Foundation: Are We Predictable?

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Күн бұрын

In which Jeff Goldblum, lemmings, and a pixelated photo of Obama help me uncover the mathematical reality of Isaac Asimov’s psychohistory.
In his Foundation book series, Asimov invented psychohistory, a scientific description of history that can predict the future. This video asks whether such a thing is possible. Join me on a tour of all things prediction: mathematical modelling, chaos theory, cliodynamics, machine learning, and how prediction and media interact.
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0:00 Intro
3:37 Part I: Foundation’s Foundations
12:33 Part II: The World in Numbers
19:45 Part III: The Lemming Effect
29:19 Part IV: Megahistory
42:42 Part V: We, Robots
52:05 Part VI: Prediction in Fiction
1:01:40 Credits
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SOURCES
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FOOTAGE
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Пікірлер: 1 000

@dashiellgillingham4579 2 жыл бұрын

I learned to think of things like Asimov’s “Psychohistory” as “Emergent Behavior,” wherein any sufficiently large system of interactions, examined on an appropriate scale, behaves like a single organism, or machine. A perfect example I can personally attest to as a hotel worker is that people who desire soap tend to chose to ask for soap within fifteen minutes of each other, at a random time without any direct communication between the people who want soap.

@kyay10 11 ай бұрын

Could be interesting to know if there's a pattern to guests checking in (i.e. you can only check in after 12). Also, humans have dumb patterns like that in that they are more likely to begin doing a task at a time ending in 5 or 0 just because it feels more "right", and so it might simply be that, on average, going to the desk to ask for soap takes a constant-ish amount of time, and people are likely to only do it at a time ending in 5 or 0, and so they end up appearing at evenly-spaced times

@xBINARYGODx 11 ай бұрын

@@kyay10 this - things in a hotel are not actually random - not even close. While you cannot literally predict the future (someone might run in an shit on your experiment of balls rolling and ruin the results, perhaps) , you can make some safe assumptions and the hotel industry is as big as it is beceause it can mostly count on these assumptions (including soap, because that has a cost when multiplied out across a chain or the entire industry). Also, the person we are replying to is almost certainly leaning on a healthy dose of selection bias.

@aaronhpa 11 ай бұрын

well, people tend to shower at the same time.

@veramae4098 11 ай бұрын

Seldon (Asimov) stated that as a minimum, psychohistory needed a galaxy full of people to work. Robert Heinlein tended to write his stories within a related history. Campbell, editor of Analog magazine, was the first to get a copy of Heinlein's outline and published it calling it a "Future History". Example: Heinlein wrote a short novel titled "The Man who Sold the Moon"; everyone knows about Elon Musk now. It's odd, but seeing his stories as metaphors, they stand up. Near the end (of his story outline) there's a pandemic. Followed some years later by "the first human civilization". If anything like that is going to happen, yes, our current faux civilizations would have to go.

@Youtube_is_Trash 10 ай бұрын

An other easy one, next time at the grocery, take a few minutes to check the check out lines. It's always waves, as if everyone suddenly dropped their shopping to check out NOW.

@markusbarten455 10 ай бұрын

The interesting thing is that with all of the rules Asimov created, he also explored the flaws and loopholes in them in his later work. In the case of psychohistory that it can't predict exceptional individuals doing something new and disruptive, or technological breakthroughs or sufficiently alien forms of intelligence.

@migovas1483 7 ай бұрын

that's the beauty of it, he is not putting things not the pedestal or taking them for granted, it shows how they this systems too can fail and succumb our natural tendency.. on the real world...to screw up things.. 😅..

@riftvallance2087 6 ай бұрын

Phychohistory didn't predict anything though, it was all a lie to hide the activities of the second foundation. A secret order of telepaths shaping events behind the scenes.

@riftvallance2087 4 ай бұрын

But psychohistory was a giant lie in the first place. The second foundation used it as a cover for thier psychic manipulation of individuals to guide events. They were not predicting future events they were causing them to happen

@riftvallance2087 4 ай бұрын

Why on earth do my comments keep getting deleted

@alexxx4434 4 ай бұрын

Which kind of destroys any idea of detailed long term predictions because of these unforseen factors. Hence why we have to zoom out even more, and observe at a larger scale with larger trends. In histoical materialism, there is a notion that for a substantial change in the course of history (i.e. the revolution) there are two main factors: objective and subjective. 'Objective' being the material conditions that develop by its inherent and predictable laws, and 'subjective' being the human factor, which is the unpredictable part. Anyway, in the end, the only thing we can confidently say is "Life, eh... finds a way."

@MichChats 2 жыл бұрын

After 3 hours of starring at the screen I can safely say the butterfly in the thumbnail is not the purple emperor. Prediction: Oliver ran out of ideas so he is generating comment interaction to pick some obscure suggestion and make an entire video essay about it in 37 hours. Either that or he'll open with 'Does anyone remember Ashton Kutcher from the 2004 movie butterfly effect?' and role from there. In reality I've no idea what to predict, the only consistancy in the previous essays is that two of them are based on Immortal Engines.

@MichChats 2 жыл бұрын

After actually looking for the butterfly in the pic, it looks like a monarch but it's not that, so maybe something about monarchies or Pierre Joseph Michel Lorquin or maybe it's migration patterns or methamorphosis or something completely unrelated. Guess we will know in 36 hours.

@Coincidence_Theorist 10 ай бұрын

4:00. Asimov. A-sim-ov

@Coincidence_Theorist 10 ай бұрын

52:38 Seshat Se-Shat Ses-Hat Ses-CAP. CAP-it-ALL. AWL LIES. /----////- Fyi Y 37. EL TheEL.

@Coincidence_Theorist 10 ай бұрын

Chiron Last -------• - Ether - Golden Web Vol 1-3 - House of EL - Occult Christmas (So so much more than the title confines the lands minds into believing prior to visual in reading like royalty…)¿7)(6😢😢 - 88 Keys

@Coincidence_Theorist 10 ай бұрын

#ChironLast #DavidLapoint #PrimerFields

@cyphermasq7870 2 жыл бұрын

As someone with a Master's in history and a few thoughts on the matter, one of the first conclusions I came to is that there are not "laws" of history because the dynamics and mechanisms upon which different epochs function can be so dramatically different that foundational assumptions upon which we moderns think all power or change hinges upon, can simply evaporate into something new. There are patterns and rhythms certainly, but nothing that can be broken down into mathematics so simply and suredly. At least in the long durea

@rmsgrey Жыл бұрын

It's a general truth that, on a long enough timescale, any predictive model will fail - either because the system it's predicting is chaotic enough to impose a clear horizon (as in weather forecasting) or because events outside the scope of the model become increasingly relevant - any attempt at climate prediction will fail if a significant asteroid impact happens.

@relight6931 9 ай бұрын

"It doesn't repeat but it rhymes.."

@huberthumphry280 9 ай бұрын

I'm guessing you have not read Foundation, the mathematics were not based on history but rather sociology. one issue with the analysis here is timescale but in reverse- this fictional world is literally tens of thousands of years in the future, of uninterrupted scientific discovery (timescale- robot short stories approx a couple hundred years AP and in solar system, R Daneel Ovila novels approx 500+ years AP, Galactic Empire novels approx 1000+ years AP and Foundation series many millenia AP -- can we even conceive of notions of scientific mathematics that far into the future, again emphasizing that the development was uninterrupted from today's discoveries)

@nickandres7829 8 ай бұрын

That's my issue. Psychohistory not only predicts how large populations will react to stimuli, but it also predicts how large populations will cause stimuli that other large populations will respond to, and even specifically what they are and when they will occur. Psychohistory is Classical Mechanics in a world that never went Quantum.

@SorbetCitron17 7 ай бұрын

Jung said he felt ww1 and 2 in his patients dreams. I ve got schizo affectivity and I m uber anxious about everything but darn do I feel, that I might just doom the planet to Yeats' second coming with just one conversation. I can't watch the news or go out without seeing us sliding toward our collective doom. I never know if my silence, voicelessness is better than me trying to make noise. Intellectually, I know I m biased. It's hard watching covid, ukraine and the middle east right now while feeling I somehow failed an exam in some kind of simulation. No maths, just doom scrolling. Going out is even worse than doom scrolling.

@JakubWaniek 2 жыл бұрын

As a fellow maths masters student myself, this is exactly the kind of video essay content I've been dying to find on this platform. It's not *about* maths itself, strictly speaking, but the argument is distinctly mathematical. It's also refreshing to hear jokes about maths that actually come from a place of understanding about what the subject is actually like after secondary school. Came for the category theory jokes, stayed for the essays.

@indylockheart3082 2 жыл бұрын

Man I've sure you've heard this before but damn it ill say it again. You should be way bigger based on the quality of your content alone. Keep trudging on and im sure you'll get the recognition you deserve. Just don't forget about those of us who knew it before it was cool😁

@JH-ji6cj 10 ай бұрын

"Like a microscopic mosh pit" as a descriptor....love this guy's humor and overall style.

@notinthemoodfornames8033 3 ай бұрын

well, it's highly researched perhaps but the topic is too niche for the channel to be considerably popular. Speaking from 2 years later but it's kinda expectable...

@z.r.r4593 3 ай бұрын

Well he's growing

@Graknorke Жыл бұрын

one of the things I like is that by the fourth (?) book, it turns out that the entire Seldon Plan had failed entirely and it was the Second Foundation touching things up as it goes along. Psychohistory failed, it was too error prone for the Foundation to do what it was meant to do. good stuff

@MGSchmahl 9 ай бұрын

This is a major theme is all of Asimov's fiction: Setting up a structure that seems unassailable, then probing its weaknesses. In the Robot series, Asimov invented the Laws of Robotics, but every story was an exploration of how these Laws could be subverted or lead to unintended consequences. The Laws of Psychohistory are in a way the statistical average of moles of humans, which us why it can only exist in the distant future of a galactic civilization. Yet it can be undermined by the eventual existence of a nonhuman, just as much as an ideal gas is disrupted by an electromagnetically active vapor within it. Asimov again sets up a plausible premise and attacks it from all angles. This is the lesson that I took from Asimov: All premises must be questioned, and the consequences of rejecting or accepting every premise should be explored.

@SomeCallMeAku 8 ай бұрын

@@MGSchmahl "All premises must be questioned, and the consequences of rejecting or accepting every premise should be explored." That's definitely the foundation (heh) of all the best science fiction writing. Anything without it is just science flavored fantasy.

@Raykkie 2 жыл бұрын

Fun little anecdote: While I do not know how much the future can be predicted, having worked in food retail, the behaviour of people could at least be retroactively linked in some cases. Customers wouldn't average out, wouldn't go out more during a particular day of the week or weather. We have spikes and holes, but very little middleground. They are definetly influenced by things since they can't just mutually agree on what to do, but deciphering and predict which elements causes it is very hard, or seemgly impossible without extensive research

@wumi2419 Жыл бұрын

And that's basically the idea of books, it's uncertain, who exactly or how exactly will lead to change, but trends are predictable. (I've not finished the video or books, in fact reading right now and comments are nice place for discussion) I don't know if this is straight up copying as another path is not known, but Foundation closely follows history of humanity on Earth. There was Roman Empire, then period of barbarism, centered on conservation of Rome's inheritance, which led to religious society. And religion was replaced by trade in ~17th century. Which is where I am in books (the mule). Knowing what happened irl and how the mule begins, I would assume that what follows is a push to create more democratic society, which ultimately fails and still leads to Empire.

@maxxcarver5502 4 ай бұрын

the weather and payday = shopping

@thomasmuller8118 2 жыл бұрын

Hmm let me think. I would guess an essay introduced with the Butterfly effect and the predictability of things leading to a topic that is in some way connected to this thought, but mainly seems quite random and unconnected to the title and the butterfly in the thumbnail.

@thomasmuller8118 2 жыл бұрын

That at some point meta comments on the unpredictability of the second part... and the predictability of the butterfly effect part

@thomasmuller8118 2 жыл бұрын

A book, uff that was hard to predict

@OliverLugg 2 жыл бұрын

@@thomasmuller8118 I think your guess - a video about chaos theory that was intensely meta about its own predictability - was actually the closest prediction of anybody's, so well done.

@domovoi_0 4 ай бұрын

@@OliverLugg hi could you please do a video on cv being a scam and all its negative effects and how "smart" and "educated" people fell for it in the name of the cult of science? Love and blessings!

@TrueShilic 2 жыл бұрын

I love how I was sitting there at the end, thinking "He's gonna get hit by the cannonball." while you ranted about breaking the format, fully confident in the fact that I had predicted the obvious joke... and yet when it happened I laughed anyway. And then, when I went back to watch it a second time while writing this comment... I laughed again. There's probably some kind of observation about the structure and predictably of humor here, but I'm not smart enough to figure that one out.

@Ronin11111111 10 ай бұрын

Perhaps it has something to do with the juxtaposition of such an obvious gag and the complexity of the videos topic, and the feeling of satisfaction from correctly predicting and remembering the set-up for the joke. The " Ooooh he's gonna do it! YAY!" or "Say the line Bart!" phenomenon.

@KyleBaker 7 ай бұрын

Humor usually comes from unpredictability, but so does fear; humor is about safe, low dose surprise. But unpleasant vs pleasant for most minds is the opposite, about predictability. Novelty is like spice, it is desirable to most people only as an accent. I think you partially didn't expect yourself to be right, and partially found it ridiculous, and partially found satisfaction in the prediction coming true and feeling satisfied. That's my take anyways. Humor is weird.

@nowpromote 10 ай бұрын

"The Mule' was and still is a story that I still dwell on and remember 20+ years after reading it. Thank you for such a compelling video. Isaac's story helped me understand control systems and chaos theory when I finally came to understand them in university.

@addymant 2 жыл бұрын

I predict the butterfly is a diversion to make all the comments look stupid

@totally_innocent1072 2 жыл бұрын

Ya probably

@alwayshere6956 4 ай бұрын

You went splat

@iterativeimprovements1713 2 жыл бұрын

The *plot point* pun about a third of the way through, absolutely killed me

@irrelevant_noob Жыл бұрын

19:23

@mind_onion 2 жыл бұрын

I just want to point out Cryptonomicon has a normal distribution as a plot point, as well as the Riemann Zeta Function, and many other such things. Good book. :)

@KertaDrake 11 ай бұрын

I think up to a point, the whole concept could work IRL... but if too many people became trained to recognize the patterns, the whole system might break down from people trying to meddle with the predictions. Once people recognize a pattern, they inevitably attempt to use it for personal gain, and once that happens things break down because there's more than one person trying to do so.

@Pheonix1328 10 ай бұрын

I remember watching a video on AI and one of the things it talked about was AI being used for stock exchange stuff. It turns out (maybe obviously) that the AIs were really good at it, but the problem was their existence and "meddling" in the system changed it to something they weren't familiar with.

@RoamingAdhocrat 8 ай бұрын

@@Pheonix1328isn't that the whole fintech field now? computers trading with computers, and minor bugs wiping out your entire portfolio in a few hours of very rapid trading?

@franki1990 7 ай бұрын

Once -mostly neurotypical- people recognize a pattern*

@sophie2724 2 жыл бұрын

The butterfly has hyperbolic wings, and therefore it is Hyperrouge

@adama7752 2 жыл бұрын

#Facts

@HideoV 11 ай бұрын

I remember Dan Crisan giving his professorial lecture at Imperial, he was our real analysis teacher, and it was all about his work trying to replicate psycho history. I'm glad you were aware of his work

@dr_ander 2 жыл бұрын

math + philosophy + humor is an interesting mix

@clivemitchell3229 10 ай бұрын

I worked near some epidemiologists for some years. A major conclusion of epidemiology (the study of epidemics) is that most modern epidemics (e.g. heart disease, cancer) are most influenced by human behaviours. The connections are teased out by observations in large studies. The most reliable results require the largest studies. For example, smoking affects heart disease and lung cancer mortality and this relative mortality between smokers and non-smokers can be predicted quite accurately at the population level, yet predicting whether a smoking or non-smoking individual will actually die from lung cancer or heart disease is impossible. It is possible that individuals have free will but populations are often accurately predictable.

@DrDeuteron 9 ай бұрын

Never take medical advice from an epidemiologist. They don’t care about you, just the population you inhabit.

@Moe_Posting_Chad 7 ай бұрын

So in other words your entire field of epistemology is worthless? *That's rough bro.*

@clivemitchell3229 7 ай бұрын

@@Moe_Posting_Chad Not at a strategic level. Persuading millions of smokers to quit saves a lot of lives which shows up in the mortality data. You just don't know which individuals will benefit beforehand. So it's still great for health strategy and advice at a population level to benefit the nation overall. If your personal philosophy is totally individualistic, then I see your point.

@Moe_Posting_Chad 7 ай бұрын

@@clivemitchell3229 "Persuading millions of smokers to quit saves a lot of lives which shows up in the mortality data." What about all of the Joggers, I mean EBT recipients? Their rates of heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, and obesity easily outclass literally every other health concern by an order of magnitude. All they do is balloon up to 400 pounds and require enormous amounts of medical attention to keep them alive long enough for them to eat even more cheap seed oil laden food. You wanna talk about individualism? What about all these minority individuals that are all but force fed Twinkies until the medical infrastructure collapses under the combined weight of these pigs in human skin? You're the problem with intellectuals my man. You get educated into whatever obscure compartmentalized bullshit. And when you see the walking heart attacks that are given money by the government to essentially monopolize healthcare resources. You just ignore it because "I study only what I'm told and I don't care about the implications my work has for other fields. Just wanna drink beer and eat pizza. I R Scientist"

@josephjarosch8739 10 ай бұрын

A bit of context behind the Foundation that may prove illuminating: There was, and still is, a concept called the Two Cultures, which came to prominence with an esssay of the same name in 1959. The essay essentially argued that academia, and culture more broadly, had become divided into the titular Two Cultures, with the the hard sciences on one and the humanities and soft sciences on the other. You can see a trace of this today in the perennial arguemtns about STEM vs Humanities degrees today. Essentially, a scientific philosopher named Karl Poppler, in trying to develop formalized rules for what did and did not 'count' as science, threw down the gauntlet by declaring that many of the soft sciences, most notably sociology, psychology, and economics, as fraudulent pseudosciences, making many people very, very angry. I feel that Foundations Psychohistory is a commentary on the same. Psychohistory is, in Asimov's opinion, what the soft sciences would look like if they were 'real' sciences. And since, as you say, even vaguely accurate predictions of human behavior are likely impossible, Poppler may have been right after all.

@bjornrie 7 ай бұрын

The hard vs. soft sciences thing basically exists to please the ego of hard sciencists, while they don't really have the problem to figuring out how to understand society or a similar topic themselfes, so a win win.

@RoamingAdhocrat 2 жыл бұрын

I predict this video essay is going to be Good.

@RoamingAdhocrat 8 ай бұрын

hey, I was right!

@rafaelmarkos4489 11 ай бұрын

This is probably the first time I've seen a KZfaq video essay address the no free lunch hypothesis. You, sir, have won KZfaq for the foreseeable future.

@heinrichvandeventer357 10 ай бұрын

This is one of the best narrated video essays I have seen. Good work.

@lava2istrue 2 жыл бұрын

Weirdly enough, I *do* remember foundation. Mainly because someone on the internet decided to take inspiration from it and have their Fanfic “Karl Seldon” create “contra-Boolean algebra” and I’ve been dying to find someone more well versed in maths than me for help with this.

@matthewparker9276 2 жыл бұрын

I doubt I'm well versed on maths enough to pull this off, but it's incredibly appealing to try. Mind you, I gave up on listing all possible balanced ternary logic operations after about 4 and all their permutations. So maybe I should resist the temptation.

@lava2istrue 2 жыл бұрын

@@matthewparker9276 I tried posting the link sometime earlier, but I guess KZfaq didn’t like that. The stuff in question is known as “foundation enclydopedia dialectica”. The primer is available as a pdf on their site.

@LostArchivist 11 ай бұрын

@@lava2istrue It seems down

@andoriannationalist3738 10 ай бұрын

@@matthewparker9276I’ll😊 pop😊😊😊😊😊o😊😊😊 😊😊😊o😊😊o😊one ooo

@andoriannationalist3738 10 ай бұрын

@@matthewparker9276o😊 o😊o😊😊😊ooo😊😊😊😊 o😊😊o😊😊😊oo😊

@hampdachamp Жыл бұрын

Nothing to do with Chaos Theory, but there are models in which an event will happen with certainty, but the WAITING TIME until that event happens is not only random, as would be expected, but also potentially ridiculously large. (Having an infinite expected value despite always being finite) This could very well be the case for any model predicting history: even if we imagine it worked, there may be a large uncertainty WHEN. In Foundation, there is no such uncertainty since Harry Celdon more or less knows when crises are to occur.

@gleep23 8 ай бұрын

Thanks for the great deal of information you've put together. I came via Foundation/ Asimov lore videos, and now I'm checking out your other work. Cheers.

@smorcrux426 2 жыл бұрын

new favorite video essay channel??? This goes straight into my "REALLY good videos" playlist

@akirachisaka9997 11 ай бұрын

Also, unrelated, I think "lul so random" is a vital part of humor. But it is also something that fits almost perfectly into chaos theory and is actually extremely predictable. Well, predictable mathematically and scientifically. They need to "feel random" to work. But "what we feel" on a short term, subconscious level is probably the easiest to predict part of how we think. Edit: So yeah, I think "lul so random" occurs the most when the author/creator of the joke was able to perfectly predict how the audience will be "predicting" your jokes, and to capitalize on the prediction and get a great payoff. So yeah, I think humor is all about "I predict you predict I predict you predict" loops. And being "humorous" is being good at feeling the flow of the loop, and capitalizing on it.

@Brightgalrs 2 жыл бұрын

Was definitely not expecting this, I'm even reading Foundation too.

@DeanMasley 10 ай бұрын

This is so beautiful. I love foundation and this video gave such an amazing connection to our attempts to make a predictable world. And through this I discover so many new projects and their processes that I would have never come across. Thank you so much for this!

@MaZe741 11 ай бұрын

Dude this video is way beyond what I expected, if any of your other videos come close to this you have a subscriber forever.

@simoneartini3302 Жыл бұрын

This might be one of the best youtube video I've ever watched, congratulations dude this is top tier content.

@samblunden2367 2 жыл бұрын

Another brilliant video! As someone who has always distanted myself from maths, everything was very well explained! Keep up the great content :)

@gnaskar 2 жыл бұрын

I knew that in pickup games of rock paper scissors (aka games in which the people are new to each other and have no prior games to work on) unexperienced players are just a bit more likely to go for rock, so I figured you were working with the same statistics and would go for paper. So I when for scissors, and lost. I got too deep and played myself.

@DrDeuteron 9 ай бұрын

Are you Sicilian?

@Moe_Posting_Chad 7 ай бұрын

Inconceivable!

@cabbage2241 2 жыл бұрын

2 minutes in you show the edition cover that I have for the books! Man, I read them when I was 13 years old and they've stayed a firm favourite of mine. Loved the video!

@CatFish107 9 ай бұрын

My fine mathemagician, I love using chaos to subtly influence changes in synthesizer patches. Helps turn a rigid, repeating sequence into something that has a much more intersting and living feel.

@mnm1273 2 жыл бұрын

It'll be about decoding and other forms of secret messages that have the be cracked (mainly other forms). The butterfly is linked the the famous cicada from that really tough series of challenges.

@ericalexandervoolaid1354 2 жыл бұрын

My money's on this one

@superemma1785 2 жыл бұрын

@@ericalexandervoolaid1354 this was my first guess too

@boothvrstudio 10 ай бұрын

I am a huge fan of the Foundation series. I delight in their connection to Asimov’s Robot novels. I am super impressed by this video! Thanks!

@msd5808 10 ай бұрын

I remember Foundation being out of print when i was reading sf in the 90s but i liked Harlan Ellison’s screenplay of I, Robot which is now out of print.

@oLevLovesLove 9 ай бұрын

With Large Language Model AI's becoming ubiquitous, everyone should be aware of the predictive power of what is essentially just huge tables of numbers or 'weights'.

@Moe_Posting_Chad 7 ай бұрын

People don't understand there isn't a small man in the refrigerator that turns on the light. How are you going to expect them to understand language models are just spell check with extra steps?

@fesimco4339 11 ай бұрын

Just want to brag to everyone; I've read all the foundation books listed in the spoilers as well as a large majority of Asimov's "Robots" series. I LOVE Asimov. He was he first fiction author I fell in love with and my all time favorite.

@trustytrest 10 ай бұрын

@fesimco4339 10 ай бұрын

@@trustytrest Impressed?

@user-kx8pu6ys5i 10 ай бұрын

@@fesimco4339 It took a _year_ to do all that?

@fesimco4339 10 ай бұрын

@@user-kx8pu6ys5i A year to do what?

@user-kx8pu6ys5i 10 ай бұрын

@@fesimco4339 nothing dwai

@madno964 2 жыл бұрын

some thoughts on the subject from a non mathematician: -i did like the TV series addition of genetic dynasty with the clones and stuff. it is actually a more "sci fi " version of what was in the books, yet conveys the same spirit of inevitable decay of once successful system due to its very nature and social inertia - my own speculations on the telepathy (rather an exercise in far fetched thinking, but it's amusing) always were based on the fact, that human inventions either mimic a natural phenomenon or use its characteristics to advance in the necessary direction. if we look at different ways to scan and analyze brain waves as a proto machine mind reading, we can say, that "natural" telepathy for sure exists and is the ground for the advances in this field, that are trying to learn and replicate its very nature. just because plains aren't birds, we can't deny they are flying 🙃 -in the first books, where the development of psychohistory is still in progress Seldon and Yugo Amaryl often mention, that the predictions of their to be science is somewhat similar to intuition formed by politicians. i think, just as in case of Foundation, these intuitive guesses can't be a matter of public discussion by their very nature. just look at the mass migration of african war driven expats to europe and think of it as a way to refresh the stagnating genetic pool there. one can speculate, that such a thing can be a result of meticulous analysis in order to strengthen the obviously decaying society, but only on certain territories, because not all the countries "let them in" or were a goal enough for the settlers. other methods, that would be less disruptive to the every day citizen of the goal country could be applied, but would bring a slightly different effect. this is just an example of a recent occurrence which was mostly reported and talked about from the same point of view by both pro and contra parties. in case of enough time and energy, we should try to examine things like these even retrospectively to be able to lead a more or less comfortable life and generally understand the direction in which our society is pushed (drawn by inertia of the existing forces?). i think that is the main take away for an average reader, even if psychohistory is not developed, which i very much like to see happen out of sheer curiosity and fascination with the concept.

@Jvirus2 9 ай бұрын

Coming back to it again and this vid totally blew up. It had maybe 11k or less the last time I was here and less than 100 comments. Now it almost has 200k. Happy for Oliver's (and this video's) success.

@bluedotdinosaur 10 ай бұрын

As an additional perspective: Asimov himself later explained that he didn't really believe in something like psychohistory - that people were predictable in that manner. Rather psychohistory had come out of thought experiments he was fixated on during WW2. Nazi Germany's early string of rapid victories, before getting bogged down with Russia, obviously worried everyone. Asimov felt despair at fascism and empire once again trying to assert its grip on humanity. He considered that, over the course of time, no empire had lasted however. Fascism and authoritarianism always fell apart. Perhaps this was simply luck, and humanity had yet to invent the perfect empire. Or maybe there was something about the dynamics of people and civilization that prevented fascism from ever maintaining its grip for very long, in any one place and time. So in the stories Asimov asked "we like to hope that history bends towards enlightenment and freedom. What if someone could scientifically prove it was true? Could it inspire people to plan better and strive more confidently to insure humanity bettered itself?"

@thelordz33 2 жыл бұрын

I'm guessing considering the title and the butterfly, this essay will be on the butterfly effect and chaos theory

@IRoIN100 2 жыл бұрын

I predict; a video on prediction

@0xva 2 жыл бұрын

@IDontLikePplPlayinOnMyPhone 6 ай бұрын

10/10! Amazing video essay. Going in my “best of vid essays” playlist

@derzauberer8605 11 ай бұрын

Went here right from the Extinction Debate mammoth Video and this one starts with a reference to probably one of the funniest Disney movies ever, at least in my book. I think I got another hour of laughter and knowledge in my near future. Dude I might die laughing. Thanks man, I think you are my new favorite yt channel.

@thebutterflycomposer7130 2 жыл бұрын

Butterfly Effect?

@hoover-qv3st 9 ай бұрын

"Sorry babe i cant hang out tonight i just found a cool sci fi video essay concerning predictability of humanity's future"

@davidbarnes6672 10 ай бұрын

General thought I've heard that I think is helpful when discussing A.I.: Artificial Intelligence doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be better than us.

@philipcox5859 2 жыл бұрын

Another great video man, always gets me excited seeing ur vids in my sub box

@llYossarian 2 жыл бұрын

Remember the "iterations" of chaos-generated line patterns that served as chapters in Jurassic Park _(the novel)?_ That's always felt like the most elegant way to demonstrate chaos theory and thematically it fit so perfectly as the jumbly lines started to form what looked like a fractal hurricane _as_ the tropical storm in the story gets closer/bigger _AS_ the problems w/ the park compound... It's a _really_ clever book even if Crichton sometimes reads like YA _(no actual criticism though, he was my favorite author of all time to just read for pleasure)._

@vikorovstock2432 2 жыл бұрын

"I predict you are going to sit right there for the next 50-ish minutes and join me as we ask 'Foundation: Are We Predictable?'" *Immediately closes tab*

@Anamnesia 9 ай бұрын

Re: Movement of people. Years ago in my hometown, it dawned on me that the scale of buildings to people, it felt like I was a *_Mouse in a Maze_* ... Then in the early 2000's I moved to a major city in my country. The city had a lot of subterranean tunnels connecting various parts of the city - you didn't even need to be above ground to get where you were going. That made me feel like an *_Ant in an Ants nest_* ...

@peterkatulin8399 7 ай бұрын

I got this vid randomly recommended to me, autoplayed after a video about bad science. I am happy about it because it is very thought-provoking and overall very much worth to listen. Thanks

@emmadrew50 2 жыл бұрын

surprised historical materialism didnt get even a passing mention

@pacotaco1246 11 ай бұрын

It doesn't have a mathematical formalism (yet?)

@EllinasParamythas 9 ай бұрын

Was looking for a comment like this. Well you can't expect to much from idealistic thinkers

@Zakar0 2 жыл бұрын

My gut says it's about a music album in some form. Or something with crossing timelines/alternate universes.

@uluccoban8875 2 жыл бұрын

Maybe he's making his own album

@user-xn4fy5pq1d 2 жыл бұрын

Your content as a whole seems so underrated even if it's amazing.

@D_VAULTZ 10 ай бұрын

i love this video instantly, when i was sent away to boarding school at 7 this first book i read was foundation, i became hooked and read ever single book he had ever written. Love

@cameronmellott2885 11 ай бұрын

I find it odd that you didn’t mention material dialectics as a model of predicting history/sociology considering it’s one of the most historically common methods of doing so. Regardless of whether you agree with the figures using the philosophy, it certainly seems relevant to the topic at hand. I wonder if you wanted to avoid the controversy inherent to the topic. I still massively enjoyed the video, so thank you for your hard work here and throughout your channel! You’ve made the highest quality video essays I’ve encountered on the platform.

@venga3 10 ай бұрын

It's Marxist drivel. Belongs in the religion shelf.

@EllinasParamythas 9 ай бұрын

Glad to find a comment like this

@emilioslas7739 2 жыл бұрын

I know this isn't about jojo or persona, but a man can only hope.

@coreyhudson3484 10 ай бұрын

Asimov has been my favorite author since I was 12. There is a criminally small amount of content related to him on the internet, so thanks for making this. It actually means a lot to me

@nagoranerides3150 9 ай бұрын

Given how ill-informed much of what there is about him is, I'm sometimes glad there's a lack. There's a similarity with John Wayne who was a prolific actor dismissed more or less because he was prolific. But his acting ability is second to none; it's just subtle enough that it's hard to see on the small screen. Watch The Searchers on a movie screen and the acting he does with a glance or a shift in expression is marvellous to see. Similarly, Asimov's characters don't generally go for histrionics but they have an internal life that drives their actions all the same. Sometimes to scenes that are quietly emotionally devastating. His writing may not be *about* the characters but the characters are not ignored in his serious work.

@nickbrown9895 10 ай бұрын

Wow! Really good vid. Keep up the good work please, I look forward to seeing more in the future.

@mcquizzer106 2 жыл бұрын

5D chaos theory (with multiverse time travel)

@trotamix8365 2 жыл бұрын

I was going to say that

@mcquizzer106 2 жыл бұрын

Damn I was pretty close

@d74g0n 10 ай бұрын

I had a misprint of foundation - a later book in the series; that essentially started over half way through.... it was so confusing for me - i read many chapters for a second time thinking it was some sort of miniscule change to it... then i realized the page numbers rolled back also... one of the most confusing reading experiences I ever had.

@masstv9052 10 ай бұрын

Did u save the book? A misprint might become worth some money in the future, if it isn't already worth more. Misprinted material tends to become more valuable over time. Especially for things like currency & money, old toys, and some books..

@goducksgo613 15 күн бұрын

This video is amazing, you did an incredible job!

@dangitsandy1745 2 жыл бұрын

I nominate this guy as the most underrated KZfaqr of recent. How he does not have a million subscribers is baffling to me

@RandomGuyOnYoutube601 11 ай бұрын

Asimov himself in fact doubted that psychohistory is possible with the reasoning that even galactic empire isn't large enough system.

@amunra13 2 жыл бұрын

Don't the crime prediction statistics often lead to overpolicing due to biases in the data?

@FilipCordas 9 ай бұрын

No its wishful thinking because people don't like the conclusions objective observation get you.

@daseinz 9 ай бұрын

"So does anyone remember..." i hear this and I'm hooked. Your videos are awesome.

@bramverhees755 10 ай бұрын

Thank you very much for the Lemmings sound fx 😊

@Alexus00712 4 ай бұрын

I was thinking of the "brick joke" around the fade to black right before the fall of the brick in the end.. Wtf? XD (this is the first video of this channel I've seen (I forgot about the cannonball too))(nvm, I apparently watched the 5d diplomacy video too)

@slickandslaycious6579 9 ай бұрын

A reminder to go touch grass

@Cthoanut 20 күн бұрын

I shall respectfully refuse, for in the pursuit of knowledge and watching ridiculously long videos is all the grass I need.

@slickandslaycious6579 20 күн бұрын

@@Cthoanut 🤣🤣🤣 Respect, I see the appeal lol

@jpjeon3143 19 күн бұрын

Lol 😂😂 I like taking long walks while listening to these sorts if videos. Does that count?

@slickandslaycious6579 19 күн бұрын

@@jpjeon3143 🤷🏿 Maybe half a point lol

@Mineman1998 18 күн бұрын

But to be able to touch grass we must first prove both that grass exists and that it is something in which a person can touch

@LukeBrady Жыл бұрын

This is the best KZfaq video I’ve watched in long long time

@sandolorsilverdollar 9 ай бұрын

ive listened to several of your documentarys , thank you

@kelanianwesterndayser112 2 жыл бұрын

This video essay will be about predictions, I think.

@explosionspin3422 2 жыл бұрын

Dang, you got it

@End420Prohibition 2 жыл бұрын

Did you get your copy of Foundation at Barnes and Noble? I got that exact version of it too. (One interesting small change I’ve noticed: older editions of the book state that terminus was powered by ‘atomic’ energy, and in that newer edition of the book it is instead phrased as ‘nuclear’ energy. I’m sure this change occurred so the story wouldn’t just fall into public domain )

@rafaelmarkos4489 11 ай бұрын

Copyright is death + 70 years for individual authors, so if Asimov's estate still owns the rights, that deadline is _very_ far away. Even the 90 years from publication given to corporations is quite a ways off.

@kylebrekke6540 10 ай бұрын

Beyond the issue of the copyright not being at risk of near expiration, making a change like that in a publishing would not preserve the original copyright (from my extremely, limited understanding of copyright law). In current American copyright law, making a large suite of changes when publishing a work could theoretically allow for the creation of a *new* copyright of that particular edition of the text, but would not prevent older editions (or editions that are determined to be non-transformative from the original) from entering the public domain. It's similar to how copyright of music functions. Tchaikovsky's compositions are all in the public domain now but individual performances of his music can still be copyrighted, thus you cannot freely distribute a contemporary recording of his music without license.

@lucianoimperio7986 2 ай бұрын

Extremly insightful video, great job mate! PD: I also adore the Foundation series :D

@Graknorke Жыл бұрын

wow I loved these books as a teen, I'm sure this video will be an enjoyable way to experience that enjoyment from a different perspective

@rapu1640 2 жыл бұрын

A lot of these mathematicians seem to have forgotten that life is like a box of choclates. You never know what you're gonna get.

@adama7752 2 жыл бұрын

You'll get a 90% probably of a chocolate, and 3% chance of trashy cheap junk

@thelordz33 2 жыл бұрын

@@adama7752 what about the last 7%?

@adama7752 2 жыл бұрын

@@thelordz33 somethings we'll never know

@jts.97 2 жыл бұрын

Leviathan of course

@tristan5494 2 жыл бұрын

Ohhh oliver’s talking about foudation its the video i’ve always needed

@thebutterflycomposer7130 2 жыл бұрын

Everything becomes about the Butterfly effect eventually, if you think about it...

@jadesprite 10 ай бұрын

i lost a rock paper scissors game to a year old prerecorded video wtf

@Jaydee-wd7wr 2 жыл бұрын

54:56, You used all 3 things! I love it so much.

@Jvirus2 Жыл бұрын

Coming back to it and this vid still goes hard

@yuvalbilu8501 9 ай бұрын

I feel like you should have mentioned that there was a large, real-world movement based on the idea that you can predict the future of society using patterns in history, and it's called marxism.

@Moe_Posting_Chad 7 ай бұрын

Don't poke the animals in the cage. They are religious in nature and they refuse to accept criticism of their religious ideas that failed and victimized others. They have defined religion as "nothing we do because we are too smart for that." Don't expect them to be reasonable.

@jamesjoelholmes4541 10 ай бұрын

I am hugely influenced my Asimov. I read all of the Foundation, Robot, and Empire, and pretty much everything Asimov I could get my hands on. And I look around the world I see. He was something like a prophet of the real world. Thank you for this thoughtful, funny, and profound essay.

@davidurban528 8 ай бұрын

I actually read the main Foundation novel last summer and loved it. Now I'm definitely interested in this video lol

@deenrqqwe6794 8 ай бұрын

Very fascinating video, makes me very optimistic

@georgelogreco8810 4 ай бұрын

I am Harry Seldon's stunned shadow. This story has a major influence on my own story. I've been working on it for decades and also procrastinating, getting caught up in what I have known since 1982 Sociology Class in 10th grade, before indulging in the Foundation series, that I perceived the illusion, the stimuli and minutiae trying to steer us like lemmings. I'm working on the antidote but find myself distracted by the sin of Jonah who wanted Ninevah to burn.

@udirt 10 ай бұрын

"Check mate Spielberg" that was a damn well placed joke!

@grandixximo 10 ай бұрын

I'll leave a comment, just so that the algorithm may point my demographics your way, hope to start a trend, these videos are great, please keep making them 😊

@phoenixproductions2846 Жыл бұрын

My grandfather actually illustrated the cover for an Asimov book I believe it's called Moon

@daigoroxyojimbo8615 9 ай бұрын

i was looking for this video for so long

@DinggisKhaaniMagtaal 6 ай бұрын

Not a historian but graduated from undergrad in Anthropology, which always plays second fiddle to the sociologists in the political sphere 🙄 The issue I have with Cliodynamics does not only seem to be cherry-picking sources through history (really liked how you talked about the social sciences Heisenberg Theory btw, it was one of the most memorable self-humbling moments from a professor in our theory class when he made that comparison), but in addition it seems to revolve around a circular argument in which the only reason a prediction is flawed is because the model is not precise enough, which will completely entrap any conversation in the theoretics of it all. It also shouldn't be understated how flawed the Heisenberg theory is not only in prediction but in modeling. In essence, you might just see it if you believe it enough, including in the past. Narrative is such a powerful tool that it unfortunately (and perhaps fortunately depending on your perspective on certain topics) even influences the objectivism we strive for in the hard sciences. There's a reason why we still cling to the term "civilizations" as an implement for our historical readings even though the word itself is prone to immense flaws when put under real scrutiny, and there are not many anthropologists I know that would seriously consider using the term in any pursuit of objective description, even. As such, a lot of red flags shot up when you started Peter Turchins history moving from beetles to people, and this comes from someone who also almost went into entomology before getting into anthropology!