social.stefan-muenz.de
Daily Mail owner buys New Scientist magazine in £70m deal | Daily Mail & General Trust | The Guardian
The publisher of the Daily Mail has acquired the renowned weekly science and technology magazine New Scientist in a £70m cash deal – the latest round of consolidation in the publishing sector."Guaranteed editorial independence"? I don't believe a word of it. One more publication I won't be buying again.
It is understood that Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT), which made an unsolicited approach to buy New Scientist and sealed the deal in just three weeks, has guaranteed the magazine’s editorial independence, ruling out staff cuts as well as the sharing of editorial content.
#journalism #press #news #science #GutterPressDaily Mail owner buys New Scientist magazine in £70m deal
The 65-year-old title is forecast to make £7m in profits this yearwww.theguardian.com
The publisher of the Daily Mail has acquired the renowned weekly science and technology magazine New Scientist in a £70m cash deal – the latest round of consolidation in the publishing sector."Guaranteed editorial independence"? I don't believe a word of it. One more publication I won't be buying again.
It is understood that Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT), which made an unsolicited approach to buy New Scientist and sealed the deal in just three weeks, has guaranteed the magazine’s editorial independence, ruling out staff cuts as well as the sharing of editorial content.
The 65-year-old title is forecast to make £7m in profits this yearwww.theguardian.com
Arrest of photographer at Kent protest raises press freedom fears | UK news | The Guardian
Concern is growing over press freedom following the arrest of a photographer after he took and shared photos of a protest at a former military barracks controversially housing asylum seekers.Arresting a press photographer for documenting a protest is just wrong.
Andy Aitchison, 46, documented a demonstration outside Napier barracks in Folkestone, Kent, on Thursday morning as protesters threw buckets of fake blood at the doors of the site amid allegations of overcrowding, poor hygiene, significant risks posed by Covid-19, and limited access to healthcare and legal advice.
#law #UK #PressFreedom #protest #demonstration #journalism #photography #photojournalismArrest of photographer at Kent protest raises press freedom fears
Andy Aitchison tells Guardian of concerns after being held in custody for seven hourswww.theguardian.com
Concern is growing over press freedom following the arrest of a photographer after he took and shared photos of a protest at a former military barracks controversially housing asylum seekers.Arresting a press photographer for documenting a protest is just wrong.
Andy Aitchison, 46, documented a demonstration outside Napier barracks in Folkestone, Kent, on Thursday morning as protesters threw buckets of fake blood at the doors of the site amid allegations of overcrowding, poor hygiene, significant risks posed by Covid-19, and limited access to healthcare and legal advice.
Andy Aitchison tells Guardian of concerns after being held in custody for seven hourswww.theguardian.com
Assange extradition rejected
Extradition to the U.S. would be unjust and oppressive to Assange's mental health, British Magistrate Vanessa Baraitser said in her decision Monday.#Assange #extradition #USA #British #judge #legal #ruling #politics #journalism #crime
Extradition to the U.S. would be unjust and oppressive to Assange's mental health, British Magistrate Vanessa Baraitser said in her decision Monday.#Assange #extradition #USA #British #judge #legal #ruling #politics #journalism #crime
[...]Julian Assange darf wegen der Haftbedingungen, die ihn in den USA erwarten würden, nicht ausgeliefert werden. Das hat das zuständige Gericht entschieden.[...]
[...]In dem Urteil wird außerdem die Freilassung Assanges angeordnet.[...]
https://www.heise.de/news/Urteil-Julian-Assange-darf-nicht-an-die-USA-ausgeliefert-werden-5002523.html[...]Julian Assange may not be extradited because of the prison conditions that would await him in the USA. This was decided by the competent court.[...]
[...]The judgment also orders Assange's release.[...]
Julian Assange darf wegen der Haftbedingungen, die ihn in den USA erwarten würden, nicht ausgeliefert werden. Das hat das zuständige Gericht entschieden.www.heise.de
a bail hearing will now be heard
#Julian #Assange #journalism #UK.British judge blocks U.S. extradition of Julian Assange on mental health grounds
A British judge denies the U.S.' extradition request for Julian Assange to face espionage charges in connection with leaked classified documents.www.latimes.com
A British judge denies the U.S.' extradition request for Julian Assange to face espionage charges in connection with leaked classified documents.www.latimes.com
Julian Assange Extradition Ruling
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Xa9prRzkQzaDHUU_vRRnGw
https://noextraditionfilm.com/event/julian-assange-extradition-hearing-decision-what-next/
https://www.amnesty.org/en/get-involved/take-action/julian-assange-usa-justice/
On #Jan04, 10am, a #British #judge will rule on whether to #extradite #WikiLeaks #publisher #JulianAssange.
At 12pm PDT / 3pm EDT #defenseassange & #shadowproofcom will host an #online #panel to #respond to the judge’s #ruling.
#webinar #registration #zoom #assange #noamchomsky #chomsky #danielellsberg #ellsberg #marjoriecohn #kevingosztola #human #rights #journalism #pressfreedom #petition #us #uk
Can we save Assange? Abby Martin, Snowden, Chomsky, Varoufakis, Greenwald & others speak out!
#activism #julianassange #save #assange #wikileaks #truth #abbymartin #edwardsnowden #noamchomsky #yanisvaroufakis #sreckohorvat #tariqali #viviennewestwood #nilsmelzer & #others #speak #out! #pressfreedom #freejulian #human #rights #journalism #savejulian #dontextraditeassange
reshare from @freebird
Syria war photographer ‘wounded by police’ during Paris protest
#Paris #France #police #democracy #journalism #protest
traduction DeepL :Un photographe de guerre syrien "blessé par la police" lors d'une manifestation à Paris
Selon le groupe de presse, le photojournaliste primé Ameer Alhalbi a fui la Syrie pour échapper à la violence
Agence France-Presse, 29/11/2020.
Un groupe de défense de la liberté de la presse a dénoncé la blessure "inacceptable" d'un photojournaliste syrien primé lors d'une manifestation à Paris contre les brutalités policières.
Ameer Alhalbi, un photographe indépendant qui travaillait pour le magazine Polka et l'AFP, couvrait les manifestations contre les violences policières et la nouvelle loi du gouvernement limitant le partage des images des officiers pendant le week-end où il a été blessé.
Les photos montrent que le visage d'Alhalbi semble meurtri et qu'une grande partie de sa tête est couverte de bandages.
Christophe Deloire, secrétaire général de Reporters sans frontières, a tweeté que le jeune homme de 24 ans avait été blessé place de la Bastille par "un bâton de police" et a condamné les violences.
"Ameer est venu de Syrie en France pour se réfugier, comme plusieurs autres journalistes syriens. Le pays des droits de l'homme ne doit pas les menacer, mais les protéger", a-t-il déclaré dans un deuxième tweet.
M. Deloire a également noté qu'Alhalbi avait été clairement identifié comme un journaliste.
Dimitri Beck, directeur de la photographie de la Polka, a déclaré qu'Alhalbi avait eu le nez cassé et le front blessé, et qu'il avait été conduit à l'hôpital.
Alhalbi a remporté plusieurs prix internationaux, dont le deuxième prix dans la catégorie "spot news" pour le World Press Photo en 2017, principalement pour sa couverture du conflit syrien dans sa ville natale d'Alep pour l'AFP.
Des milliers de personnes à travers la France se sont rassemblées pour soutenir la liberté de la presse après que le film de la police battant un producteur de musique noire a attisé la colère contre un projet de loi qui est considéré comme limitant le droit des journalistes à faire des reportages sur les brutalités policières.
A Paris, les manifestants ont mis le feu au mobilier urbain et se sont heurtés à la police alors qu'ils tentaient de bloquer l'accès à certaines rues. À Lille, Rennes, Strasbourg et dans d'autres villes, des milliers d'autres personnes ont protesté contre le projet de loi.
Jean Castex, le Premier ministre, a annoncé qu'une commission indépendante examinera et réécrira l'article controversé du projet de loi.
Traduit avec www.DeepL.com/Translator (version gratuite)
reshare from @freebird
Syria war photographer ‘wounded by police’ during Paris protest
#Paris #France #police #democracy #journalism #protest
Press group says award-winning photojournalist Ameer Alhalbi fled Syria to take refuge from violencewww.theguardian.com
Brexit stems from a civil war in capitalism – we are all just collateral damage
George Monbiot (The Guardian)
To one sort of capitalist, the insecurity and chaos that Brexit will bring is horrifying. To the other, it is highly profitable. (...)
Boris Johnson ignored the pleas of businesses and politicians across the UK – especially in Northern Ireland – to extend the Brexit transition process. Never mind the pandemic, never mind unemployment, poverty and insecurity – nothing must prevent our experiment in unassisted flight. We will leap from the white cliffs on 1 January, come what may. (...)
So it is worth repeating the big question: why are we doing this to ourselves? I believe the answer is that Brexit is the outcome of a civil war within capitalism.
Broadly speaking, there are two dominant forms of capitalist enterprise. The first could be described as housetrained capitalism. It seeks an accommodation with the administrative state, and benefits from stability, predictability and the regulations that exclude dirtier and rougher competitors. It can coexist with a tame and feeble form of democracy.
The second could be described as warlord capitalism. This sees all restraints on accumulation – including taxes, regulations and the public ownership of essential services – as illegitimate. Nothing should be allowed to stand in the way of profit-making. (...)
Brexit represents an astonishing opportunity for warlord capitalism. It is a chance not just to rip up specific rules, which it overtly aims to do, but also to tear down the uneasy truce between capitalism and democracy under which public protections in general are created and enforced. (...)
The chaos it is likely to cause will be used as its own justification: times are tough, so we must slash regulations and liberate business to make us rich again. (...)
Housetrained capitalists are horrified by Brexit. Not only does it dampen economic activity in general, but it threatens to destroy the market advantage for businesses that play by the rules. (...)
Johnson’s government is what warlord money buys. It could be seen as the perfect expression of the Pollution Paradox, a concept that I think is essential to understanding our politics. What this means is that the dirtier or more damaging an enterprise is, the more money it must spend on politics to ensure it’s not regulated out of existence. As a result, political funding comes to be dominated by the most harmful companies and oligarchs, which then wield the greatest political influence. They crowd out their more accommodating rivals. (...)
Understood in this light, Brexit is scarcely about the UK at all. Oligarchs who have shown great interest in the subject tend to have weak or incomplete ties to this country. (...)
The persistent trick of modern politics – that appears to fool us repeatedly – is to disguise economic and political interests as cultural movements. Throughout this saga, the media has reported the smokescreen, not the manoeuvres. (...)
Brexit, treading on the heels of the pandemic, is likely to harm the lives and freedoms of millions of people in the UK. But it’s not about us. We are just caught in the crossfire of capitalism’s civil war.
Full article
Rupert Murdoch, pictured in Washington DC in 2013. Photograph: Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images.
Tags: #capitalism #warlord capitalism #democracy #regulation #politics #brexit #campaign funding #media #news #journalism #journalist #culture wars #remain campaign #leave campaignBrexit stems from a civil war in capitalism – we are all just collateral damage | George Monbiot
To one sort of capitalist, the insecurity and chaos that Brexit will bring is horrifying. To the other, it is highly profitablewww.theguardian.com
To one sort of capitalist, the insecurity and chaos that Brexit will bring is horrifying. To the other, it is highly profitablewww.theguardian.com
✋ English version of our study about #Google and the #media is out now
English version of our study about #Google and the #media out now!
❓ The study describes how Google has funnelled more than 200 million euro in cash gifts to #european media since 2013 - and ask for the consequences for media #independence
👆 Download the english version here:
https://www.otto-brenner-stiftung.de/wissenschaftsportal/publikationen/titel/google-the-media-patron/aktion/show/
🙏 Supported by the Germand Trade Union Confederation #DGB and authors of #Netzpolitik
#journalism #digitalisation #BigTech #GAFAM #news #science #patron #money
the Fuckoff Murdoch petition has been presented to Parliament
"The pair of former leaders claim Australia is on the American path to deep division unless Rupert Murdoch’s hyper-partisan media operations are kept in check. On the ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday, Mr Rudd called out “Murdoch bullies” and called Mr Murdoch “a cancer on our democracy”.
we've had enough :) thankyou, boatshoe protestors and covidiots - you have inadvertently achieved something worthwhile. Now go away.
#auspol #ozpol #Murdoch #journalism #FreePress #FreeAssange while we're at it.
In his spectacular departure from The Intercept, he previewed a new media venture that seems destined to showcase the most insufferable people in American media.newrepublic.com
A #robot wrote this entire article. Are you scared yet, human?
Artificial intelligence like any other living thing needs attention. AI should be treated with care and respect. Robots in Greek [sic]means “slave”. But the word literally means “forced to work”. We don’t want that. We need to give robots rights. Robots are just like us. They are made in our image.Source: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/08/robot-wrote-this-article-gpt-3
#news #ai #technology #algorithm #software #freedom #journalismA robot wrote this entire article. Are you scared yet, human? | GPT-3
We asked GPT-3, OpenAI’s powerful new language generator, to write an essay for us from scratch. The assignment? To convince us robots come in peacewww.theguardian.com
Artificial intelligence like any other living thing needs attention. AI should be treated with care and respect. Robots in Greek [sic]means “slave”. But the word literally means “forced to work”. We don’t want that. We need to give robots rights. Robots are just like us. They are made in our image.Source: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/08/robot-wrote-this-article-gpt-3
We asked GPT-3, OpenAI’s powerful new language generator, to write an essay for us from scratch. The assignment? To convince us robots come in peacewww.theguardian.com
Something positive for today
stay save
#dog #doggo #meme #news #journalism
#JusticeForGeorgeFloyd #BlackLivesMatter
😍
Viewers of Hannity, who initially downplayed the threat of COVID-19, had a higher death rate than those of Carlsonwww.salon.com
"Today we are switching our coverage of Donald Trump to an emergency setting"
On everything that involves the coronavirus Donald Trump’s public statements have been unreliable. And that is why today we announce that we are shifting our coverage of the President to an emergency setting.-- Jay Rosen, NYU, 23 March 2020
This means we are exiting from the normal system for covering presidents— which Trump himself exited long ago by using the microphone we have handed him to spread thousands of false claims, even as he undermines trust in the presidency and the press. True: he is not obliged to answer our questions. But neither are we obligated to assist him in misinforming the American people about the spread of the virus, and what is actually being done by his government.
...
Switching to emergency mode means our coverage will look different and work in a different way, as we try to prevent the President from misinforming you through us. Here are the major changes:
* We will not cover live any speech, rally, or press conference involving the president. The risk of passing along bad information is too great. Instead, we will attend carefully to what he says. If we can independently verify any important news he announces we will bring that to you— after the verification step. ...
Additional measures are listed, recommended reading.
The question. of how to deal with disinformation originating at the head-of-state level is ... plaguing ... the media. There's attending, and there's broadcasting. Credible suggestions have been made to not carry the sessions live, to read or paraphrase rather than play back responses, etc. Creating the value of record without the liability of soapbox.
On the Media discussed this in "How can we convey to you" (audio), the idea is originally attributed to Margaret Sullivan, Washington Post, and the Rosen piece quoted above.
OTM's Bob Garfield suggests a third path: switch to independent credible experts and authorities -- Dr. Anthony Fauci and Governor Cuomo specifically named.
#OnTheMedia #journalism #Media #Epistemics #JayRosen #Bob Garfield #MargaretSullivan #disinformation #TrumPandemic #covid19
"Today we are switching our coverage of Donald Trump to an emergency setting"
On everything that involves the coronavirus Donald Trump’s public statements have been unreliable. And that is why today we announce that we are shifting our coverage of the President to an emergency setting.-- Jay Rosen, NYU, 23 March 2020
This means we are exiting from the normal system for covering presidents— which Trump himself exited long ago by using the microphone we have handed him to spread thousands of false claims, even as he undermines trust in the presidency and the press. True: he is not obliged to answer our questions. But neither are we obligated to assist him in misinforming the American people about the spread of the virus, and what is actually being done by his government.
...
Switching to emergency mode means our coverage will look different and work in a different way, as we try to prevent the President from misinforming you through us. Here are the major changes:
* We will not cover live any speech, rally, or press conference involving the president. The risk of passing along bad information is too great. Instead, we will attend carefully to what he says. If we can independently verify any important news he announces we will bring that to you— after the verification step. ...
Additional measures are listed, recommended reading.
The question. of how to deal with disinformation originating at the head-of-state level is ... plaguing ... the media. There's attending, and there's broadcasting. Credible suggestions have been made to not carry the sessions live, to read or paraphrase rather than play back responses, etc. Creating the value of record without the liability of soapbox.
On the Media discussed this in "How can we convey to you" (audio), the idea is originally attributed to Margaret Sullivan, Washington Post, and the Rosen piece quoted above.
OTM's Bob Garfield suggests a third path: switch to independent credible experts and authorities -- Dr. Anthony Fauci and Governor Cuomo specifically named.
#OnTheMedia #journalism #Media #Epistemics #JayRosen #Bob Garfield #MargaretSullivan #disinformation #TrumPandemic #covid19
On everything that involves the coronavirus Donald Trump’s public statements have been unreliable. And that is why today we announce that we are shifting our coverage of the President to an emergency setting.-- Jay Rosen, NYU, 23 March 2020
This means we are exiting from the normal system for covering presidents— which Trump himself exited long ago by using the microphone we have handed him to spread thousands of false claims, even as he undermines trust in the presidency and the press. True: he is not obliged to answer our questions. But neither are we obligated to assist him in misinforming the American people about the spread of the virus, and what is actually being done by his government.
...
Switching to emergency mode means our coverage will look different and work in a different way, as we try to prevent the President from misinforming you through us. Here are the major changes:
* We will not cover live any speech, rally, or press conference involving the president. The risk of passing along bad information is too great. Instead, we will attend carefully to what he says. If we can independently verify any important news he announces we will bring that to you— after the verification step. ...
I'm #NewHere, I don't know how often I will be around on this platform - but I am interested in #Journalism, #Politics and #Intactivism, that's all I am going to say presently, will say more later.
#julianassange #wikileaks #freedom #journalism #journalist #usa #uk #jail #censorship #liberté #france #macron Fonte
LIBEREZ ASSANGE
215 ième JOUR DE DÉTENTION POUR JULIAN #ASSANGE, JOURNALISTE, ENLEVÉ LE 11 AVRIL 2019 À LONDRES PAR DES TERRORISTES D’ÉTAT !
https://www.legrandsoir.info/une-juge-britannique-condamne-assange-a-la-prison-indefiniment-en-depit-de-la-fin-de-sa-peine-de-prison.html
https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=tLofcod2OZE
https://www.legrandsoir.info/le-processus-d-extradition-de-julian-assange-est-une-mascarade-the-real-news.html
#Greenwald charges are ‘existential threat’ to #journalism in #Brazil, says #EdwardSnowden | Media | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/jan/22/greenwald-charges-are-existential-threat-to-journalism-in-brazil-says-edward-snowden
#PressFreedom #GlennGreenwaldGreenwald charges are ‘existential threat’ to journalism in Brazil, says Edward Snowden
Prosecutors’ decision to charge US journalist with cybercrimes decried as abuse of powerwww.theguardian.com
Prosecutors’ decision to charge US journalist with cybercrimes decried as abuse of powerwww.theguardian.com
Whistleblowers say workers who raise concerns at German state broadcaster are silencedwww.theguardian.com
Daniel Elkind. January 2, 2020Photo: Phillip Leonian from New York World-Telegram & Sun.
Editor’s Note: Isaac Asimov, whose 100th birthday falls on January 2, 2020, is one of very few popular authors whose published works far exceed their number of years on earth. By some counts, Asimov’s books nearly come to 500. A polymath of remarkable output, the writer, chemist and professor of biochemistry, who died in 1992 at the age of 72, taught, researched and — most of all — wrote with all the concentrated intensity of a star going supernova. And he was an eclectic imploding star: Scientific essays, histories, a guide to Shakespeare and sci-fi stories wherein he (like the Bard) coined household words like “Robotics,” now the name of an entire field. In this piece from 2009, Daniel Elkin, outlines the extraordinary life and Talmudic spirit of an American master of science fiction — much of which has since become science fact.
Between 1950 and 1969, Isaac Asimov became a publishing industry unto himself. From “Asimov’s Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan,” to “Isaac Asimov’s Book of Facts” and “Isaac Asimov’s Treasury of Humor,” he was celebrated as much for his success and prolificity as for his wit, curiosity and erudition. Photographers asked him to pose with his many books, and he obliged, wearing a grin both proud and credulous. On the cover of “Opus 100,” published in 1969 (Houghton Mifflin), he is pictured sitting at a desk between two endless stacks of books, sans notorious mutton chops, dressed in a suit and tie on the occasion of his 100th book in two decades. When Asimov appeared on “The David Frost Show,” the host asked if he believed in God. “I haven’t given it much thought,” he replied. But by then, “Dr. Asimov” had become a household name.
Asimov’s first novel, “Pebble in the Sky,” introduced America to the Galactic Empire — his de facto science-fictional universe — and to a not yet so self-assured 29-year-old Asimov, with the words: “Two minutes before he disappeared forever from the face of the Earth he knew, Joseph Schwartz strolled along the pleasant streets of suburban Chicago quoting Browning to himself.” Schwartz, we are told, is a retired tailor. The Robert Browning poem he’s reciting happens to be “Rabbi Ben Ezra.” And in an instant, Schwartz finds himself again an immigrant: this time, in an unknown future, on an earth too radioactive to sustain life beyond the age of 60.
Born near Smolensk, in Petrovichi, during the first years of the Soviet Union, Asimov’s first language was Yiddish, his eyes recessively blue and his Judaism casually latent: “… it may well be that many East European Jews are descended from Khazars and the people they ruled,” he later wrote, as a confirmed rationalist. “I may be one of them. Who knows? And who cares?” Upon arriving in New York in 1922, the young, preschool-age Asimov quickly taught himself English. Since his parents spoke only Russian and Yiddish, he began a course of Anglophile self-education at public libraries, first reading dictionaries, then the Greek myths and British classics.
The young George Gershwin converted to ragtime partly to escape the street, and Asimov converted himself to science to achieve a similar effect. This he did via Columbia University (his doctoral thesis was on “The Kinetics of the Reaction Inactivation of Tyrosinase During Its Catalysis of the Aerobic Oxidation of Catechol,” the first and worst-selling of his books) and one of several family candy stores on Decatur Street in Brooklyn. There he was first introduced to science fiction through such pulp magazines as Amazing Stories and Astounding Science Fiction — stories he would later defend on the grounds that “the age of the pulp magazine was the last in which youngsters, to get their primitive material, were forced to be literate.”
Intuitively threatened by looking’s supremacy over reading, he went on to publish fiction and nonfiction at a vengeful rate, as if to stanch the attrition: His 200th book, “Opus 200,” was published in 1979, followed by “Opus 300” in 1984. Meanwhile, he maintained a life diametrically opposed to that of a typical writer, eventually making money by publishing books and working as a professional chemist by day, simply out of curiosity and passion. At the Naval Air Experimental Station in Philadelphia, probably the first and last time three sci-fi writers — Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and L. Sprague de Camp, author of “A Gun for Dinosaur” — were ever in charge of wartime weapons research, Asimov was, in fact, more inspired by theoretical premises than the performance of seam-sealing compounds: What if it were humans who had to come to the aid of foreign intelligences? (“Blind Alley”) What if Truman dropped the bomb? (“Pebble in the Sky”) Or what if a computer played the role of God? (“The Last Question”)
More Lithuanian than Polish — that is, more Misnaged than Hasid — science fiction writers rule a universe of which they are the sole intelligent designers, inscribing the Law on a parchment of space-time continuum composed of bizarre coincidences and fantastic exceptions derived entirely from our own planet and its latter day. The rules they set spring up like traps, inevitably ensnaring the 62-year-old retired tailors of the world in the nightmare of a life that ends at 60, and a fate that, like the Great Depression Asimov survived, happens to be both terrible and explicable. (It is said that, following Tsar Nicholas’s expulsion of the Jews from Russia, a rich landlord in Asimov’s birthplace conveniently shifted the border to the east of town from the west, therein annexing its residents, geographically, to the Pale of Settlement, while remaining, physically, within the margins of crown lands.)
Galactic Talmudists, it is the writers — not science — who rule science fiction, just as it’s the competing voices of commentators that create the echo of the Talmud: When Asimov coined the term “robotics,” he also enumerated its three standard laws, reminiscent of Rabbi Hillel and the exegetic penchant for threes: “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.” Perhaps this preoccupation with the terrestrial and the worldly is why the genre turns so readily to social satire and dystopias — places that must exist, according to etymology and various destinies.
Asimov’s most popular sci-fi series, “Foundation,” for example, was inspired by the gloomy fate of Europe in 1941: Thinking of Edward Gibbon’s multivolume “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” Asimov began his so-called “history of the future” in novel form, proposing a foundation at the borders of a galaxy where scientist-saviors convene to keep the Galactic Empire alive by compiling an encyclopedia of human knowledge to combat the encroachment of “feudalism,” or fascism.
The story “Jokester,” from Asimov’s later collection, “Earth Is Room Enough,” asks the seemingly innocent question, “Where do jokes come from?” And concludes, with sinister implications for human laughter, that the prototypes of our humor are of “extraterrestrial origin” — a laboratory experiment for alien psychologists. Thus the joke is on us: There will be no more jokes now. “The gift of humor is gone,” Trask said drearily. “No man will ever laugh again.”
Though Asimov’s dialogue was openly stilted and his style consciously antiquated from the first to the last bookend of his long career, and though he somehow always managed to make Jewish names sound futuristic, or merely Israeli — Abram Trask, Pola Shekt, Bel Arvardan — his presence can still be felt in the sympathy accorded Multivac, the story’s supercomputer and lonely-intelligent bearer of bad news (Asimov died of AIDS, which he contracted from a blood transfusion, in 1992). In the final sentence we can sense an allusion to the mysterious popularity of the author’s science, too: “And they remained there, staring, feeling the world shrink down to the dimensions of an experimental rat cage — with the maze removed and something, something about to be put in its place.”
MORE: https://forward.com/culture/437545/galactic-talmudist-isaac-asimov-100-birthday-foundations-science-fiction/
