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I love that story but the passage you quote is akin to answering a phone call and broadcasting a lecture. The Machine Stops is prescient in many ways but it doe
by codeulike 5y ago
I love that story but the passage you quote is akin to answering a phone call and broadcasting a lecture. The Machine Stops is prescient in many ways but it does not explore the ramifications of a world where anyone can publish
- Animats 5y ago"She knew several thousand people, in certain directions human intercourse had advanced enormously." That's the key line there. A more highly connected world, intermediated electrically.
- codeulike 5y agoOK thats something. But thats still not much like what we have today. Its like Forster extrapolated from his era and imagined people in the future having more aquaintances. But I don't 'know' any of the people I interact with online, or at least very few of them. Nonetheless meaningfull (and sometimes silly but entertaining) interactions occur.
- dTal 5y agoIt's difficult to capture in a single quote, but as the story progresses it is shown that society is basically structured around the creation and exchange of "ideas". It's not simply that people had more acquaintances - it's that the entirety of human existence has been reduced to swapping memes online, both one-to-one and one-to-many.