Wednesday, January 27, 2021
Isaac Azimov wrote a novel in 1957 called The Naked Sun, part of a trilogy (or, I guess, a tetralgy) about humanity several thousand years in the future. Earth is crowded, and people live in vast underground cities. Other people have moved to other planets, and because their planets are more lightly populated they have robots to do their work for them. Azimov sets out to create a series of locked door mysteries derived from this premise, combined with the Three Laws of Robotics. As literature I suppose they are no better or worse than a typical Agatha Christie, but The Naked Sun has been on my mind. The detective and his robot pal are dispatched to a planet where people only interact by way of 3D video. Personal contact is abhorrent to them. Sex is regarded as a disgusting necessity. I've always found this to be a clunky plot device: someone is killed, but it can't be the obvious suspect because that person can't stand being in the physical presence of another person. It can't be a robot, because robots are hardwired so that they can't harm people. And so on.
I just did my first Zoom deposition. It went fine, but I do not like lawyering this way.
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