E.M. Forster wrote “The Machine Stops” one hundred years ago, and we could see: people were still using “books,” and airships have not reached the space yet. Some scenes have already achieved in a different format for now: we now are able to communicate in voice and real-time video with a person from the other side of the world through the internet, just as how Vashti did with her son. We are now also able to attend a remote lecture thanks to the internet. Yes, this is a work of prediction with a high possibility of coming true, but with a tone of warning. We always regard the development of technology a “progression,” and thank the “advance of science” over and over again. But we seldom question do we really need these advancements, and where would the advancements lead us to.
In the story, this is a world where technology is so advanced that it serves human, helps human achieve goals that they can never think of. One only need to press buttons to get food, play music, take showers, attend lectures. “Thanks to the Machine,” it becomes an easy thing to fly across continents and overlook the Himalayas. Thanks to the Machine, interpersonal communication becomes real-time across different places. Vashti does not need to move even one step or raise her arm for one centimeter when she wants to act something: technology would help her, and serve her. All she needs to do is to provide ideas to herself and the community earth. We might never consider it a bad thing to have one assistant who could help us do all the tedious trifles, don’t we?
However, this is also a world where technology is so advanced that it controls human, and human has to adapt to this world in order to give way for technology development. The only connection between human and machine is “the book of the Machine,” and human has no other right but to obey what the book says about Machine. When Kuno wanted to be a father, he was refused because he was not “a type that the Machine desired to hand on.” Being muscular is a demerit, since “he would never have been happy in that state of life to which the Machine had called him.” Travel becomes few and few, because “thanks to the advance of science, the earth was exactly alike all over.”
No matter how the means, tools, or technologies of communication change, let’s leave some humanity sustained in the place you and I are living. I would strongly advocate for this statement, at least in my state of mind for now.