Category: Communications Lab

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Week 1: Response to “E.M. Forster” – Hanna Rinderknecht-Mahaffy

While first starting E.M Forster’s “The Machine Stops,” I found the narrative somewhat strange. The more I read however, the more fascinating the premise of the story became. In Forster’s imaginary world, civilization does not resemble humanity as we know it today. Instead, all in the world is all alike and is totally run and controlled by the Machine. Instead of human contact, emotion, and connection, the people of this world are entirely focused on ideas as the main point in life. The machine seems to take away all elements of humanity that we know today and leads people to worship the machine, treating The Book like a bible of sorts. Any deviation from the Machine’s goals was punished by “Homelessness,” which was banishment to the surface, where people couldn’t survive. This attitude is shown in the mother’s reaction to her son’s admission of his self-exploration to the surface. “There was not room for such a person in the world. And with her pity disgust mingled. She was ashamed at having borne such a son, she who had always been so respectable and so full of ideas. Was he really the little boy to whom
she had taught the use of his stops and buttons, and to whom she had given his first lessons in the Book? The very hair that disfigured his lip showed that he was reverting to some savage type. On atavism the Machine can have no mercy.” This quote clearly shows how society values unquestionable loyalty to the Machine, and how any exemplification of human uniqueness is in conflict with that loyalty. This attitude toward her son struck me in that she does not seem to care at all for her son on a personal, familial level, instead she can only feel proud of him when he is participating in the system of the Machine. 

In Section 3, “The Homeless”, there are two developments in the Machine. “The second great development was the re-establishment of religion.” In this section, the author describes how the Machine has now actually become a religion, further solidifying the control the Machine has on all the people in the world. Lecturers of the world discuss how the Machine is omnipotent, implying the God-like nature of the system, and the utter lack of control people have over their own lives and basic needs. I found this concept to be very ironic, as the Machine seemed to have been originally created to be useful for humans and was not indented to control them. In our real world today of increasing reliance on advancing technology, this narrative seems to be a cautionary tale that while technology can be put to good use by humans, there may be a point where it is taken too far and gets beyond our control, permanently altering who we are as a civilization. This story is, of course, and extreme hyperbole of such a scenario, however when I consider how much we, and our daily habits, have changed over the last fifty years due to technology, such a concept does not seem so far stretched. 

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Week 1: Response to “The Machine Stops” By E.M. Forster – Allie Dunnaville

The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster depicts the costs and benefits of a society where the population is much dependent on technology. Vashti and her son Kuno are two characters described in the story which help depict a central theme of the piece that suggests how the heavy usage of technology can negatively influence the relationship between others. Something I found astonishing was how the article was published only in 1909, and the predictions Forster makes about technology such as “Air-ships” and “Machines” are incredibly accurate to those of which exist in our society today. Not only are the technological predictions accurate, but also the hypothesized impact of technology on human relationships.

The corrupt machine-controlled world which Forster describes makes me think about the consequences of our human race being so heavily influenced and impacted by the usage and innovation of technology. As a result of being born into a generation so heavily reliant on smartphones, I personally cannot imagine a world where I am not able to rely on my smartphone for directions, communication, entertainment, and unlimited knowledge (google). As a result of my dependence on technology; articles, and stories such as this often prompt me to think about how technology influences the relationships I have with the people around me. But, in another sense, I also appreciate the benefits which come along such entities. Such as being able to have constant communication with my family via Skype, texting, etc., despite living in another country thousands of miles away from home.

The Machine Stops predicts the loss of emotion which exists with the introduction of technology. As our society continues to innovate and become more and more reliant on technology, I hope that the world can find a balance where human interaction does not deteriorate. Although, by the looks of it this is just where we’re headed.

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Week 1: “The Machine Stops” reflective response – Adam Chou

Unabashedly, I must compare this piece to the same points repeated in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Although taken from a view of ‘successful technology’ the aphorisms of inhuman qualities within society are borrowed heavily in this piece. However the piece, by showcasing such dystopic aspects, helps to distinguish the unequivocal struggle of man versus machine. Due to the nature of progress, and its heavy reliance on processing and machinery, it is hard to embrace what had once been us. To clarify this point, humans have forgot what we once were. This is mainly due to the fact that technology has separated a sense of space between what we are now, and who we were before.

Ironically, we see this analogy presented in the opposite manner. The present day, which is generally considered young and hip, is portrayed in the perspective of the elder mother. Whereas the son is given the more adventurous role of describing his journey to the outside. The fear of the piece, I suppose, is that people have lost sense of their natural selves. This is comparable to Frankenstein and his monster – his ‘daemon” – to which he is haunted by for the entirety of the novel. That which was once considered normal – the animal that was man – is now frowned upon. And yet it is something that we use as a baseline to experience that which we no longer can. I think of this in the manner in which the son plays the role of mediator to the mother. In some sense, the story that is told to the mom can be categorized as entertainment. We can find similar aspects to this as the  comes into personal lives. As the voice of reason seeks to persuade us of the safety of conformity, our own intuition begs us to be curious of our past. Such is the relationship, in my eyes, of the relationship of Vashti and her son Kuno.

I will comment, however, that the bias shown of the machine turning on mankind is one that seems to be a bit pessimistic. We have no idea if this accurately represents future conditions, although they are terrifying to picture. But I suppose it is easier to do the latter than the former.

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“The Machine Stops”by E.M.Forster – Jialu Li

    “Man is the measure.” I think this is the key point of this story. In this story, people gradually lose themselves living in the comfort and convenience provided by the Machine. They lost their creativity and their own thoughts because of the existence of the Book. Every question they meet, there is a standard answer in the Book. No idea in their head is original—they are encouraged to generate ideas from other people’s ideas instead of facts. In a world like that, there is no such concept as “society” where people each have their own job, own responsibilities and they cooperate with each other to build the world they live in. Instead, they are isolated and are heavily dependent on the Machine. They don’t really have a life. Every single day is the same. They seem to have thousands of friends, but the truth is that they are isolated, living in their own little cell all their life. There is communication, even though is it through electrical signals, but all the message they were exchanging was hollow “ideas” and there were no human emotions involved. They have long forgotten how to make a living by themselves—the Machine can do everything for them and they can hardly think of any new things to do due to the lack of imagination and creativity. Man is no longer the measure of their own life, the Machine is. They worship the Machine and are grateful for everything that the Machine gives them. However, they no longer remember that it was human who built the Machine and, as human, they still can create machines that are more powerful than the Machine, they can still make a difference to their life, to the world. Under the convenience of the Machine, people are becoming too lazy to think, too timid to imagine and create something new.
    I think E.M.Forster created a huge world view in this story. There are so many aspects that are worth thinking about, like the interactions between people, the fear for the nature, the reliance on the technology, the assimilation of culture and so on. However, there are still some points that I don’t think Forster had made clear enough. Like who is controlling the Machine? If the Machine is intelligent enough to make decisions by itself then what’s the point of the existence of the Central Committee? If the Machine is operated by the Central Committee, does this mean that it is actually the Central Committee that is limiting people’s imagination and blinding people’s visions? What’s their purpose of maintaining a peace world like this? Where do the fuel of the Machine and the food of the people come from if they never go out to the natural world? Do they grow crops underground? It seems that there is no concept of money or society in this world, why is that?……I know some of these questions are not helpful in showing the theme of this story, but I still find it interesting to think about these questions.

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Response to E.M. Forster – Mingyue Deng

As I read E.M. Forster’s The Machine Stops, I was shocked at the ignorance and conformity people looked for in the universe created by Forster. Since I have just read science fictions such as The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu and I have just watched the film The Wandering Earth, I have encountered many descriptions about the underground cities which people would be living in the future when supposedly the surface of the Earth is no longer livable for human beings. These descriptions of underground cities are very similar in characteristics, and there are two which I want to talk about. First of all, these cities all are limiting to people going up to the surface, especially in The Machine Stops when it is totally forbidden. People wear masks or respirators when they go up to the surface because people could not breathe the air, whether true in the case of The Wandering Earth and The Three Body Problem or told by the Book in The Machine Stops. The second similar characteristic in imagining the future underground cities is the artificial space and lighting and comfort created by either the people in the United Earth Government or the Machine. There seems to always be hope in the future even when human beings cannot live where they have always lived.

Then I saw the cruelness of all three pieces and especially The Machine Stops. In the other two pieces I read and watched on my own, people are hopeful and successful until the end. However, in The Machine Stops, I want to return to what I said at the beginning of this response, they were ignorant and self-interested. They are living in a huge bubble created by the Machine and they are never doubting the ways they are living because they are the generations born into this kind of space and living this kind of life. Just like what Kuno said in the work, human beings have lost their sense of sharp thinking and criticism to ignorance and conformity. Throughout the short story, the author repeats phrases like it was told to these people so they follow it. They were all looking for ideas but they never found one interesting idea which is original. I suppose that the Machine was built by some intelligent people who have original ideas, but when I read that they have already died and passed down the books to later generations, I thought the world must be ending fast because people would want to take control of the Machine so they could be more powerful. And this process would then remind me of 1984. However, when I read that the people only learned by parts the entire control system to the Machine, I realized that these people are less intelligent than I think. The reason why I thought that is because when these people are also living in a world where there is only comfort and convenience and they think every other method are stupid when they are not inventing or thinking or believing, they are going to fail at the smallest tasks. In the end, the people who made the Machine and the Book and the underground cities were the thinkers and the inventors, and the next generations after who would only copy and paste the Founding Fathers without new innovations would only be duller and duller in their ways of life.