What would eternal life mean if you had no say in how you spent it?

In Isaac Asimov’s “The Last Answer,” physicist Murray Templeton dies and finds himself speaking to an intelligence that has preserved his mind. It understands his objections. It can explain why he exists. But Murray’s wishes have very little to do with what it has planned for him.

Today, I’m looking at one of Asimov’s most unsettling visions of the afterlife: why the Voice needs human minds, what its power actually allows it to know, and how Murray responds to an existence he never agreed to. I also return to Robert Charles Wilson’s “Divided by Infinity” and Asimov’s “The Last Question,” both of which I’ve covered before.

This video discusses the full story, including its ending.

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Originally published on YouTube: 2026-10-16.
Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aG35Nuawcls

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This discussion will have some spoilers for Dune books 1-4.

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Originally published on YouTube: 2026-09-15.
Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ypxa-chht0

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There are easier ways to destroy a civilization than invading it.
That is the central idea behind The Screwfly Solution. The story is about a global outbreak of violence against women, but the real subject is vulnerability. Biological vulnerability. The possibility that somewhere inside the machinery of human behavior there is a switch that can be tampered with, and that changing that one thing could bring down the entire species.

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Hyperion Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRXGGVBzHLUfgKLf-CBr5VCC2xM0qX8Xh
Dune Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRXGGVBzHLUdsgN_vFaZmfjc6bXxPqajV
Foundation Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRXGGVBzHLUeQMsBkZJ72aIIG8nR-No6J

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Originally published on YouTube: 2026-09-13.
Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3X_kYusW0vg

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