"Heinlein, Robert A - The Worlds Of Robert A Heinlein" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

The greatest crisis facing us is not Russia, not the Atom bomb, not
corruption in government, not encroaching hunger, nor the morals of young.
It is a crisis in the organization and accessibility of human knowledge. We
own an enormous "encyclopedia" Ч which isn't even arranged alphabetically.
Our "file cards" are spilled on the floor, nor were they ever in order. The
answers we want may be buried somewhere in the heap, but it might take a
lifetime to locate two already known facts, place them side by side and
derive a third fact, the one we urgently need.

Call it the Crisis of the Librarian.

We need a new "specialist who is not a specialist, but a synthesist. (n) We
need a new science to be the perfect secretary to all other sciences.

But we are not likely to get either one in a hurry and we have a powerful
lot of grief before us in the meantime.

Fortune-tellers can always be sure of repeat customers by predicting what
the customer wants to hear . . . it matters not whether the prediction
comes true. Contrariwise, the weatherman is often blamed for bad weather.

Brace yourself.

In 1900 the cloud on the horizon was no bigger than a man's hand Ч but what
lay ahead was the Panic of 1907, World War I, the panic following it, the
Depression, Fascism, World War II, the Atom Bomb, and Red Russia.

Today the clouds obscure the sky, and the wind that overturns the world is
sighing in the distance.

The period immediately ahead will be the roughest, cruelest one in the
long, hard history of mankind. It will probably include the worst World War
of them all. It might even end with a war with Mars, God save the mark!
Even if we are spared that fantastic possibility, it is certain that there
will be no security anywhere, save what you dig out of your own inner
spirit.



But what of that picture we drew of domestic luxury and tranquillity for
Mrs. Middleclass, style 2000 A.D.?

She lived through it. She survived.

Our prospects need not dismay you, not if you or your kin were at Bloody
Nose Ridge, at Gettysburg Ч or trudged across the Plains. You and I are
here because we carry the genes of uncountable ancestors who fought Ч and
won Ч against death in all its forms. We're tough. We'll survive. Most of
us.