[extropy-chat] DAY AFTER TOMORROW meets Asimov

[Damien Broderick]

>
> > Keep in mind that the spacers generally considered themselves distinctly
> > different from humans on Earth. They were thus of sufficient racial bias
> > to easily entertain genocide of alien species.
>
>But is that spelled out, or is that just a deduction?  It doesn't sound
>like anything I remember from Asimov.  I mean, unless he was writing some
>kind of social commentary, Asimov doesn't seem like the kind of author who
>would write about mass genocide.  Wouldn't his characters usually rather
>study alien life than wipe it out?

Indeed. The fact that Asimov's Foundation future was `human-only' is one of 
its most famous features; it was his way of evading editor John Campbell's 
insistence that humans were meaner and leaner and would lick any goldarned 
alien varmints and so on. Asimov was rather proud of this device, and 
mentions it repeatedly in articles and in his autobiographies. (One very 
early robot story has aliens, who abscond.)

For a protracted and rambling discussion, check out

http://www.asimovs.com/discus/messages/5/818.html?1084431341

for example:

<The idea the Galaxy was all-human was very central to the Foundation 
series, to suggest the AIs may have wiped out countless species is just not 
cricket. Especially as the series states the previous life forms of many 
worlds survived in preserves. Did these dudes even bother to read any of 
the books, sheesh. >