⏳ #197 - Legacy Thinking
Planning for the distant future (or at least a future you may not see).
[…] the rotten tree-trunk, until the very moment when the storm-blast breaks it in two, has all the appearance of might it ever had. The storm-blast whistles through the branches of the Empire even now. Listen with the ears of psychohistory, and you will hear the creaking.
–Hari Seldon, Foundation
The story of the Foundation series hinges on a belief in the ability to predict the future behavior of large populations. Seldon’s Psychohistory is a plan stretching over millennia to try and avoid a long galactic dark age after (what he believes will be) the inevitable collapse of the Galactic Empire. Tim Brinkhof looks at mathematical sociology, the real world inspiration for Foundation.
What can stories about extremely long term thinking show us about how we approach present actions, or how characters we right can grapple with decisions that could have long-reaching consequences? Wendell Bell argues that future generations are stakeholders in present decisions1, and it is an ethical duty to all of humanity to act in their interest.
Howard Frumkin, Linda Fried, and Rick Moody study whether convincing older generations to think about their legacy will make them allies in pushing for action to combat climate change. Nathan Gardels points out ways in which putting narrow national interests ahead of climate change action creates foreign policy decisions work against meaningful steps to prevent or slow global warming. Tie this together with Bryan Johnson’s view of the lesson of Interstellar:
The message here for our present-day is powerful: We have to lay the groundwork now for the technologies that can’t be developed on a moment’s notice during crisis.
Even on the individual scale, projecting into the future offers significant challenges. Brendan Morrow’s list of George R.R. Martin’s predictions of when The Winds of Winter will be complete reveals the complex web of priorities and outside influences can divert a plan. Robert Christgau looks at the physical music collection he’s amassed over decades as a music critic and wonders what should happen to it after he dies.
Are your characters hatching some big plans? Have you drawn up an extensive plan for what you’re writing for the next five years? What happens when you try and extend the reach of cause and effect to impose your will over the future?
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In case you missed it, in last issue’s most clicked link Scott Yu-Jan designs an iPad stand that sits atop a Mac Studio and looks like a classic Macintosh.
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Chris Papasadero on the intelligence gathering concept of Atmospherics. A set of prompts that could be useful to writers when world-building and finding ways to show that work to the audience.
A discussion with Eric Roth about finding the emotional core of Dune, and how Duncan Idaho kept him from being a bigger fan of the books when first reading them.
It’s not just for Millennials: CBS Sunday Morning looks into why so many people leave closed captioning on.
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Post-Credits Scene
This links directly to a PDF of the paper.