On March 18, the science and sci-fi legend target="blank">Arthur C. Clarke died, which is a sad
passing for us all. Clarke codified the future through a series of
scientific and literary experiments that will never pass as he has.
They will endure, mostly because they realize the utter singularity of
the human race over time, from its earliest manifestations to its
later, terrorized forms.
Instead, we have panic in the streets from globalization of another
kind, and our eyes are more glued to our inner spaces than our outer
ones. But even Clarke had hope we would pull out of it, as Clarke's
friend Harlan Ellison told me by phone, in his own patently cranky
way. (I wrote more on that conversation href="http://www.wired.com/culture/art/news/2008/03/clarke_elegy"
target="blank">at Wired.) Clarke knew the human race would realize
how absolutely lucky it is to be living at all in the void of space,
much less living together in harmony on Earth.
From his prescience on satellites to the immortality that is style="font-weight: bold;">href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey_%28film%29"
target="blank">2001: A Space Odyssey and beyond, he always
had his mind and art on something bigger than all of us -- and
himself, the ever-gracious but still droll wit, who never wanted to
stop growing. We could learn lessons from his work that would last us
centuries. And we could start learning them tomorrow, days after he
died.