Foundation’s Fear (Gregory Benford) читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги

Part 3. Body Politics

Foundation, early history-…first public intimations of psychohistory as a possible scientific discipline surfaced during the poorly documented early period of Seldon‘s political life. While the Emperor Cleon set great store in its possibilities, psychohistory was viewed by the political class as a mere abstraction, if not a joke. This may have resulted from maneuverings by Seldon himself, who never referred to the subject by the name he had given it. Even at this early stage, he seems to have realized that widespread knowledge of psychohistory and any movement founded upon it would enjoy little predictive success, since many would then be able to act to offset its predictions, or take advantage of them. Some have “condemned” Seldon as “selfish” for “hoarding” the psychohistorical method, but one must remember the extreme rapacity of political life in these waning years… …

—Encyclopedia Galactica