[00:00.00]Unit Eight  Text
[00:23.82]Would you choose to live underground if you could gain many advantages from doing so?
[00:29.15]Wheather would no longer trouble you.
[00:31.29]Temperature would remain the same all the year round.
[00:34.72]Arificial lighting could make the rhythm of our life uniform everywhere.
[00:39.55]And the ecology of the natural world above ground would be greatly improved.
[00:44.72]Still,the prospect of moving underground may not be appealing to many people.
[00:50.39]THE NEW CAVES   Isaac Asimov
[00:54.62]During the ice ages,human beings exposed to the colder temperatures of the time
[00:59.79]would often make their homes in caves.
[00:58.79]There they found greater comfort and security than they would have in the open
[01:03.97]We still live in caves called houses,again for comfort and security.
[01:08.90]Virtually no one would willingly sleep on the ground under the stars.
[01:13.84]Is it possible that someday we may seek to add further to our comfort and security
[01:19.61]by building our houses underground --in new,manmade caves?
[01:24.45]It may not seem a palatable suggestion,at first thought.
[01:29.10]We have so many evil associations with the underground.
[01:32.94]In our myths and legends,
[01:34.69]the underground is the realm of evil spirits and of the dead,
[01:38.06]and is often the location of an afterlife of torment.
[01:41.90](This may be because dead bodies are buried underground,
[01:45.32]and because volcanic eruptions make the underground
[01:48.90]appear to be a hellish place of fire and noxious gases.)
[01:53.31]Yet there are advantages to underground life,too,
[01:57.05]and something to be said for imagining whole cities,
[01:58.96]even mankind generally,moving downward;
[02:02.25]of having the outermost mile of the Earth's crust
[02:05.80]honeycombed with passages and structures,like a gigantic ant hill.
[02:10.63]First,weather would no longer be important,
[02:14.00]since it is primarily a phenomenon of the atmosphere.
[02:19.54]Rain,snow,sleet,fog would not trouble the underground world.
[02:23.88]Even temperature variations're limited to the open surface and would not exist underground
[02:30.22]Whether day or night,summeror winter,
[02:29.22]temperatures in the underground world would remain equable and nearly constant.
[02:34.27]The vast amounts of energy now expended in warming our surface surroundings
[02:39.44]when they are too cold
[02:40.69]and cooling them when they are too warm,could be saved.
[02:44.45]The damage done to manmade structures
[02:47.20]and to human beings by weather would be gone.
[02:50.46]Transportation over local distances would be simplified.
[02:54.22](Earthquakes would remain a danger,of course.)
[02:57.28]Second,local time would no longer be important.
[03:01.64]On the surface,the tyranny of day and night cannot beavoided,
[03:05.25]and when it is morning in one place,it is noon in another,
[03:08.59]evening in still another and midnightin yet another.
[03:07.59]The rhythm of human life therefore varies from place to place.
[03:11.48]Underground,where there is no externally produced day,
[03:15.17]but only perpetual darkness,
[03:17.13]it would be arificial lighting that produces the day
[03:20.08]and this could be adjusted to suit man's convenience.
[03:23.39]to be continued
[03:26.29]Unit Eight  Text (Continued)
[03:30.92]The whole world could be on eight-hour shifts,
[03:34.65]starting and ending on the stroke everywhere,
[03:37.21]at least as far as business and community endeavors were concerned.
[03:41.26]This could be important in a freely mobile world.
[03:44.53]Air transportation over long distances would no longer have to entail"jet lag."
[03:49.60]Individuals landing on another coast or another continent
[03:53.04]would find the society they reached
[03:55.19]geared to the same time of day as at home.
[03:58.24]Third,the ecological structure could be stabilized.
[04:02.11]To a certain extent,mankind encumbers the Earth.
[04:05.79]It is not only his enormous numbers that take up room;
[04:09.34]more so,it is all the structures he builds to house himself and his machines,
[04:14.49]to make possible his transportation and communication,
[04:18.23]to offer him rest and recreation.
[04:20.81]All these things distort the wild,
[04:23.11]depriving many species of plants and animals of their natural habitat--
[04:27.37]and sometimes,involunt arily,
[04:29.59]favoring a few,such as rats and roaches.
[04:32.67]If the works of man were removed below ground--
[04:36.22]and,mind you,below the level of the natural world of the burrowing animals--
[04:39.52]man would still occupy the surface with his farms,his forestry,
[04:43.96]his observation towers,his air terminals and so on,
[04:47.93]but the extent of that occupation would be enormously decreased.
[04:52.76]Indeed,as one imagines the underground world to become increasingly elaborate,
[04:58.22]one can visualize much of the food supply
[05:00.99]eventually deriving from hydroponic growth in artificially illuminated areas underground.
[05:07.44]The Earth's surface might be increasingly turned over to park and to wilderness,
[05:12.40]maintained at ecological stability.
[05:15.36]Fourth,nature would be closer.
[05:18.54]It might seem that to withdraw underground is to withdraw from the natural world,
[05:23.79]but would that be so?
[05:23.90]Would the withdrawal be more complete than it is now,
[05:27.16]when so many people work in city buildings that are often windowless
[05:31.32]and artificially conditioned?
[05:33.46]Even where there are windows,what is the prospect one views(if one bother to)
[05:39.10]but sun,sky,and buildings to the horizon--plus some limited greenery?
[05:44.51]And to get away from the city now?
[05:46.99]To reach the real countryside?
[05:49.05]One must travel horizontally for miles,
[05:52.42]first across city pavements and then across suburban sprawls.
[05:56.81]In an underworld culture,the countryside would be right there,
[06:01.96]a few hundred yards above the upper level of the cities--wherever you are.
[06:06.92]The surface would have to be protected from too frequent,
[06:10.29]or too intense,or too careless visiting,
[06:13.24]but however carefully restricted the upward trips might be,
[06:17.53]the chances are that the dwellers of the new caves would see more greenery,
[06:22.46]under ecologically healthier conditions,
[06:25.15]than dwellers of surface cities do today.
[06:27.92]However odd and repulsive underground living may seem at first thought,
[06:32.81]there are things to be said for it --and I haven't even said them all.
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