignorant, but now the necessity is gone ..."'" (i am hari seldon 10/14/2008 10:25:38 PM) |
| "No, he said 'watch' first, and then changed it to read. I had to back up and then watch that part again. As far as I know, people don't read period anymore." (Bill Christensen 10/16/2008 4:02:23 PM) |
| "Btw, he's a terrible economist." ( 10/21/2008 6:43:38 PM) |
| "The Nobel Committee seems to disagree." (Bill Christensen 10/21/2008 7:29:01 PM) |
| "Nobel to Krugman = Heavy Metal Grammy to Jethro Tull.
Tull and Krugman are both great, in their specific niches. (And I happen to agree, btw, w/ a lot of what Krugman says when, as is typical, he's outspoken in an area he's not an expert in; but being the economics equivalent of a shock jock is not a good reason to win a Nobel and his own work, while very good, falls a bit short imho.)
Neither Krugman or Jethro Tull should have won, and both awarding organizations lost a bit of credibility with their picks." ( 11/18/2008 8:25:25 AM) |
| "I always look to random, unexplained, anonymous comments on the internet to tell me when the Nobel committee doesn't know what it's doing. From people who think 'terrible' is another word for 'very good.'" (myself 8/2/2009 5:03:31 AM) |
| "This guy is really creapy. Ever see him in person? " (Ron Miller 2/17/2011 10:35:32 AM) |
| "Asked to choose five books that he recommended for liberal economists, he had this to say about Asimov's Foundation series:
'This is a very unusual set of novels from Isaac Asimov, but a classic. It’s not about gadgets. Although it’s supposed to be about a galactic civilisation, the technology is virtually invisible. It’s not about space battles or anything like that. The story is about psycho-historians, who are mathematical social scientists and have a theory about how society works. The theory tells them that the galactic empire is failing, and they then use that knowledge to save civilisation. It’s a great image. I was probably 16 when I read it and I thought, “I want to be one of those guys!” Unfortunately we don’t have anything like that and economics is the closest I could get.
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