What triggers the Machine to Stop? I try not to imagine what would happen to our world if a massive solar storm shut down our electrical and/or communication networks for weeks. Especially as we integrate more and more of our tools, machines and commerce on to them.
You don’t want me to spoil it, so you? If the answer is “sure!” then keep reading… Nothing in particular, as far as we know, causes the Machine to malfunction. There’s just a little glitch. And another. And the automatic process that fixes glitches doesn’t work. So the glitches multiply and get worse. Basically, people have ceased to understand the Machine and how it operates so they are helpless when it ceases to fix and run itself.
Looking, in retirement, at the library I spent a life building ( http://brander.ca/library/ ), I wonder what I will get back to, since I still love reading new things. You just had me twig that "The Machine Stops" guy also wrote Room with a View. Whoa! I read "Machine" as a kid, scared me silly. As I look back over all those novels, I note how many I don't remember any plot or message from, whereas "Machine" sticks out in every detail, I remember passages 50 years later, about her closing the blinds on the aircraft, no ideas from looking at mountains below. What is WRONG with her, I wondered.
(On the other hand, sometimes you want reading that's just a non-affecting story you'll forget in six weeks. Describes most of the Marvel movies.)
Mercifully, I think our Zoom Years have only highlighted the need for human contact. I wonder if Asimov ever credited Forster for his vision in "The Naked Sun", of humanity divided into individuals by thousands of robot servants. (A later sequel in the Foundation series clarifies it goes on being a terrible dystopia for thousands of years).
Wells was critiquing capitalism, as always, and "Machine" has some of those values. Who has the incentive to divide humanity up into individuals that can only interact through infrastructure? Those who run the infrastructure. No government wanted us to depend on Facebook and "content corporations" for news and human contact, it was all done for profit.
Fantastic, especially now in light of AI technology. We have become victims of the Covid isolation and fears along with other health issues. We're readers and computer addicts, so we don't find it problematic - mostly. We've confessed to preferring e-mail coversations, rather than telephone ones, as we can do those at our leisure. Many odd little things that now terrify me! I don't know if I should thank you.
"The Machine Stops" was reprinted in the inaugural edition of Whole Earth Review (January 1985), which is available via the Internet Archive:
https://archive.org/details/wholeearthreview00unse/page/40/mode/2up
The Wikipedia entry for Whole Earth Review:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_Earth_Review
I read this story over fifty years ago. It was hard to imagine what Vashti's world was like, but we are seeing it.
What triggers the Machine to Stop? I try not to imagine what would happen to our world if a massive solar storm shut down our electrical and/or communication networks for weeks. Especially as we integrate more and more of our tools, machines and commerce on to them.
You don’t want me to spoil it, so you? If the answer is “sure!” then keep reading… Nothing in particular, as far as we know, causes the Machine to malfunction. There’s just a little glitch. And another. And the automatic process that fixes glitches doesn’t work. So the glitches multiply and get worse. Basically, people have ceased to understand the Machine and how it operates so they are helpless when it ceases to fix and run itself.
What an eerie-sounding story.
Looking, in retirement, at the library I spent a life building ( http://brander.ca/library/ ), I wonder what I will get back to, since I still love reading new things. You just had me twig that "The Machine Stops" guy also wrote Room with a View. Whoa! I read "Machine" as a kid, scared me silly. As I look back over all those novels, I note how many I don't remember any plot or message from, whereas "Machine" sticks out in every detail, I remember passages 50 years later, about her closing the blinds on the aircraft, no ideas from looking at mountains below. What is WRONG with her, I wondered.
(On the other hand, sometimes you want reading that's just a non-affecting story you'll forget in six weeks. Describes most of the Marvel movies.)
Mercifully, I think our Zoom Years have only highlighted the need for human contact. I wonder if Asimov ever credited Forster for his vision in "The Naked Sun", of humanity divided into individuals by thousands of robot servants. (A later sequel in the Foundation series clarifies it goes on being a terrible dystopia for thousands of years).
Wells was critiquing capitalism, as always, and "Machine" has some of those values. Who has the incentive to divide humanity up into individuals that can only interact through infrastructure? Those who run the infrastructure. No government wanted us to depend on Facebook and "content corporations" for news and human contact, it was all done for profit.
Fantastic, especially now in light of AI technology. We have become victims of the Covid isolation and fears along with other health issues. We're readers and computer addicts, so we don't find it problematic - mostly. We've confessed to preferring e-mail coversations, rather than telephone ones, as we can do those at our leisure. Many odd little things that now terrify me! I don't know if I should thank you.
Wasn’t aware of this interesting book. And from the costume king English writer.
The book’s premise seems like the angle Irish writer Paul Kingsnorth takes today.
Downloading the book right now and it's on my immediate to read list. Thanks so much, this is amazing.