The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster (1909) is a breathtakingly insightful piece that was well ahead of its time. In his chilling short story about a civilization that has become ever so dependent on 'The Machine', that normal interaction between humans have become trivial. The most astonishing thing about this piece is the similarities between his fictional society and our own technologically driven society.
Forster was able to visualize and conceptualize modern day instant messaging, video conferencing, and e-mailing a century before anyone had heard about it. The story revolves around a women named Vashti who, like everyone else in the society, lives in isolation within a gigantic machine controlled building. The only interaction people have are through screens and buttons ad everyone lives quite peacefully in a dystopic sort of way. Breeding, travelling, and even what size bed you own are all monitored and approved by the Machine.
Forster's account of the future has all the technology that we have today so the question is, will one day we too become like the people in the story and grow so dependent on the Machine that anything outside what the Machine can provide us seems unimportant and not worth even thinking about? My answer is no...never!
Our society loves individualism and uniqueness too much to allow a Machine to tell us whats best for us. We barely even listen to doctors and other professionals when they tell us what to do, so why would we ever give up our freedom of choice to a machine? Machines serve us, not the other way around. The revolutions that are going around the Middle East is a clear example of what I am talking about. We as human beings will not allow anyone or anything to oppress our thoughts and freedoms. When something comes even close to oppressing us, history has shown over and over again that the human spirit will rise up and, sooner or later, defeat the oppressor...whether it be machine or human.
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