Home
Creators
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

Study 019 - The Machine Stops - Part 1 (Patreon)

Published:
2022-11-17 18:40:23
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Downloads

Content

Tune in as we discuss E.M. Forster's EXTREMELY prescient science fiction tale from 1909: The Machine Stops!

Special thanks to reader Levi Nuñez! Grab Music from the Book of the New Sun by Loot the Body now!

Link to article: E.M. Forster's work tailed off once he finally had sex. Better that than a life of despair 

Comments

Ethan Cordray

This is my favorite scifi story. I'm so happy you're covering it! It's absolutely ridiculous that this was written 113 years ago.

Jeff C. Carter

The ‘Imponderable Bloom’ really nailed it. I have been lamenting the trend of going to live events and being surrounded by people recording it all on their phones. Not only are they sacrificing their own in-person experience for a video they will likely never watch, but they are distracting everyone else (or at least me), and diluting the shared experience that can only occur when an audience is present, receptive and enthusiastic.

Jason Thompson

Wow— I love this. I had heard the name of this story over the years but never read it… and I don’t think it would have even resonated so much before social media!!! I also can’t believe that also in passing the Earth is described as being so polluted (or whatever) as to be uninhabitable.

Jake Wilson

I'm reminded of Larry Niven's prediction of future Earth in Ringworld where the protagonist periodically heads off to space to mine asteroids because it's the only way to go somewhere different. Since the invention of teleporters, every nation has lost its identity and blended into one homogeneous global culture. I could see this happening because people generally want the same stuff and a culture is shaped by the location it emerges in. The pattern in these 'comfort dystopia' stories is humans getting everything they want and losing everything they need. Post-Covid, this is even more powerful for me; but despite walking away from most social media and prioritising face to face occasions, it feels like I'm pushing against an overwhelming tide. People are too busy to meet and prefer to send a voicenote or share a funny Instagram post. Mass disposable social interactions are quick, noncommittal and easy to find or replace. Real people require effort and if you start caring about them you risk getting hurt. So much easier to avoid all that uncertainty and hard work. Only to find, if you're willing to accept it, that the effort and the risk are actually what life is all about.

Drix

I'm thinking we should call this month, "Man Made Horrors Unfortunately Within My Comprehension Month." Just rolls off the tongue.

Ben A

Unrelated to the excellent tale by Forster, but related to Levi Nuñez's muscial contributions, I'd advocate for you guys to cover tales by Gene Wolfe at some point. Yes, the titles of the Book of the Long Sun are trippy, but there are few authors who write like him (Le Guin and Zelazny come to mind). The Island of Doctor Death is one anthology that might be worth checking out, among others.

Albert Hernandez

Listening to you guys reminisce about pneumatic tubes in the bank drive thru reminds me that I was planning on going to my credit union to deposit a check. They use pneumatic tubes. These things are still around!

Jack Saul

Asimov has a short story “It’s Such a Beautiful Day” in which a teleporter technology called Doors means people stay indoors and have a fear of germs from outside…which has become a kind of quiet Eden in the absence of humans. Its about the mechanisation of the home with convenience appliances in the 1950s but it could join this story in an anthology of “classic sci fi that predicted what lockdown would be like”

Jim Cannon

Never would have thought E.M. Forster had something like this in him. I have never read his stuff, but I have seen adaptations of A Passage to India and Howard's End and I loathed them both. I suppose at the time A Passage to India was published, the notion that the British Empire was not a net positive for all involved was no doubt revelatory, yet in 1998 when I watched the film I was pretty much in the "duh, I know" camp. But this story is amazing, and weirdly prescient. It would be interesting to learn just what influences or sources prompted this vision of a probable future.

Jason Paul

this first episode was interesting enough to make me read the short story, which is interesting. given its publishing date, it must be a point of influence for other sci-fi/fantasy authors that create in worlds like this....the first that comes to mind is John Crowley's "Engine Summer," which might fit the new SSoSS theme come to think of it...

Ben Gilbert

Kipling wrote a few science fiction stories around the same time., With the Night Mail and Easy as A.B.C.(which I think takes place several decades after Night Mail)

Rafe Ball

Yes, it’s amazing that E.M. Forster’s story is so prescient, but I feel he is not being given enough credit for perhaps his greatest accomplishment – providing would-be and lazy authors with the best excuse ever that shuts down any further questioning: “Hey, what happened to that novel you were going to write?” “Ah, you know, I would write it, but I’m just having too much sex.”

Jeremey Guttilla

My bank still uses pneumatic tubes, I didn’t realize they weren’t a thing anymore. I’m in central Illinois.

Ravewolf

I feel attacked by this 100 year old story, attacked I say! Jokes aside though, this does all feel pretty familiar. However, to be fair, popular streamers and art posters and such in our own world are often creating something in their own right, or engaging in performance, not just commenting or lecturing on it, hence the name "Content creators" to fill the vacuum tubes of the steampunk masses with stuff to look at or listen to. Also, the world of the story appears to somehow be a post-scarcity world in which all people have to do to begin with is consider the Net and consume things from it. In our own world, people do still have to go out and work to keep the lights on and the Internet connected, so they don't only consider the Web. Also, viewership for streamers rapidly declined from its Covid era highs very quickly as soon as Covid fears had started to die down, showing that people did in fact still want to go outside. Only time will tell if VR, for example, can change that still primal impulse. Anyway, I will now get back to listening to the next lecture while waiting for another delivery and making sure the blinds are closed so no pesky sunlight can get in here.

Steve

I'm thankful for remote attendance. I can barely attend live events any more.

Long time hater

'It's better to have a few good friends than a lot of listeners' ...they said to the lot of listeners.

Jason of the K

I feel like you could throw this exact same setting into a Star Trek utopia where folks have every physical need addressed and are free to think and ponder philosophy to the betterment of intellectualism. It's all about the spin I suppose. I'm curious if the Machine itself can think or if it is just a reflection of the humans, kinda like how Microsoft had to kill their AI chatbot in a day because the low quality of human discourse it was exposed to turned it into a racist bigot within hours of birth :P