The Machine Stops
Ratings65
Average rating4.1
AI, can you explain "The Machine to me please as I am too lazy to write a review...........
"The Machine Stops" delves into several profound and prescient themes:
Overreliance on Technology: The novella explores the dangers of becoming excessively dependent on technology to the point where it governs all aspects of human life. The Machine is both a provider and a controller, and humanity's reliance on it leads to their eventual downfall.
Isolation and Dehumanization: The story depicts a society where individuals live in isolation, rarely interacting in person. This separation leads to a loss of human connection and empathy, making people more machine-like in their behavior and interactions.
The Fragility of Civilization: Forster highlights how a seemingly advanced and stable society can quickly collapse when its foundational technology fails. The breakdown of the Machine exposes the vulnerability and unsustainable nature of such a civilization.
Rebellion and Individualism: Kuno's character represents the spirit of rebellion and the desire to reclaim individual autonomy and experience the world beyond the Machine. His quest for freedom and truth contrasts sharply with the complacency of those who accept the Machine's dominance.
Nature vs. Artificiality: The novella contrasts the artificial, sterile environment of the Machine with the natural world that Kuno seeks to rediscover. This theme underscores the importance of maintaining a connection with the natural environment.
"The Machine Stops" serves as a cautionary tale about the potential consequences of technological advancement without consideration for its impact on human relationships, individuality, and society as a whole. It's remarkable how many of these themes remain relevant in today's world.
Thank You, AI.
لم أجد العبارات الكافية لأصف عبقرية فروستر و حدة تبصره بما يخفيه تطور البشرية لنا. قصة خطها فورستر في عام 1909 و كأنها تحكي واقعنا مع التكنولوجيا الآن.
من شدة اعجابي بهذه الرواية، وصل بي الأمر أني أزعجت من حولي. فأحكي لهم عنها دون خوض في تفاصيلها لكن من باب مشاركة ما تطرب إليه النفس. لكل من يستهويه مستقبل البشرية، قد تكون هذه القصة بداية شيقة.
I did not find enough words to describe Froster's genius and the sharpness of his insight into what human evolution hides for us. A story written by Forster in 1909 as if it tells our reality with technology now. Because of my great admiration for this novel, it came to the point that I annoyed those around me. So I tell them about it without going into its details, but for the sake of sharing what the soul desires. For anyone interested in the future of humanity, this story could be an interesting start.
I came across E. M. Forster's novella, “The Machine Stops,” while looking for short titles my library could offer to help achieve my 2020 reading goal.
“A Room With A View” is in my top 50 books and was published in 1908, one year before “The Machine Stops.” In 1910, Forster published “Howard's End.” This novella, one of a future time and which humanity is generally isolated physically, while being connected via something like the Internet, lives underground after prior generations had contaminated the planet's upper surface. Forster's vision of the world in this book is all-too-familiar to those of us in pandemic 2020.
A major theme in this forward-looking work is humanism. Humans become reliant on and then deify The Machine, going so far as to forget that The Machine was created by man and eventually stops because man has forgotten how to tend to it. At its heart, characters like Kuno, who question single-/close-minded worship and who value personal connections, are the heroes.
It was very interesting to read this book not long after H. G. Wells' “The Time Machine;” some of the themes around colonialism, class, and humanism up here and both books, although in different ways.
‘The Machine,' they exclaimed, ‘feeds us and clothes us and houses us; through it we speak to one another, through it we see one another, in it we have our being. The Machine is the friend of ideas and the enemy of superstition: the Machine is omnipotent, eternal; blessed is the Machine.'
La mayor parte de la población ha perdido su habilidad para vivir en la superficie del planeta. Cada persona vive en una pequeña habitación bajo tierra en donde todas sus necesidades son proporcionadas por La Máquina, omnipotente y ubicua. Todo es igual para todos gracias a los avances de la ciencia. Los viajes se han vuelto prácticamente obsoletos: ¿para qué viajar si todo es igual en todos lados? El contacto físico es considerado algo innecesario y repulsivo, se comunican mediante una red global a través de un dispositivo que se asemeja a una tablet, en donde pueden visualizarse y escucharse. Cada individuo se especializa en un tema específico con el único objetivo de generar nuevas ideas, las cuales son planteadas mediante una red social de intercambio de conferencias. El castigo máximo es la indigencia, las personas son exiliadas y enviadas a la superficie a su propia suerte. Es una sociedad completamente dependiente de La Máquina; los nacimientos, el entretenimiento, la eutanasia... todo es controlado por ella.
Los esfuerzos del progreso no son en aras de la humanidad sino por y para La Máquina. La humanidad, en su intento por buscar la comodidad, se abre camino hacia el oscuro abismo de la decadencia. Pero La Máquina se detiene...
Me pregunto si Asimov obtuvo algo de inspiración de esta historia. La repugnancia hacia el contacto físico es muy similar a la sociedad que encuentra Elijah Baley en el planeta Solaria en “El sol desnudo”, y la decadencia sociotecnológica es fácilmente comparable con la de los Espaciales en toda su saga de robots. Wow. Cuesta trabajo creer que este relato fue escrito en los albores del siglo XX, allá por 1909, más o menos contemporáneo con H. G. Wells. Es de esas historias que hacen que te preguntes si algunos son realmente capaces de asomarse y ver el futuro. Increíblemente profética.
So amazing that a short story from over 100 years ago basically predicted the Internet and so many of the things we use it for today!
Yo, so this is basically our reality. Except (for now) we carry the machine (i.e. laptop) around a little bit. But there really is no point to this carrying around and I presume we'll stop doing that soon and just sit. But for now:
- I carry my laptop to work, where I then sit (or stand) and stare and peck at it for 9 hours.
- I carry it home, where I lounge and stare at it.
- I order my food from it.
- I get my jobs from it.
- I learn lots of things from it.
- I talk to my family and friends through it.
- I reminisce with it.
- I plan my life in it.
- I'm sitting and staring and pecking at it right now, for the ten gazillion millionth hour I seem to have done this in my waking life.
If there isn't something totally unnatural and unholy with this way of living - yeesh.
Anyway, this is a short story written before sci-fi Officially Began; but it's basically the ancestor to so many other stories which confront the anxiety of becoming big fleshy extensions to our screens. (The best of which, in my mind, is still M.T. Anderson's Feed.) People live underground, in pleasantly lit rooms surrounded by pleasant screens and buttons which feed them, inform them, and cater to their animal and spiritual needs. People are mostly preoccupied with “ideas” - making new ones, interpreting old ones - and one is immediately reminded of the great tides of roiling indignitude on Twitter in the Neverending Social Justice War, or the endless thinkpieces on Slate and Vox and AV Club about what last night's episode of fictional entertainment Means, in some faux philosophical sense. These underdwellers are also made incredibly anxious by “direct experience”, find the natural world ugly and boring, and have become hyper-specialized in their technological understanding: no one quite knows how the whole Machine works.
Hmmm.
So this is basically us, right now. The story follows an elderly lady whose son (the usual hero protagonist type) is a drone trying to break free of his dystopian shackles. She is horrified - as anyone with an older mom can imagine. He is a back-to-nature type who manages to visit the surface by clambering through a bunch of tunnels. He describes a moment (and I paraphrase) when all of his 1000 friends/followers and all his Internet memes are rendered small by his communion with nature: his gazing at some boring, ugly English hills. I was reminded of a similar feeling I had on a camping trip once: suddenly my computer - great source of joy and comfort and fascinating that it is - great holder of great minds like Turing and von Neumann - seemed small and stupid in comparison to, say, the food chain, or natural selection. Which means... I guess... we should all be biologists? And just marvel at the abundance of life on this planet, rather than having screens interpret them for us and being “passive subjects that contemplate the reified spectacle” (as Guy Debord would say)? I realize the irony of pecking all this into my screen! I realize, with horror, the rarity that “direct experience” has indeed become! Gaaaarghhhh.
Super roman d'anticipation, surtout pour un livre aussi vieux, visionnaire et un peu effrayant dans sa vision futuriste sur a quel point on peut se reposer sur des choses au point d'en oublier le fonctionnement.
Surprisingly futuristic for something written in 1909. Its themes have been heard before, time and time again - humankind versus a machine of their own creation, I guess - but 100+ years later the details remain fascinating. I also love the constant talk of “ideas” without any real ideas in sight. “Oh stop this talk, it gives me no ideas.”