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Author Topic: Great sci-fi short story  (Read 1538 times)

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Offline Matthew

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Great sci-fi short story
« on: May 21, 2024, 02:11:34 AM »
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  • ...wanted. Gotcha!

    Seriously, I asked years ago, and I'm going to try again: does anyone know the name of a sci-fi short story that goes like this:

    Time travel is invented, but it can only snatch someone from the future and bring him BACK to the present. So this is done, and a single man is brought back in time. A huge meeting of world leaders and dignitaries is invoked, like a big UN meeting. The man is questioned on various things.

    The man says they have cured disease -- but he doesn't know the details. They have this and that gadget that do absolutely wonderful and magical things by our standards -- but he doesn't understand at all how they work.

    In the end, we get nothing from this future man, not enough to advance our technology or knowledge forward *one iota*.
    Because, the moral of the story is: technology is a huge edifice, a structure, that no one person owns or understands. And it's possible to *live in* and *enjoy* an advanced technological society without understanding even 1% of it.
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    Offline Matthew

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    Re: Great sci-fi short story
    « Reply #1 on: May 21, 2024, 02:34:25 AM »
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  • I tracked it down!

    Microcosmic Tales, edited by Isaac Asimov
    The short story is "Renaissance Man by T. E. D. Klein"

    Now if I could just get my hands on a copy of either!
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    Offline St Giles

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    Re: Great sci-fi short story
    « Reply #2 on: May 21, 2024, 05:14:00 AM »
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  • Star Trek had an episode where people lived with and served by their AI for so long that they forgot how it worked & how to fix it, and how to live without it when it malfunctions.
    "Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect."
    "Seek first the kingdom of Heaven..."
    "Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account for it in the day of judgment"