Apple TV's Foundation

[FaxModem1]

I personally rolled my eyes at the "Apple is the company of the future" line. But this could be good. I don't really know where they're going to take this.

[Adam Reynolds]

I personally rolled my eyes at the "Apple is the company of the future" line. But this could be good. I don't really know where they're going to take this.

I found it amusing that the Youtube comments originally were discussing the same thing, that Apple would more likely be a villain in Asimov stories, before Apple turned them off.

[Zaune]

What I want to know is, how are they going to deal with the fact that the concept of Psychohistory has aged like milk?

[bilateralrope]

What I want to know is, how are they going to deal with the fact that the concept of Psychohistory has aged like milk?

I'm hoping they just play it straight. Have it work in their series exactly like it worked in the novels.

From what I remember about Foundation, psychohistory is too big of a plot device to do much else with if you're wanting to make a faithful adaptation.

[Gunhead]

What I want to know is, how are they going to deal with the fact that the concept of Psychohistory has aged like milk?

Reveal it's bullshit like they did in the book? They did that right.. it's been ages since I read it and don't have a copy conveniently placed so I could check. I'm not holding my breath on this one, even if it does have Jared Harris in it who is consistently great at anything he does.
Foundation is a book kinda like Dune, I think a scifi aficionado should read it but it's underlying ideas are more interesting than the actual story.

-Gunhead

[Tribble]

What I want to know is, how are they going to deal with the fact that the concept of Psychohistory has aged like milk?

Reveal it's bullshit like they did in the book? They did that right.. it's been ages since I read it and don't have a copy conveniently placed so I could check. I'm not holding my breath on this one, even if it does have Jared Harris in it who is consistently great at anything he does.
Foundation is a book kinda like Dune, I think a scifi aficionado should read it but it's underlying ideas are more interesting than the actual story.

-Gunhead

Hopefully this.

Psychohistory was always more of a plot device so that Asimov could tell a sci-fi tale of the fall of the Roman Empire and attempts to save it.

That being said, I felt he did a decent job discussing the practicalities of such a scheme and it faults.

IIRC the main conditions of psychohistory were:

The population size had to be sufficiently large
The population must not know the results of the predictions
There must not be a significant and unforeseen change in culture / technology
Individuals' behaviour must overall more or less cancel each other out, so that no individual can single-handily disrupt the results
Human interactions with each other and the environment must fundamentally remain the same

And the final reveal:

that humans are the only sentient intelligence in the galaxy

Unfortunately this last one was never fully explored as Asimov didn't know where to go with it, but was a huge cliff-hanger when I read it the first time.

The first few stories explore what psychohistory is and what it can theoretically do so that the reader understands the idea... while the rest of the series essentially deconstructs the whole thing, with each of the above conditions being eventually broken (the last one being heavily implied, hence the cliff hanger).

It's made pretty clear by the end that psychohistory and Seldon's plan would never work without constant intervention (of the mind-controlling kind where people's behaviour can be literally forced into following it). And even then it's not a desirable outcome.