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Arthur C. Clarke Talks With The Onion

Posted by timothy on from the 30-english-winters dept.

sootman writes "The Onion has an interview with Arthur C. Clarke in this week's issue. My favorite line: 'The asteroid [named after me] is number four thousand and something, and the International Astronomical Federation, which deals with these sorts of things and numbered it, apologized to me because number 2001 wasn't available, having been given to somebody named "A. Einstein."'" Reader ronys point out that Despite the source, the interview is not a spoof or satire."

20 of 375 comments (clear)

  1. Author's blog by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The interviewer's blog can be found here, for what it's worth.

  2. Believe it or not by Joe+U · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The Onion does have real interviews and a pretty good AV section.

    The print edition is like a reverse newspaper, with the comic section everywhere and a small non-comic center pull-out.

  3. Sufficiently advanced technology... by sbennett · · Score: 5, Funny

    he first created the popular axiom "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magick."

    Which of course leads to the corollary: "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."

    1. Re:Sufficiently advanced technology... by AllUsernamesAreGone · · Score: 5, Funny

      Or even the alternative observation from James Klass: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo."

    2. Re:Sufficiently advanced technology... by Noren · · Score: 5, Interesting
      To be much more pedantic, that is the contrapositive of Clarke's Third Law(1973), the popular axiom to which the grandparent referred.

      Clarke's Law(1962), which was later renamed Clarke's First Law, reads:

      When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right.
      When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
      It is perhaps relevant given the misattribution to Asimov earlier and the corollary reference of the grandparent to also mention Asimov' Corollary to Clarke's First Law (1978):
      When, however, the lay public rallies round an idea that is denounced by distinguished but elderly scientists and supports that idea with great fervor and emotion --
      the distinguished but elderly scientists are then, after all, probably right.
  4. Re:Isn't he getting old? by iamplupp · · Score: 5, Informative

    he was born december 16, 1917

  5. Irrelevant by Marxist+Commentary · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Clark is fascinating despite his age - we should treasure the elderly, there is much knowledge there to be gained, but all too often we simply shuffle them to the side like a pair of worn shoes. Enjoy his insights while you still can. He has some fascinating opinions on Martian life, for example.

    --

    Stop corporate

  6. You know you're both old and famous when... by darnok · · Score: 5, Funny

    you've written two autobiographies

  7. Fungus Eating Oregon by airConditionedGypsy · · Score: 5, Interesting
    In the article, Clarke mentions the "largest living creature" to be a fungus two or three miles across "eating Oregon."

    His word choice leads one to envision doom and death, and I was sufficiently motiviated to search for more info on this beastie.

    http://www.harpers.org/Oregon.html

    http://www.newhouse.com/archive/story1b080700.html

    Google search gets you more.

    on another topic: Anyone amazed at how many quotes this guy has stored up in his head?

    --
    I bootleg Fizzy Lifting Drinks.
  8. Great Quote from the Article by jsonic · · Score: 5, Interesting
    O: Another favorite quote you tend to bring up in interviews is, "If there are any gods whose chief concern is man, they can't be very important gods." Can you expound on that?

    ACC: [Laughs.] Well, I was rather a cynic once. But now I've combined all my beliefs into this phrase I've been circulating: "Religion is the most malevolent of all mind viruses." It's adapted from a phrase by the British writer and scientist Richard Dawkins, who said that religion was a mind virus, an idea that infected the mind. He said that not all mind-viruses are malignant; some may even be beneficial. But many are harmful--racist theories, for instance.

    1. Re:Great Quote from the Article by indianajones428 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      How about this one?

      "I'm very fond of the quote--I don't know who said it first--'The best proof that there's intelligent life in the universe is that it hasn't come here.'"

      Arthur C. Cleark quoting Bill Watterson....

      Very cool.

      --
      When a thing has been said, and said well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it. --Anatole France
    2. Re:Great Quote from the Article by drudd · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't think that he took an overly simplistic viewpoint... he mentions racism as another example of a "mind virus," so it seems to me that he's blaming such conflicts on exactly the type of segregationist thinking that you mention. A mind virus would naturally play to the desires of its host, i.e. the idea that one is superior to everyone else, otherwise it could never propagate.

      Doug

      --
      Venn ist das nurnstuck git und Slotermeyer? Ya! Beigerhund das oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
    3. Re:Great Quote from the Article by brucmack · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's different because it shifts accountability onto others. Being able to say "God told me to" makes it God's fault, whereas other excuses invariably come back to humans at some point.

  9. The 2,200 Acre Thousand Year Old Oregonian Fungus by blorg · · Score: 5, Informative
    Incidentally, have you heard about the discovery of the largest living creature on Earth? Would you believe it's two or three miles across, and probably several thousand years old, and still growing? It's this fungus that's eating Oregon. It's a single creature. I'm not quite sure how that's determined.

    I did a double take on this one too, but he seems to have his facts straight.

  10. Vegitation Photos Link by FlashBIOS · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Here is a link to the vegitation photos that he seems to be talking about. It also includes a breif description of what it might be

    My questions is, why hasn't this been bigger news? Did it come out and I just missed it?

  11. Re:gotta agree by rsidd · · Score: 5, Informative
    I almost wondered: did I miss a day of NASA releases where they casually announced that 'Oh, by the way... there's stuff growing on Mars'. I mean, I suppose it's possible that he was referring to debris that resembles decayed plant matter.

    I think he's talking about these images.

  12. Onion A.V. Club Interview Collection by FilmJr · · Score: 5, Informative

    This may well have already been mentioned but... The Onion A.V. Club (the serious side of the operation) published a collection of interviews similar to the Arthur Clarke one. Book is called THE TENACITY OF A COCKROACH and includes conversations with other pop culture movers & shakers like Harlan Ellison, Chuck Jones, and George Romero. Jr.

  13. Re:small article nitpick by Hiro+Antagonist · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Any sufficiently advanced incompetent is indistinguishable from magick violence."

    And there, in a nutshell, lies U.S. foreign policy.

    --

    --
    I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy .sig.
  14. A few real Arthur C. Clarke Quotations by stuffduff · · Score: 5, Informative

    CNN is one of the participants in the war. I have a fantasy where Ted Turner is elected president but refuses because he doesn't want to give up power.

    If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible he is almost certainly right, but if he says that it is impossible he is very probably wrong.

    It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value.

    Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories.

    The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.

    There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum.

    Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

    The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.

    --
    "Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
  15. Film Adaptation of "Fountains of Paradise"? by liftwatch · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I was particularly interested in the last couple of paragraphs, regarding a possible film adaptation of Fountains of Paradise, and the fact that Clarke considers that his best/favourite novel.

    Fountains was the first novel to incorporate the modern concept of a space elevator.

    Anyone heard anything else about this news item?

    Personally, I'm hoping for Steven Spielberg. He did a terrific job on Minority Report. Between that, AI, and Taken, he's definitely on a sci-fi roll lately.