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Post by kungfuzu on Jun 25, 2023 20:24:05 GMT -8
The Machine Stops is a short story written by E. M. Forster originally published in 1909. It deals with the earth sometime in the future when everyone lives underground with all needs taken care of. Technology has come so far as to make everywhere across the planet the same. People have the same desks, the same chairs, the same beds and communicate across the world with the same technology. There are two characters, Vashti and her son Kuno. Vashti apparently lives around Sumatra and Kuno somewhere in England. One day Kuno contacts Vashti and demands she visit him. As humans have become very sedentary and isolated in their "homes" Vashti finds this a disagreeable request from Kuno. In the end, she acquiesces and taking a flying machine, which sounds much like a modern day jet, to England. When she gets there Kuno tells her he has been outside, i.e. on the surface of the earth and it wasn't as bad as they had been told. This upsets Vashti no end. She warns Kuno that he was taking big chances and had better stop the nonsense. She departs for Sumatra immediately and has no more contact with Kuno even though he is moved to a cubical near hers in Sumatra. Some time later he contacts her and tells her that the machine is stopping. She scoffs and ignores him. Yet, slowly things start to change. Her electronics stop working correctly. Food starts being poorly prepared. The contacts between others stop working. Things start to smell. The authorities tell everyone that "Its OK." And of course, the majority of people, brainwashed as they are, go along until things fall apart. In the end, Vashti is forced out of her apartment into the tunnel connecting hers with other apartments. It is full of frantic people who don't know what to do. She finds Kuno there and he tells her that there is no hope for them, but there are people on the surface who will, after much struggle and effort, rebuild things and humanity will survive. "The Machine Stops" is a quick read which is most notable for its predicting technologies very similar to those we presently have. It is also prescient in its depiction of how mindless mankind becomes in its pursuit of science and comfort. How religion is discarded as superstition until it is needed in another guise. I knew Forster from "A Passage to India" and "Howard's End" so I was somewhat surprised he wrote science fiction as well. But I was not disappointed with "The Machine Ends" and can recommend it as a good story to read on a cold winter's night. Or on a hot summer's night for that matter.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 26, 2023 8:26:04 GMT -8
Was this short story anticipating modern-day San Francisco?
I'll try to check it out and report back.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jun 26, 2023 9:03:35 GMT -8
Although the Amazon page shows the Kindle book costing $2.99, I got if for free through Amazon Free Kindle Classics. Don't pay them anything you don't need to.  |
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 26, 2023 10:15:27 GMT -8
I found a pdf copy online and have read 5 of the 25 pages so far. |
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 27, 2023 9:01:14 GMT -8
That's the danger of the government schools and establishment media. Most people do not notice the noise anymore.
I thought this was a good bit of literature:
And the writer has anticipated the cell phone and Apple, Facebook, Google, and others as the machine:
I'm not sure what to take away from this short story. I suppose this is the world toward which the Karens are taking us. Everyone safe in a cubicle (hexagonal though it is) where it considered the highest degree of impoliteness to touch another person.
And here's where the government school system, the media, and "social" media are taking us:
Joe Biden isn't senile. Trump isn't an ass:
San Francisco. Seattle. Portland. Chicago. The machine of the Democrat Party can do no wrong:
This could be written about the people biding their time in the Red States or the Red Rural Counties as they watch the great machines of the cities disintegrate:
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Post by kungfuzu on Jun 27, 2023 10:44:20 GMT -8
I was impressed with Forster's deep understanding of humanity and foresight as regards technology. He saw how the two would interact to the detriment of mankind and, one could say to the Machine. Humanity had become so degraded and dependent on the Machine, that it could not even maintain the Machine. Degeneracy writ large.
He laid out his thesis with a straightforward story. There was nothing tricky or fancy about it, which unusual for such stories.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 27, 2023 15:08:22 GMT -8
Yes, it's definitely that. The tech can always be a danger. But in some respects, when man first sharpened a long stick, he brought both good and evil onto himself. He could feed himself easier but he could also make war easier. It's that old adage that technology isn't bad, per se. It depends upon what we use it for.
I do wonder given the dumbing-down effect of government schools and the state-aligned media if we won't reach the point where we can no longer repair the machines. Certainly China will continue to offer up its services in manufacturing know-how even as our corporations' main interests seems to be in putting weirdos on beer cans.
Technology is always a case of what use we put it. What I think is interesting about the story (and about our reality) is that it isn't the technology that is the problem. It is that the ease it offers people tends to lead to a re-orientation toward government from a protector of liberties and rights to a dispenser of comforts. And that path surely can lead to something resembling this short story.
That is certainly the leap we are making and the leap that was highlighted using bold excesses (but perhaps believable) in the story. The KFF lockdowns (and the willingness to do so) show that it's not a completely unbelievable leap that we may one day be in our hexagonal rooms. But it's likely in this scenario that we'll be immersed in virtual-reality gaming whereby (as we see now in large numbers of yutes) going outside into the real world lacks appeal, as it did in the world of this story.
The author also brings religion into this, although that was, I think, his weakest and most muddled point. "Religion" to the intelligentsia becomes like the way the word "fascism" is used today. It's blamed for all the world's ills or simply the refuge for muddled minds.
As I believe, it depends upon the tenets of one's religion, not whether a religion exists or not. And that was beyond the scope of what this author did or could say. But some of the points and characterizations that he did make, I thought were good ones. I couldn't help but see the prototypical "Karen" in that guy's mother.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jun 27, 2023 16:12:52 GMT -8
I believe the "ease" is a fundamental problem. I do believe I mentioned this before that a very basic lesson I learned from my studies in Germany and Austria is that man needs some sort of struggle to find self-worth. One has to try to achieve something, and the trying has to be difficult. What's the old saying, "nothing in this world that's worth having comes easy"? That doesn't mean dying of starvation, because the struggle is so difficult, is great. It means that it is healthy to have an idea of self worth which is based on something which one has achieved/worked for.
For anyone who doubts this, I suggest you take some time to study the handicapped. These unfortunate people. more often that not, eagerly want to help and make themselves useful. They want to make a contribution to society.
Having to struggle also gives one a sense of reality, because nobody succeeds all the time.
I agree, but didn't find it too big a failure because the subject is huge and I am not sure it could have been addressed with any serious consideration in so short a story.
After I finished this short story, Clarke's "Childhood's End" came to mind. I honestly think this short story has more to say that Clarke's book. Certainly, given the time it took to read each tale, there is no doubt in my mind that my time was much better spent (return on investment so to speak) reading "The Machine Ends" than "Childhood's End."
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 27, 2023 18:27:49 GMT -8
Re: Ease
With food, shelter, and clothing readily available and secure – due to technology and the free political structures and cultural habits that support it – many (most?) have taken on leisure and recreation as their Meaning of Life.
If porn is the #1 activity on the internet, I would imagine a close second is sharing one's leisure activities on "social" media.
Much like the lords and ladies of old who might wear blue because that was an expensive dye and thus set them apart and above, I believe that when people share their leisure photos and info on Facebook or wherever, many are making the same sort of statement: See, I have leisure.
Isn't France on the vanguard of trying to create the leisure society with reduced hours mandated and all that? I don't know all the particulars, but it makes anyone with the good, old, Yankee work ethic astounded. There are still people (such as yourself) who understand the necessity of work and purpose – and even a certain amount of struggle.
The Star Trek ideal (hinted at in both the original series and the second one) describes an Earth where no one had to work. Everyone was free to pursue whatever hobbies "fulfilled" them. This is precisely the vision Nancy Pelosi has.
Also in this Star Trek universe, they had dispensed with using money. So the idea is that, freed from the onerous task of feeding, housing, and clothing oneself, a Utopia would naturally rise.
I don't believe it would. I do believe that when the farmer got his first tractor that it changed his life for the better. And we all take wonderful advantage of so-called labor-saving devices. But the truth is, these are actually efficiency devices. Did the farmer simply put in 4 hours a day instead of 12? No, he either planted more acres and/or he used his extra time to craft other salable items (or services). And most are still working 8 hours a day (which in itself is a sign of a leisure-based society). And the more successful ones probably much more.
What we are witnessing now is a bubble, and the biggest one this nation (or world) has ever seen. People are trying to live the Star Trek utopian universe of leisure. They are retiring earlier. Working less. And post-KFF, there are still legions of people not working at all because they are being paid not to.
I don't know all the financial particulars. Surely every retirement fund manager (for private or public employees) will tell you that their finances are in order to pay out these early and quite rich retirements. But I believe that this, and more, is part of what is being financed via our national debt. We are trying to give everyone that Star Trek universe. And, yes, there are obviously other and more devious motives. But a big one is simply "bread and circuses for all."
And this, to use a buzzword, is unsustainable. We don't all live in hexagonal cubicals, But we are all tied to this vast Big Government machine. And when it collapses (and it will), many will be left just like those people dying in the underground corridors of the story. Those (mostly) rural folks who are preparing with stockpiles of food and ammunition aren't kooks. They see the same thing coming.
No one knows when our machine will stop working. But it will stop working at some point. Look at our president and tell me this isn't a sign of a failing machine. Look at the "homeless" encampments. Look at the Weirdo parades. There are signs all around us that the machine is broken.
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