The age of the pulp magazine was the last in which youngsters, to get their primitive material, were forced to be literate.
Interpretation
Literacy was essential for young people to engage with the pulp magazines of the past.
Isaac Asimov reflects on a time when pulp magazines required readers, particularly the youth, to be literate to access various narratives and information. This highlights the critical role that reading and literacy played in shaping the perspectives and knowledge of younger generations, as they sought enjoyment and understanding through print media.
In practice
Using this quote during a literacy campaign to emphasize the importance of reading.
Democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, but it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies.
Science does not promise absolute truth, nor does it consider that such a thing necessarily exists. Science does not even promise that everything in the Universe is amenable to the scientific process.
Democracy cannot survive overpopulation.
Although the time of death is approaching me, I am not afraid of dying and going to Hell or (what would be considerably worse) going to the popularized version of Heaven. I expect death to be nothingness and, for removing me from all possible fears of death, I am thankful to atheism.
A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great value.
During the century after Newton, it was still possible for a man of unusual attainments to master all fields of scientific knowledge. But by 1800, this had become entirely impracticable.
School is a twelve-year jail sentence where bad habits are the only curriculum truly learned.
In many professions, what used to matter most were abilities associated with the left side of the brain: linear, sequential, spreadsheet kind of faculties. Those still matter, but they're not enough.
Schools stifle family originality by appropriating the critical time needed for any sound idea of family to develop - then they blame the family for its failure to be a family.
And read⦠read all the time⦠read as a matter of principle, as a matter of self-respect. Read as a nourishing staple of life.
If you invest in a girl or a woman, you are investing in everybody else.
What could be more important than equipping the next generation with the character and competence they need to become successful
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