has been that [someHow] the creation of infinite 'labor-saving' interconnected machines ... might somehow make up for? the latent and unchanged depraved state of humanity: still engaged in endless Warz about ~ Mine's Bigger But I Want More Anyway.

Having been in techno since discovering chem. at ~ 13, by the time I got around to thinking about the implications.. I also discovered the Atlantis myth: a parable for Our Time\ufffd, just as clever as the other mythos but it

Nails It.

Best get used to the milieu - techno has so filled the time with new Disneyland distraction noises, there shall be no new 'thoughts' except soothing Mousefotainment - as the 1% further mold the drones into conformity. [but with leather seats]


BTW - lots of scenes for The Forbin Project were shot at the Lawrence Hall of Science, that kinda angular pillbox structure in earth-tones you occasionally see in the movie. Just a bit up the hill from my stomping grounds. Pity they didn't sweep to show the view of one of the great cityscapes, though it would have blown the fantasy a bit - or.. maybe it wouldn't (?)

('Love' can as easily replace love as 'thought' settles for memorized cant, y'know?) I'm sure that the new machines will have a stimulating relationship with their dependent charges, the Eloi.


Ashton
Eloi are crunchy, good with mustard

that: the efficiency of the machines should be used to maximize the profits of the Directors, while expanding the *responsibilities of the commodity-workers - to the limits of human endurance?

* best encapsulation I know of the Actual program from the first wet-dream of Henry Ford, as he daily sped-up the Model-T assembly line is:

[link|http://www.mistral.co.uk/hammerwood/chaplin.htm|Modern Times]. Charlie Chaplin's genius, not merely at entertainment but at political satire has no peer IMhO. (he Really pissed-off the Nazis with [link|http://wso.williams.edu/~dgerstei/chaplin/barber.html| The Great Dictator [1]] too. You can Bet they'd have loved to get him into Auschwitz) As would many CIEIOS?

I guess that it is surprising though, that there have been so Many examples since the start of industrialization that the worker Shall Be Screwed, yet .. the myth is powerful: that (even he!) might.. just.. ascend to be among the Controllers if he's clever, nasty and persistent - enough. Well, one could observe the same phenom with Windoze lock-in: screwing the Screwers! via their very own Snake Oil! - it is to laugh.

Hell.. it *still* works! - how else explain a 19 yo 'Conservative' - an age when something Grand ought to be envisioned and Dared! - except that s/he imagines (still..) prevailing over the odds, if the nastiness-training, desensitizing to others, is early and thorough.. enough (!?)


(Repetitive plots are so.. boring, especially when labelled progress.)

Ashton

[1]

Charlie the Barber Addresses Ptomania
By Charlie Chaplin. Spoken in The Great Dictator (1940).

I'm sorry, but I don't want to be emperor. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone, if possible -- Jew, Gentile -- black men -- white . . .

The way of life can be beautiful, but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men's souls -- has barricaded the world with hate -- has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

We are coming out of the darkness into the light! We are coming into a new world! Look up, Hannah! The soul of man has been given wings and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow -- into the light of hope. Look up, Hannah! Look up!