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I’ve never read it but I did look up the Wikipedia summary after your comment. I don’t see the similarity? It’s a dystopia run by a maniacal computer and every

I’ve never read it but I did look up the Wikipedia summary after your comment. I don’t see the similarity? It’s a dystopia run by a maniacal computer and everyone is forced to live underground until the machine collapses for some reason?

pixl97 15d ago
Climate change and killer drones run amok on the surface doesn't actually seem that far fetched now.
palmotea 14d ago
> I don’t see the similarity? It’s a dystopia run by a maniacal computer and everyone is forced to live underground until the machine collapses for some reason? I read that same summary. The similarity is pretty clear: the first step was letting a machine take over all economic and intellectual functions, leaving humanity useless and dependent it. We're talking about taking that step too.
- Chance-Device 14d ago
  That’s a pretty shallow resemblance.
- int_19h 14d ago
  The question, of course, is why should it inevitably lead to that kind of world, rather than The Culture? Or, to give a more realistic and likely example, something like the Colligatarch from Alan Dean Foster's "The I Inside".
zkiihne 14d ago
Player Piano seems more apt
cma 13d ago
I was thinking more about this part > Everything therefore becomes a hobby or a game. People do things because they enjoy them for their own sake, or because they are endeavours used as vehicles to socialise and enjoy others’ company, or because a shared social belief exists and is cultivated such that doing such and such a thing confers social status. And the mother in the story: > Vashti is content with her life, which, like most inhabitants of the world, she spends producing and endlessly discussing second-hand 'ideas'. She enjoys talking to friends but uses her work to defend herself against their invitations to be more social, remaining in her ‘room’ where all her basic needs are met. She's basically something like an academic reduced to something more like wikipedia researcher while something else has the first-hand ideas, communicating with her circle through facetime/vision pro persona.

pixl97 15d ago

Climate change and killer drones run amok on the surface doesn't actually seem that far fetched now.

palmotea 14d ago

> I don’t see the similarity? It’s a dystopia run by a maniacal computer and everyone is forced to live underground until the machine collapses for some reason? I read that same summary. The similarity is pretty clear: the first step was letting a machine take over all economic and intellectual functions, leaving humanity useless and dependent it. We're talking about taking that step too.

Chance-Device 14d ago
That’s a pretty shallow resemblance.
int_19h 14d ago
The question, of course, is why should it inevitably lead to that kind of world, rather than The Culture? Or, to give a more realistic and likely example, something like the Colligatarch from Alan Dean Foster's "The I Inside".

zkiihne 14d ago

Player Piano seems more apt

cma 13d ago

I was thinking more about this part > Everything therefore becomes a hobby or a game. People do things because they enjoy them for their own sake, or because they are endeavours used as vehicles to socialise and enjoy others’ company, or because a shared social belief exists and is cultivated such that doing such and such a thing confers social status. And the mother in the story: > Vashti is content with her life, which, like most inhabitants of the world, she spends producing and endlessly discussing second-hand 'ideas'. She enjoys talking to friends but uses her work to defend herself against their invitations to be more social, remaining in her ‘room’ where all her basic needs are met. She's basically something like an academic reduced to something more like wikipedia researcher while something else has the first-hand ideas, communicating with her circle through facetime/vision pro persona.