Prometheus 6

I can totally relate. I was a huge Foundation fan myself, and I'm sure it influenced my decision to study economics. When I was a child, the Foundation series was a fantasy about the power of knowledge. As I grew, it became a lesson about of the limits of knowledge. The people who run our financial system (and most economists) could benefit from an understanding of that.

What stuck with me was some of the aphorisms attributed to the first Mayor of Foundation City. In particular (rough paraphrase) "Never let your morality stop you from doing the right thing."

between the Foundation Trilogy, the Dorsai series, and R. Heinlein, i figure that my political viewpoint has been screwed for a long time.

A Wrinkle in Time probably screwed mine. A. E. van Vogt's Slan and Heinlein's Have Spacesuit, Will Travel got me too. I was saved, I think, by Bester's The Stars My Destination...it's prolly good I was an adult when I read The Demolished Man.

I read the Foundation Trilogy when I was about 13 or 14 and all of the political, economic and sociological insights referenced in the above comments sailed right over my head at the time. I read so many science fiction and comic books while I was in junior high and high school that by the time my generation began discovering science fiction and comic books during their college years I literally couldn't read any of it anymore. Sometimes I wish that the public and school librarians had interceded rather than let me read whatever I wanted when I wanted.