I was very much brought back to The Machine Stops and As We May Think in this reading. Likely due to the time it was written, but definitely the content as well gave it the same fearful yet hopeful drive. It’s interesting that both The Machine Stops and this reading all had to do with family, which is definitely not something I think about when speaking of technology or especially robots in this context. It makes me wonder how much in this time people thought technology would be to help families. This would make a lot of sense since in this time the recent inventions were all to assist in the home - Dishwasher, Laundry Machine, etc. So this may have been thought of less of a war machine for some, but like the replacement for slavery. Which is interesting because surely those who would be able to afford this would be a white family with a picket fence and 2.5 kids. But most importantly white and middle/upper class becoming complacent in that time of women taking care of the house and in a lull or rut.
My great grandmother would always tell her children on the acquiring of a new laundry machine, "Press a button - notttthhhing to do do, nothing to do. Turn a knob - nothinggg to do nothing to do."
This one line reminded me so much of current sci-fi movies as well: “If so many of our people hadn , t died, I,d say this was a good thing. It taught us not to be complacent and careless. More important, it at least indicated that mutants can serve society as tal- ented members. " Wayne,s eyes were haggard. " Only, you see, A1 didn,t behave like a genius. He acted like a low-grade moron.”
This also brought me back to how Trump treated Covid actually. The complacent and carelessness reminded me of his supporters simply believing anything he said.
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