Technology
Technology
And its negative impact on the human spirit
In Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, and E.M Forster's "The Machine Stops", there are themes of technology inducing fear for society, as well as changing societal culture all together.
Technology
And its negative impact on the human spirit
can be seen in these novels:
The Machine stops
By E.M Forster
-Set in a dystopian future, in which most humans live inside "The Machine"
-This environment pampers them, it does absolutely everything for them by way of machines that cater to the users needs.
Snow Crash
By Neal Stephenson
-Also set in a dystopian future, however one that is much different (said to take place in the twenty first century).
-The world of Snow Crash is as "over the top" as it is dangerous
-With virtually no government influence there is a lot of crime, and many futuristic technologies help people in this.
Both of these stories are Science fiction pieces
- Both stories have dark atmospheres, and both authors make commentaries on how technology has worsened humanities way of living.
- However, the writing styles that these works have are totally different.
Technology is shaping human society
Snow Crash
"The top surface of the computer is smooth except for a fisheye lens, a polished glass dome with a purplish optical coating. Whenever [the man] is using the machine, this lens emerges and clicks into place, its base flush with the surface of the computer…. Down inside the computer are three lasers -- a red one, a green one, and a blue one… As everyone learned in elementary school, these three colors of light can be combined, with different intensities, to produce any color that [the man’s] eye is capable of seeing. In this way, a narrow beam of any color can be shot out of the innards of the computer, up through that fisheye lens, in any direction. Through the use of electronic mirrors inside the computer, this beam is made to sweep back and forth across the lenses of [the man’s] goggles, in much the same way as the electron beam in a television paints the inner surface of the eponymous Tube. The resulting image hangs in space in front of [the man’s] view of Reality. By drawing a slightly different image in front of each eye, the image can be made three-dimensional. By changing the image seventy-two times a second, it can be made to move. By drawing the moving three-dimensional image at a resolution of 2K pixels on a side, it can be as sharp as the eye can perceive, and by pumping stereo digital sound through the little earphones, the moving 3-D pictures can have a perfectly realistic soundtrack. So [the man’s] not actually here at all. He's in a computer-generated universe that his computer is drawing onto his goggles and pumping into his earphones. In the lingo, this imaginary place is known as the Metaverse. [the man] spends a lot of time in the Metaverse."(Stephenson 14)
The machine stops
"Imagine, if you can, a small room, hexagonal in shape, like the cell of a bee. It is lighted neither by window nor by lamp, yet it is filled with a soft radiance. There are no apertures for ventilation, yet the air is fresh. There are no musical instruments, and yet, at the moment that my meditation opens, this room is throbbing with melodious sounds. An armchair is in the centre, by its side a reading-desk-that is all the furniture. And in the armchair there sits a swaddled lump of flesh-a woman, about five feet high, with a face as white as a fungus. It is to her that the little room belongs."(Forster 1)
"technological somnambulism leads us to ignore [technology’s social consequences] while, in a trance-like state, we blindly accept whatever implementation of technology those in power choose to foist upon us."(Pfaffenberger)
Fetishized objects and humanized nature: towards an anthropology of technology
Technology generating fear
Snow Crash
"People say that the Rat Thing runs on four legs. Perhaps the claws on its robot legs made those sparks as they were digging into the lawngrid for traction. The [men] are all in motion. Some of them have just been body-slammed into the lawngrid and are still bouncing and rolling. Others are still in mid-collapse.
They are unarmed. They are reaching to grip their gun hands with the opposite hands, still hollering, though now their voices are tinged with a certain amount of fear. One of them has had his trousers torn from the waistband all the way down to the ankle, and a strip of fabric is trailing out across the lot, as though he had his pocket picked by something that was in too much of a hurry to let go of the actual pocket before it left. Maybe this guy had a knife in his pocket. There is no blood anywhere. The Rat Thing is precise. Still they hold their hands and holler. Maybe it's true what they say, that the Rat Thing gives you an electrical shock when it wants you to let go of something.(Stephenson 57)"
The machine stops
"I have had the most terrible journey and greatly retarded the development of my soul. It is not worth it, Kuno, it is not worth it. My time is too precious. The sunlight almost touched me, and I have met with the rudest people." (Forster 10)
Nuclear Weapons, primal fears
"Feeling relaxed today? Well, consider a few facts recounted during a Harvard panel discussion: There are 23,000 nuclear weapons in the world, and enough enriched uranium and plutonium to make 100,000 more. Officially, nine countries have such weapons, but 30 possess the basic ingredients to make at least a crude bomb."(Ireland)
Human extinction warning from oxford
"Experiments in areas such as synthetic biology, nanotechnology and machine intelligence are hurtling forward into the territory of the unintended and unpredictable. Synthetic biology, where biology meets engineering, promises great medical benefits. But Dr. Bostrom is concerned about unforeseen consequences in manipulating the boundaries of human biology."(Coughlan)
