[HN Gopher] The Machine Stops (1909) [pdf]
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The Machine Stops (1909) [pdf]
Author : animal_spirits
Score : 107 points
Date : 2021-08-11 12:17 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (web.cs.ucdavis.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (web.cs.ucdavis.edu)
| dspillett wrote:
| There was an excellent production of this at York's (UK) Theatre
| some years ago. If you can find a recording (they released a
| performance on youtube during the pandemic though I don't know if
| that is still available, legitimately or otherwise) I recommend
| trying it.
|
| I went thinking "this isn't going to work on stage without major
| changes" but was pleasantly surprised.
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| MarkusWandel wrote:
| There are periodic waves of fear that the machine will, in fact,
| stop. The machine being an immeasurably complex global network of
| just-in-time delivery, high efficiency (but not necessarily
| sustainable) food production and so on. That once broken, this
| system may not be easily restarted, at least quickly enough to
| prevent disaster.
|
| Y2K and COVID being the most recent such waves. Probably this is
| why this old short story still resonates so strongly.
| titzer wrote:
| A solar flare or a coronal mass ejection that hits Earth would
| be catastrophically bad.
| Syonyk wrote:
| > _That once broken, this system may not be easily restarted,
| at least quickly enough to prevent disaster._
|
| This is quite literally what we're seeing with currently supply
| chain shortages, food shortages, etc. The machine breaking
| down.
|
| It turns out, it cannot be easily stopped and restarted.
| bellyfullofbac wrote:
| So far so good? At least here in the West, other than a short
| panic of "We're going to run out of forests that they felled
| that we need to wipe shit from our asses!".
|
| But maybe things are falling apart in the background, with
| things like global shipping insanity, and food price hikes
| http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/foodpricesindex/en/ .
| But cable news is busy talking about the things cable news
| talk about.
| samizdis wrote:
| It's interesting, to me, what prompted Forster to write this.
| From the "themes" section [1] of the Wikipedia page about the
| story:
|
| _In the preface to his Collected Short Stories (1947), Forster
| wrote that "'The Machine Stops' is a reaction to one of the
| earlier heavens of H. G. Wells." In The Time Machine, Wells had
| pictured the childlike Eloi living the life of leisure of Greek
| gods whilst the working Morlocks lived underground and kept their
| whole idyllic existence going. In contrast to Wells' political
| commentary, Forster points to the technology itself as the
| ultimate controlling force._
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Stops#Themes
| kinard wrote:
| This book started my love of Science Fiction. My English teacher
| gave it to me when I was about 13. I wasn't very focused in
| school, but I fell in love with this book. My teacher obviously
| knew me well, it was short, but very well written. Thank you
| teacher.
| bsanr wrote:
| _"The tunnels, of course, were lighted. Everything is light,
| artificial light; darkness is the exception. So when I saw a
| black gap in the tiles, I knew that it was an exception, and
| rejoiced._
|
| -Malcolm X, probably. (Please don't mistake my jauntiness for
| thoughtlessness.)
| csours wrote:
| I re-read this earlier this year and it really holds up. The
| lectures shared worldwide is basically how I use YouTube.
| runfaster2000 wrote:
| Big fan of this book. It's incredibly forward-thinking and can be
| read in an evening. Absolutely recommended if you have not read
| it.
| pram wrote:
| Classic, this is a story that will always stick with you. City of
| Ember is also thematically similar, it's a fun movie.
| cameron_b wrote:
| I was hoping someone would repost this.
|
| Saw it a while back and couldn't remember enough to search for
| it. Thanks
| JasonFruit wrote:
| The Machine is a powerful metaphor for government: a human
| creation which we made to serve us, and to which we have granted
| power beyond the bound of wisdom. It has grown beyond our
| understanding and control, and it would allow us to die if it
| could persist without us. When we are no longer able to maintain
| its vastness, many will perish with it.
| titzer wrote:
| The same thing could be said about the Internet, or tech in
| general.
| [deleted]
| jerf wrote:
| This piece was well ahead of its time. I don't think I can claim
| with a straight face that it could be written today without
| change, of course, but I am comfortable saying that if someone
| told me this was written in the 1960s that I would have a hard
| time proving them wrong. And that's not something most stories
| from 1909 can say.
|
| And the changes necessary to bring it up to date even today are
| not _that_ great, honestly. For instance,
|
| "By her side, on the little reading-desk, was a survival from the
| ages of litter -- one book. This was the Book of the Machine. In
| it were instructions against every possible contingency. If she
| was hot or cold or dyspeptic or at a loss for a word, she went to
| the book, and it told her which button to press. The Central
| Committee published it. In accordance with a growing habit, it
| was richly bound."
|
| would need some tweaking. Today we could be even lazier and
| simply _ask_ for these things, in voice.
|
| But all in all, well ahead of its time.
| nicwolff wrote:
| I have in my files a sci-fi novella written by my grandfather
| 100 years ago, in which by 1980 a megalomaniacal scientist has
| stopped up the Gulf Stream in order to plunge Europe into a new
| Ice Age in revenge for not respecting his genius. (I'll publish
| it once I get around to registering the copyright.)
|
| It's remarkably prescient and timely now in its environmental
| concerns - but Pop didn't predict the success of the
| helicopter, so the villain is delivered to a Congressional
| hearing (in Washington, Missouri, whence the US capitol was
| moved in 1975) by a very weird VTOL hybrid airplane-balloon-
| helicopter:
|
| "One by one the three retardiers ballooned above the plane like
| white puffs of smoke; now only the hissing of air around the
| struts was heard. Then the sudden whirr of the helicoptic blade
| and the LL-2X1 settled feather-light into her berth."
| ruricolist wrote:
| That novella sounds fun.
| floathub wrote:
| At the risk of nit-picking, if the work was written more that
| 100 years ago, then the copyright has almost certainly
| already expired (barring some quite rare circumstances).
|
| Nothing preventing you from publishing it, and a useful
| forward or other newly written content would, of course, be
| automatically copyrighted (copyrights, at least in the US,
| only need to be "registered" if you want to sue someone :-)
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| If it's not been published, then why would it not be
| copyrightable now? I don't understand. Who knows when it
| was first written? Is that even important?
| nicwolff wrote:
| I would love the advice of a copyright attorney about this!
| It was never published, so under current US copyright law
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/303 I _think_ it
| is protected until 70 years after Pop 's death in 1983. But
| I guess we'll find out for sure in a few months - I just
| submitted a registration application tsu
| floathub wrote:
| I'm a long way from a (copyright) attorney, so I really
| don't know what I'm talking about on the finer points.
|
| In general, of course, the act of creating is what
| currently confers copyright. So if you write some code,
| for example, you automatically hold the copyright. No
| need to do anything official or call a lawyer.
|
| But you're correct that there are exceptions for older
| works that were never published or formally registered
| under the old (pre-1978 system). So yup, my (pretty much
| worthless) opinion agrees with your reading that it would
| be 70 years after 1983. And who knows, the Mighty Mouse
| might might well rise up again as 2024 approaches (the
| current date when Mickey Mouse will otherwise enter the
| public domain).
|
| But
| nicwolff wrote:
| PS. floathub.com is brilliant!
| wrycoder wrote:
| I had read this awhile back. I was taken aback by the 1909 date
| in the title - I had assumed it was '30s or '40s. So I verified
| it in Wikipedia.
| jkestner wrote:
| In a world where old graphic manuals are reissued on
| Kickstarter and people buy hardcover books or vinyl just to
| have a beautiful functional object, what needs updating even
| there? I think it correctly notes that we tend to make new
| physical artifacts to retain experiences that have become
| disembodied and abstracted away from us.
| jerf wrote:
| Actually, it was the "button press" that I think is out of
| date, for much the same reason the original Enterprise bridge
| looks _very_ silly nowadays. We don 't need huge arrays of
| buttons like that anymore. We may still want a few physical
| ones, of course, just as we like physical volume and climate
| controls in our cars, but our 21st century Machine rooms
| would not have hundreds of buttons in them, but a touchscreen
| and voice interface. Even if we had a physical manual for it,
| which I'm totally comfortable with as a story choice.
|
| You may have simply automatically upgraded the interface in
| your head, but I'm pretty sure the author was envisioning
| something more like the Enterprise bridge.
| Syonyk wrote:
| Touch screens simply suck if you need to interact with a
| device in rough conditions - high seas or turbulence.
|
| That's a big reason why most serious transportation vessels
| still have lots of buttons. It's far easier to stabilize
| your hand on a panel and use a button or knob interface
| than to try and hit the right button while going from 0.5G
| to +1.5G and +/- 30 degrees of bank.
| jerf wrote:
| I was not making a generalized argument that everything
| should be touch screens. I was making the point that _a
| Machine denizen_ if written in modern times would be
| using a touchscreen or voice interface. Or perhaps a
| keyboard, though that starts to get a bit more open ended
| than I think the idea is here.
|
| Evidence, if not outright proof, is that is exactly what
| we have today in the prototype Machine we're living in.
| We do not interact with our Machine environments via an
| array of bespoke, single-purpose buttons.
|
| You can also step up the sci-fi a bit and assert a brain-
| reading device.
|
| However, as I was saying, it definitely dates the work to
| write as if a big array of buttons is how one would
| interact with the Machine. But I reiterate, all things
| considered, only a little. It still holds up brilliantly.
| c22 wrote:
| > We do not interact with our Machine environments via an
| array of bespoke, single-purpose buttons.
|
| We don't? Every single light source in my house is
| controlled by a bespoke button or switch. I have buttons
| to control the burners on my stove, the temperature in my
| room, the music, etc. I have two buttons on my toilet and
| I select the appropriate flush mode based on context. I
| have a button I carry in my pocket to open my car which
| is full of buttons. At the parking garage a button raises
| the gate and gives me a ticket. Even the coke machine
| with a touchscreen has a dedicated button to _dispense
| liquid_.
| qayxc wrote:
| > We don't need huge arrays of buttons like that anymore.
|
| I wouldn't be too sure about that. Here's the bridge of a
| modern cruise ship (Quantum Of The Seas):
|
| https://safety4sea.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2016/03/Wartsila-i...
|
| Quite a few buttons; that keyboard in the front right alone
| has at least 104 keys.
|
| Another image of rows of buttons inside the control room of
| a nuclear submarine:
|
| https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/01/21/13/306D657A00000
| 5...
|
| If anything, the number of buttons has gone up, not down
| over the course of the last century.
|
| Airplane cockpit 100 years ago:
|
| https://cdn.virily.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2017/08/4F5A8778_M...
|
| Airplane cockpit today:
|
| https://airbus-h.assetsadobe2.com/is/image/content/dam/prod
| u...
|
| Granted half of the buttons are for redundancy, that's
| still quite a lot of buttons.
| Animats wrote:
| For aircraft, Peak Button was reached at the end of the
| large propeller aircraft era. Here's the B-36 flight
| engineer's station. [1] The B-36 had 6 propellers and 4
| jet engines. Most of those controls are for engine
| management of the reciprocating engines.
|
| [1] http://www.nmusafvirtualtour.com/cockpits/CW_tour/CW-
| 7.html
| dang wrote:
| Past related threads - mostly but not all about this story:
|
| _The Machine Stops: Science and Its Limits_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26234104 - Feb 2021 (14
| comments)
|
| _Forster in Cambridge_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23960924 - July 2020 (2
| comments)
|
| _E. M. Forster, The Art of Fiction No. 1 (1953)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21264355 - Oct 2019 (1
| comment)
|
| _The Machine Stops (1909) [pdf]_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20461514 - July 2019 (17
| comments)
|
| _The Machine Stops (1909) Is an Omen for Our Technological Age_
| - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19215311 - Feb 2019 (1
| comment)
|
| _The Machine Stops_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19125021 - Feb 2019 (3
| comments)
|
| _The Machine Stops_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19124608 - Feb 2019 (29
| comments)
|
| _What I Believe, by E.M. Forster (1938)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10874412 - Jan 2016 (4
| comments)
|
| _The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster (1909)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10490198 - Nov 2015 (17
| comments)
|
| _The Machine Stops_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9544256 - May 2015 (26
| comments)
|
| _The Machine Stops (1909)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7637635 - April 2014 (24
| comments)
|
| _The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster (1909)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5041305 - Jan 2013 (1
| comment)
|
| _(This Day in Tech) Nov. 1, 1909: 'The Machine Stops'_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1856254 - Nov 2010 (1
| comment)
|
| _The Machine Stops : E.M. Forster_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1114384 - Feb 2010 (1
| comment)
| dotsam wrote:
| If you prefer to listen rather than read, there are free librivox
| recordings of this story:
| https://archive.org/search.php?query=the+machine+stops&and[]...
| and there is also an audiobook version you can find on Audible
| etc.
| PicassoCTs wrote:
| And all it took was one rogue nation torpedoing oil-rigs with
| autonomous drones?
| pugworthy wrote:
| I like this occurrence of essentially modern FOMO - Fear Of
| Missing Out... "But why do you not come to me
| instead?" "Because I cannot leave this place." "Why?"
| "Because, any moment, something tremendous many happen."
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(page generated 2021-08-12 23:01 UTC)