Seldon Crisis: Beyond Foundation

From Asimov to Planetary Intelligence

When I started Seldon Crisis five years ago, my goal was simple: to share Isaac Asimov’s Foundation with others who loved it—or might come to. What I didn’t anticipate was how closely its themes would begin to mirror our own moment, as conversations about AI, planetary crisis, and systemic collapse moved from science fiction into daily headlines. After a long pause, I’m rebooting the podcast to explore those connections more directly, and more openly, than before.Back at the beginning of the podcast, the format combined a summary of the story with audio dramatization and commentary, and I was delighted to find that there was a small but eager audience that grew over time. Eventually I had listeners all over the world, and I met an amazing number of new friends, many of whom became guests on the show.I also interspersed a few essays and other solo episodes covering topics I was interested in, from commentary on the Apple TV series based on the same novels, to fan fiction, to thoughts on the future of humanity and AI as it exploded onto the scene with LLMs like ChatGPT and its rivals.I’d always wanted to cover the full seven novels in the original format, but it became very difficult to find the time and energy to throw myself into it again. Various life events became obstacles to doing so.Now it’s been a couple of years since the last story episode and almost a year since I’ve published any kind of episode at all, and I find that I miss being behind the mic. I also haven’t stopped thinking about the future, and I’ve been inspired by many new ideas I’ve encountered over the past few years that I would love to write and talk about.I decided I no longer want the dread of tackling story episodes to stop me from continuing to podcast, so I’m rebooting it with a new focus. I’ve made a couple of changes.First, the show has been re-titled Seldon Crisis: Beyond Foundation, and the show description has become From Asimov to AI, an exploration of the range of possibilities for life and intelligence in the near and distant future. I feel that this will allow a little more freedom in what I want to talk about.Foundation was, at its core, a speculation upon a possible distant human future told as a far-ranging historical epic. Its main protagonist, Hari Seldon, foresaw a dark future for humanity from his perch at the center of a galactic empire which his science informed him was doomed to undergo a terrible collapse.This collapse would inevitably throw the future into a long period of dreadful chaos, entailing many thousands of years of human misery. The whole story is about how humans might avoid the worst scenario and find their way to something better.When we think about some of the crises and dark patterns in our current, rapidly changing world—from dysfunctional politics and massive income inequality to climate change and existential risks like global pandemics, and now the belief of many that AI is coming to kill us all (or at least make us all unemployed idiots)—doesn’t the premise of Foundation resonate?I’ve pointed out these parallels on the show more than once, and how we need to find our own Hari Seldon, or become him in some way. I think that this great story is a wonderful stepping stone to a long series of speculations on our very real current situation, the potential for collapse, and what we can do to forestall it.The other big change I’ve made is to port the web presence of the podcast to Substack. It has a lot of advantages in managing content before and after publication as podcast episodes. It’s built for writing and can become another way to share the audio content as written text, both for people who might have hearing difficulties and for those who simply prefer reading to listening.I’ve also been able to solve another chronic headache: how to categorize the episodes. I can now put them in their natural categories of story, guest, and solo commentary pieces, so someone who just wants to follow the story has one place to consume the content in order.If you’re looking for intriguing discussions related to the story, you can find all of the conversations. And if you’re only interested in essays and solo commentary, you can find those all in one place as well.Another thing I’ve considered is that some episodes might be best presented only in written format, such as in cases where there are many images being referenced and an audio format would be inappropriate. Substack allows me that flexibility.The last, and possibly biggest advantage, is the community-building aspect of Substack. I already subscribe to numerous newsletters myself, across a wide range of topics, and it’s helpful to have content of my own to share with this community.I feel certain that Seldon Crisis listeners will also benefit from having a site that includes direct links to many of the content producers who have inspired my thinking on the show.The podcast show notes format always feels a little like a lot of great content that almost nobody ever sees. Get used to hearing me ask you to subscribe to my Substack instead of just pointing you to the show notes.I’ll be keeping it all free for now, and I promise there will always be plenty of free content, even if I eventually start producing some paid subscriber-only material.To give a hint of what is to come, I’m planning an episode on the ideas of three prominent thought leaders who have inspired me lately.Sara Imari Walker is a theoretical physicist who has some radical new ideas on the origin of life with very far-reaching implications. The theory she is developing along with biochemist Lee Cronin is called Assembly Theory, and I can’t wait to introduce readers to it.You may remember me talking about a book and a lecture by astrobiologist David Grinspoon, Earth in Human Hands, that inspired me several years ago. The main idea is that humans have been inadvertently modifying this planet for thousands of years.He has a recent paper, co-authored by Sara Walker, discussing the idea of planetary intelligence—a much-needed re-imagining of the Gaia hypothesis, which viewed planet Earth as a self-regulating living being.Finally, Benjamin Bratton, a very tech-savvy philosopher and speculative theorist, has worked with Walker and Grinspoon on ideas about planetary computation that I find very exciting. Bratton might be the most mind-blowing of them all, and I have a lot of his ideas to share.I would also like to have more conversations, with new guests who inspire me and with some of those I’ve spoken with before on the podcast. These are some of the most gratifying episodes for me personally, and I miss these interactions.I want to thank everyone who has listened to Seldon Crisis in the past and is still interested in what I and some of my friends have to say. Thank you for having patience with me as I work on a format for the show that I can continue long into the future.Thanks for reading Seldon Crisis: Beyond Foundation! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.seldoncrisis.net

Holiday Sampler: Some Favorite Scenes

A little holiday sampler collecting some of my favorite scenes from the series so far including; Seldon maneuvering Ling Chen into granting him exile, a bit of Lord Dorwin, Hardin vs Wienis on Anacreon, Ponyets vs the Grand Master of Askone, Mallow with Commdor Asper on Korell, Ducem Barr and Bel Riose discussing great man theory, Sgt Luc's fatal charge, a meeting with Magnifico, tea time with Dagobert, and the unexpected death of a psychologist on Trantor. Happy Holiday!Transcript: Web (Read/Listen) | PDF | MS WordScript by Joel McKinnonVoices by Amanda Kreitler and Joel McKinnonTheme Orchestration by Tom BarnesSound Design by Jeremy MacKinnonArt by Mike Topping – despotica.comBased on the novels of Foundation by Isaac Asimov.Please listen to Amanda on these podcasts!Severed FateDimension DoorAlso, please visit the Seldon Crisis YouTube channel for the video trailer, intro promos, and video versions of the podcast episodes.Want to help me make these shows? Please consider becoming a patron! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.seldoncrisis.net

The Dead Hand and the Living Will

We go a little deeper on the theme of The General, the opposing forces of psychohistorical determinism vs the futile efforts of Bel Riose to exert his free will against it. Bringing this into our current universe, we talk about Thomas Carlisle's "Great Man" theory of history and some of the pushback against it. Your host then takes it into the personal realm with some reflections on a couple of modern candidates for "Great Man" status in reflecting on his past.Transcript: Web (Read/Listen) | PDF | MS WordGreat Man Theory of History (Wikipedia)‘The smartest person in any room anywhere’: in defence of Elon Musk, by Douglas Coupland (Guardian)The Ministry for the Future, Kim Stanley Robinson (Amazon)Kim Stanley Robinson: a climate plan for a world in flames (Financial Times)Why Go to Space? To Save Humanity … and Our Earth, by Wilson da Silva (Medium)The Mars Society (Website)Want to help me make these shows? Please consider becoming a patron! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.seldoncrisis.net

A Moment of Meta

Brief comments in the interval between episodes, thoughts on the intended audience, and an explanation for shift to a more relaxed episode cadence.Transcript: Web (Read/Listen) | PDF | MS WordWhile you wait for the conclusion to The General, please have a listen to my cosmic rock opera!Planet and Sky, a cosmic love story - the rock opera by The Max Wyvern Band (full album on Bandcamp)Planet and Sky, the deeper story - (musical audio-drama scifi exploration beyond the lyrics)Planet and Sky website This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.seldoncrisis.net

Season 1 Recap and Season 2 Preview

In this short episode we summarize the major characters and events of Season 1 covering the first novel, Foundation, in Isaac Asimov's seven novel epic, and tease a few of the major events to be covered in Season 2 corresponding to the novel Foundation and Empire. Also, a brief mention of the Apple TV+ upcoming TV series and a few callouts to the Foundation online community.Transcript: Web (Read/Listen) | PDF | MS WordIf you'd like to support the show, please become a patron!Show notes:Stars End Podcast (@StarsEndPodcast on Twitter)FoundationEra on Youtuber/asimov on Redditr/TheFoundation on RedditTranscript:[Theme music]Welcome back dear friends, and I regret to inform you that this is not the first episode of season 2, but a mere postscript to season 1 and a quick preview of upcoming attractions. In looking back I want to say how much this has been a blast to do and I am just thrilled that there are people out there who find it worthwhile to listen. You encourage me to do my best to continue the story. Our next season will feature some amazing characters and some truly mind-blowing plot twists, but I’ll get to that in a bit. First a quick recap of the story thus far.In our first episode, The Psychohistorians, young PhD student Gaal Dornick left his home planet of Synnax and traveled to the capital of the empire, Trantor. He discovered his boss, Hari Seldon, waiting for him in his hotel room and was told the empire was due to collapse imminently, then got arrested along with him and stood trial for disturbing the peace. Seldon tricked the High Commissioner Linge Chen into sending him, Dornick, and 100,000 of his followers to the edge of the galaxy to a lonely and primitive planet named Terminus, where they were to catalog all of the knowledge of the human race into a grand Encyclopedia Galactica (or so they thought).In The Encyclopedists, we saw the fledgling colony of Terminus face its first “Seldon crisis” when the belligerent nearby system of Anacreon broke away from the Empire and threatened the Foundation with imminent annexation. The clever young Mayor of Terminus City used the Foundation’s technological advantage – chiefly the understanding of nuclear power – to convince Anacreon’s powerful neighbors to join in an alliance against them. This was the first occasion in which Hari Seldon’s recorded image appeared in The Vault, the specially designed chamber in which he would periodically provide updates on the Seldon Plan. To the horror of Lewis Pirenne and his Board of Trustees Seldon informed them that the ostensible reason for their project, the creation of the Encyclopedia, was a fraud. Their real purpose was simply to take over the galaxy.A generation later, in The Mayors we found Hardin firmly in power and facing an even more serious threat from Anacreon in the person of the wicked regent Wienis who intended to use his nephew Lepold’s coronation to launch a powerful attack upon Terminus, but again Hardin had the political skills to rise to the occasion. He had turned the knowledge of sophisticated technology and especially of nuclear science to form a false religion, and with the help of Foundation High Priest Poly Verisof, turned the tables on Wienis and brought him to a humiliating and rather messy end.Later, we took a quick side trip with smooth-talking salesman Limmar Ponyets in The Traders on a high-stakes rescue mission to the Kingdom of Askone, where the ethically-challenged protagonist used sophisticated high tech extortion to free his comrade and get the superstitious Askonians hooked on Foundation gadgetry.Still later, in The Merchant Princes, Hober Mallow dueled on the home front with the powerful politician Jorrain Sutt and on the distant planet of Korell with the tired but still greedy Commdor Asper and his well-connected but difficult wife, the Commdora Licia. He used a similar technical trick to catch the spy Jaim Twer and his faux priest Jord Parma in an act designed to undermine Mallow’s authority through character assassination. A side trip to visit an old man named Onum Barr on the unfortunate planet of Siwenna may have appeared almost incidental, but will have significant implications in our next chapter. Don’t worry – I’ll bring you up to speed when we get there.After all that whirlwind activity and so many strange names you might wonder what you really need to remember going forward. To be honest, it’s not much, and I’ll try to help with that too. For now, just keep a space for Hari Seldon, Salvor Hardin, and Hober Mallow in your memory banks. They will be referred to frequently as the legendary founding fathers of Foundation and as we march through the ages to come.While we get ready to start into the next great chapter of this epic in Season 2, the novel Foundation and Empire, I want to bring up something else that I haven’t discussed much yet, and that is the new and ambitious TV series based on Foundation to begin streaming on AppleTV+ starting on September 24th of this year. Interviews with the showrunner indicate they intend an ambitious 80 episodes! A lot of commentary in the online community has sprung up around some significant departures from the original storyline evident in the pre-release trailers, including three generations of rulers on Trantor named Brothers Dawn, Day, and Dusk (no Cleons), and a much larger role for Gaal Dornick. The latter has been cast as a female person of color, as is Salvor Hardin, who also seems to be lugging around a large weapon quite out of character for the Hardin we’ve come to know and love. In my opinion, the gender swaps and greater diversity is welcome, while some of the changes in basic plot may be a bit harder to swallow. Then again, this is the year 2021, and if it wants to succeed in capturing the imagination of today’s audience it probably needs to make some significant changes to grab the attention span of a far different audience than the one that was introduced to the original stories. I’m rooting for it to succeed and I hope it draws even more people to read the source material, and maybe even listen to this podcast!There’s getting to be a lot of buzz about the show, and this is bringing a lot of Asimov fans out of the woodwork online. I’ve already mentioned the r/asimov subthread on Reddit and a couple of others are dedicated more directly to Foundation and the upcoming TV series and I’ll link to these in the show notes. Another great place to stay caught up is my friend Luigi at his Youtube channel Foundation Era. He’s put together a string of videos analyzing the tea leaves from the limited material Apple has produced, as well as one on the Asimov Future Timeline I mentioned in episode 6. Luigi was kind enough to give Seldon Crisis a plug on his most recent video, which resulted in an enormous spike in downloads for this podcast, so t... This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.seldoncrisis.net