Subj : the machine stops
To   : Everyone..
From : August Abolins
Date : Sun Jul 07 2019 10:39 pm

Hello All,

I know we're all busy imagining ways of making Fidonet better, pondering  
its future, or just trying to enjoy the summer weather.  Meanwhile..

I just discovered and finished reading EM Forster's "The Machine Stops".   
It's a sci-fi short story/novella.  It is set in a world where humanity  
lives underground and relies on "the machine" for all its needs.  It  
predicts instant messaging and the internet; that's pretty interesting for  
something published 110 years ago.

A short story by Mark Twain in 1898 (published in 1904) might even contain  
an earlier imaginging of the internet or social media in greater detail.   
But I haven't read that one, yet.


  ../|ug

--- OpenXP 5.0.39
 * Origin: /|ug's Point, Ont. CANADA (2:221/1.58)

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