Okamgnienie is the most recent of Lem's books. It contains essays similar to those contained in Summa Technologiae, Tajemnica Chinskiego Pokoju and Bomba Megabitowa.

  Okamgnienie was not translated to English.

  The confrontation of my idealistic futurological ideas with reality somewhat resembles a crash. Things that I dreamed of were not created, instead the world chose what I considered feasible and what turned out to be profitable. We did not take from the future what could have been more beautiful, what would made more sense and be more exciting, what would make us better - but what to the rich seemed more profitable and for what young people working for advertising agencies had better marketing ideas. Forty years ago I tried to imagine the world in the year 2000. In my vision people knew about as much as we know now - but they were doing something entirely different.

  This means that from many possibilities technology and knowledge created we always chose a rather small part - that determined our next choices. Hence our criteria of choice were different from what I imagined some half a century ago - we did not choose what was more beautiful and useful, we chose what was simply more profitable.

Bibliography

• Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2000