I’ve been reading, Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction by Alec Nevala-Lee. It’s a sort of group-bio of the invention of modern science fiction starting in the 1930s https://amzn.to/2VAgCTD
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The book is competent though a bit sloppy. Could be better, but does the job I was looking for it to do. I’m mainly reading it because it’s sort of the only one out there about this weird modern invention of an entire genre.
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You realize, reading the story of these 4 inventing modern science fiction around a cheap magazine (Astounding) that when the time is ripe, a fairly random, marginal, not very special group can shake the world. They were just the right people in the right place at the right time
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I got the feeling, which I do NOT get reading biographies of famous scientists or mathematicians, “shit, I could have played the role of one of these 4 in a slightly alternate universe.” It’s astounding (heh!) the extent to which the fact that it was these 4 was mostly chance.
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They were talented in various ways, and high-energy, but clearly each realized they’d just been cast into their roles at a moment when history was overwhelmingly going to make a thing happen. They were kinda regular guys who rose to a challenge and opportunity. Not Chosen Ones.
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This is very encouraging for those of us who think we’re fairly mediocre and normal (or at least normally deviant) people. I personally think most fields of exceptional accomplishment require a mix or exceptional/unique circumstances AND exceptional/unique ability. But not all.
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Which is not to say any random set of 4 people could have done what they did. But there were almost certainly a few hundred people around at the time who might have ended up being The Ones. Unlike say Einstein’s discoveries where perhaps 5-6 others were contenders at the time.
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To put it another way, if Einstein hadn’t happened, there’s a good chance relativity wouldn’t have happened till decades later. But if these 4 hadn’t happened, science fiction would totally still have happened, right on schedule. Just with different initial condition biases.
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Relativity is understood by everyone who misunderstands each other, because they think they’ve heard it before
Reality is relative, because internal experience is *real*. It is closest to us
If Einstein & friends hadn’t got it
our hearts might have
It’s about inner spirit 
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