{"id":177790,"date":"2025-12-10T13:24:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T13:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/177790\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T13:24:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T13:24:08","slug":"isaac-asimov-predicts-the-future-on-the-david-letterman-show-1980","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/177790\/","title":{"rendered":"Isaac Asimov Predicts the Future on The David Letterman Show (1980)"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1980, Newsweek pub\u00adlished a can\u00adtan\u00adker\u00adous and sad\u00adly on-the-nose diag\u00adno\u00adsis of the Unit\u00aded States\u2019 \u201ccult of igno\u00adrance\u201d<\/a> \u2014 writ\u00adten by one Isaac Asi\u00admov, \u201cpro\u00adfes\u00adsor of bio\u00adchem\u00adistry at Boston Uni\u00adver\u00adsi\u00adty School of Med\u00adi\u00adcine\u201d and \u201cauthor of 212 books, most of them on var\u00adi\u00adous sci\u00aden\u00adtif\u00adic sub\u00adjects for the gen\u00ader\u00adal pub\u00adlic.\u201d Giv\u00aden this intim\u00adi\u00addat\u00ading biog\u00adra\u00adphy, and the fact that Asi\u00admov believed that \u201chard\u00adly any\u00adone can read\u201d in the U.S., we might expect the sci\u00adence fic\u00adtion leg\u00adend want\u00aded noth\u00ading to do with tele\u00advi\u00adsion. We would be wrong.<\/p>\n

Asi\u00admov seemed to love TV. In 1987, for exam\u00adple, the four-time Hugo win\u00adner wrote a humor\u00adous\u00adly crit\u00adi\u00adcal take\u00addown of ALF for TV Guide<\/a>. And he was a con\u00adsum\u00admate TV enter\u00adtain\u00ader, mak\u00ading his first major TV appear\u00adance on John\u00adny Carson\u2019s Tonight Show in 1968, appear\u00ading four times on The Mike Dou\u00adglas Show in the next few years, and giv\u00ading his final tele\u00advi\u00adsion inter\u00adviews to Dick Cavett in a two-part series in 1989. The same year he wrote about America\u2019s cult of igno\u00adrance, he appeared on The David Let\u00adter\u00adman show to crack wise with the biggest wiseass on TV. Asi\u00admov held his own and then some.<\/p>\n

\u201cAsi\u00admov, six\u00adty in this video, proves him\u00adself a nat\u00adur\u00adal come\u00addi\u00adan,\u201d writes the Melville House blog; \u201cLet\u00adter\u00adman, thir\u00adty-three, can bare\u00adly keep up.\u201d Sure\u00adly Asimov\u2019s ban\u00adter had noth\u00ading to do with The David Let\u00adter\u00adman Show\u2019s can\u00adcel\u00adla\u00adtion three days lat\u00ader. (Let\u00adter\u00adman was back on the air for eleven sea\u00adsons two years lat\u00ader.) Their inter\u00adview ranges wide\u00adly from pop cul\u00adture (Asi\u00admov con\u00adfess\u00ades his appre\u00adci\u00ada\u00adtion for both Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back) to \u201cthe future of med\u00adi\u00adcine, space explo\u00adration, hope for mankind, and much more,\u201d Vic Sage writes at Pop Cul\u00adture Retro\u00adra\u00adma.<\/p>\n

Asimov\u2019s dry deliv\u00adery \u2014 honed dur\u00ading his Eng\u00adlish-and-Yid\u00addish-speak\u00ading Brook\u00adlyn child\u00adhood \u2014 is delight\u00adful. But the writer, teacher, and sci\u00aden\u00adtist hasn\u2019t only come on TV to crack jokes, pro\u00admote a book, and flaunt his mut\u00adton\u00adchops. He wants to edu\u00adcate his fel\u00adlow Amer\u00adi\u00adcans about the state of the future. (His Newsweek bio was out\u00addat\u00aded. As Let\u00adter\u00adman says, his appear\u00adance marked the pub\u00adli\u00adca\u00adtion of his 221st book.) Like Hari Sel\u00addon, the hero of his 1951 nov\u00adel Foun\u00adda\u00adtion<\/a>, Asi\u00admov felt con\u00adfi\u00addent in his abil\u00adi\u00adty to pre\u00addict the course of human progress (or regress, as the case may be).<\/p>\n

He also felt con\u00adfi\u00addent answer\u00ading ques\u00adtions about what to do with out\u00ader space, and where to \u201cput more men,\u201d as Let\u00adter\u00adman says. His rec\u00adom\u00admen\u00adda\u00adtion to build \u201cfac\u00adto\u00adries\u201d may strike us as a banal fore\u00adrun\u00adner of Jeff Bezos\u2019 even more banal plans for office parks in space<\/a>. Asi\u00admov boasts of the vision he had of \u201cpock\u00adet com\u00adput\u00aders\u201d in 1950 \u2014 hard\u00adly a real\u00adi\u00adty in 1980. Dave com\u00adplains about how com\u00adpli\u00adcat\u00aded com\u00adput\u00aders are, and Asi\u00admov accu\u00adrate\u00adly pre\u00addicts that as tech\u00adnol\u00ado\u00adgy catch\u00ades up, they will get sim\u00adpler to use. \u201cBut these are lit\u00adtle things,\u201d he says. \u201cI nev\u00ader tried to pre\u00addict. I just tried to write sto\u00adries to pay my way through col\u00adlege.\u201d He must have paid it sev\u00ader\u00adal times over, and he seemed to get more right than he got wrong. See more of Asi\u00admov\u2019s pre\u00addic\u00adtions in the links below.<\/p>\n

Note: An ear\u00adli\u00ader ver\u00adsion of this post appeared on our site in 2021.<\/p>\n

Relat\u00aded Con\u00adtent:<\/p>\n

Isaac Asi\u00admov Pre\u00addicts the Future of Civilization\u2013and Rec\u00adom\u00admends Ways to Ensure That It Sur\u00advives (1978)<\/a><\/p>\n

Free: Isaac Asimov\u2019s Epic Foun\u00adda\u00adtion Tril\u00ado\u00adgy Dra\u00adma\u00adtized in Clas\u00adsic Audio<\/a><\/p>\n

Isaac Asi\u00admov Pre\u00addicts in 1964 What the World Will Look Like Today<\/a><\/p>\n

Isaac Asi\u00admov Laments the \u201cCult of Igno\u00adrance\u201d in the Unit\u00aded States (1980)<\/a><\/p>\n

Josh Jones is a writer and musi\u00adcian based in Durham, NC.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 1980, Newsweek pub\u00adlished a can\u00adtan\u00adker\u00adous and sad\u00adly on-the-nose diag\u00adno\u00adsis of the Unit\u00aded States\u2019 \u201ccult of igno\u00adrance\u201d \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[146,85,46,411],"class_list":{"0":"post-177790","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}