Tuesday, March 18, 2008
ARTHUR C. CLARKE
 I knew it had to happen some day ... Arthur C. Clarke is dead at age 90. I can't overstate the influence Clarke had on me. In many ways, he was the first person to really open up my mind.
Clarke saw it all. And he knew how it would go, if we would just not be so stupid as to kill ourselves off first. Here's a link to a post I made to a mailing list back in 1996 about what may be the most moving thing he ever wrote - at least for me.
What a loss ... There was a time, ten years ago and more, when I thought Clarke might actually "make it" -- might just survive long enough to live into a time when progress in anti-aging technology would have advanced to the point that he might live to see more than just the most mundane of his visions come to pass. But he didn't -- like Moses, he could see the Promised Land, but was fated to not enter it.
... there's another possibility ... but I haven't heard anything to indicate he ever took the final steps to take advantage of it, although there was good evidence he took some of the first steps.
Anyway, words can't express how empty I feel over the passing of Arthur C. Clarke -- he saw farther, first, and he showed me.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 6:05 PM
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