Tag Archives: Isaac Asimov

Was Trump The Mule? by Jim Quinn

If you’re acquainted with Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy, Trump is the Mule and Gates is Hari Seldon. From Jim Quinn at theburningplatform.com:

“Excellence, he is known as the Mule. He is spoken of little, in a factual sense, but I have gathered the scraps and fragments of knowledge and winnowed out the most probable of them. He is apparently a man of neither birth nor standing. His father, unknown. His mother, dead in childbirth. His upbringing, that of a vagabond. His education, that of the tramp worlds, and the backwash alleys of space. He has no name other than that of the Mule, a name reportedly applied by himself to himself, and signifying, by popular explanation, his immense physical strength, and stubbornness of purpose.” ― Isaac Asimov, Foundation and Empire

“The fall of Empire, gentlemen, is a massive thing, however, and not easily fought. It is dictated by a rising bureaucracy, a receding initiative, a freezing of caste, a damming of curiosity—a hundred other factors. It has been going on, as I have said, for centuries, and it is too majestic and massive a movement to stop.”Isaac Asimov, Foundation

In March 2017, a mere two months after the stunningly unexpected victory of Donald Trump over the Deep State hand picked representative of dark forces – Hillary Clinton, I wrote a three-part article based upon Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy, attempting to connect Trump’s elevation as the Gray Champion of this Fourth Turning to the plot of Asimov’s masterpiece. The three articles: Foundation – Fall of the American Galactic Empire; Foundation and Empire: Is Donald Trump the Mule?; and Second Foundation: Empire Crumbling, landed with a dud, generating few views and not many comments.

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He Said That? 10/26/18

From Isaac Asimov (1920–1992), American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University:

Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won’t come in

He Said That? 6/30/18

From Isaac Asimov (1920–1992), American writer and professor of biochemistry, Tales of the Black Widowers (1974):

The government doesn’t want any system of transmitting information to remain unbroken, unless it’s under its own control.

He Said That? 11/17/17

From Isaac Asimov (1920–1992), American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction and popular science:

Don’t you believe in flying saucers, they ask me? Don’t you believe in telepathy? — in ancient astronauts? — in the Bermuda triangle? — in life after death?
No, I reply. No, no, no, no, and again no.
One person recently, goaded into desperation by the litany of unrelieved negation, burst out “Don’t you believe in anything?”
Yes”, I said. “I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I’ll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.

Second Foundation: Empire Crumbling, by Jim Quinn

This is the third part of an article in which Jim Quinn compares Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy to Strauss and Howe’s Fourth Turning, with an emphasis on the fate of the American empire. Here is the link to Part One, and here is the link to Part Two.  From Quinn at theburningplatform.com:

In Part One of this article I analyzed the similarities of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy to Strauss & Howe’s Fourth Turning, trying to assess how Donald Trump’s ascension to power fits into the theories put forth by those authors. In Part Two of this article I compared and contrasted Donald Trump’s rise to power to the rise of The Mule in Asimov’s masterpiece. Unusually gifted individuals come along once in a lifetime to disrupt the plans of the existing social order. Despite the forlorn hope Donald Trump or some other savior can reverse our course, decades of missteps, dreadful decisions, ineffectual leadership, and unconcealed treachery have paved a path to destruction for the American Empire.

American Empire Crumbling

“Mr. Advocate, 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.” – Isaac Asimov, Foundation

“Now any dogma, based primarily on faith and emotionalism, is a dangerous weapon to use on others, since it is almost impossible to guarantee that the weapon will never be turned on the user.” – Isaac Asimov, Foundation

The elitist ruling class gathers at Davos and their secretive Bilderberg meetings to plot the course of the world, divvying up the vast wealth plundered through their globalization schemes, and developing the newest propaganda narrative to keep the global masses confused, distracted, and powerless to fight back. Despite their wealth and power, an epic level of hubris is always their undoing.

To continue reading: Second Foundation: Empire Crumbling

He Said That? 2/21/16

From Isaac Asimov (1920-1992), Russian born American biochemist, prolific author of both fiction and non-fiction, The Roving Mind (1983):

How often people speak of art and science as though they were two entirely different things, with no interconnection. An artist is emotional, they think, and uses only his intuition; he sees all at once and has no need of reason. A scientist is cold, they think, and uses only his reason; he argues carefully step by step, and needs no imagination. That is all wrong. The true artist is quite rational as well as imaginative and knows what he is doing; if he does not, his art suffers. The true scientist is quite imaginative as well as rational, and sometimes leaps to solutions where reason can follow only slowly; if he does not, his science suffers.

He Said That? 4/9/16

From Isaac Asimov (1920-1992), Russian born American biochemist and prolific author of both fiction and non-fiction, Foundation (1951):

The fall of Empire, gentlemen, is a massive thing, however, and not easily fought. It is dictated by a rising bureaucracy, a receding initiative, a freezing of caste, a damming of curiosity—a hundred other factors. It has been going on, as I have said, for centuries, and it is too majestic and massive a movement to stop.