The Last Empty, Inessential Question
This is my least favorite story of all those I have read. After all, I undertook (against my own will) to read “several trillion years of human history in the space of a short story” and boy, it was far from successful (Asimov 1). I also “undertook another task” (1): making sure no one else endures the suffering I went through. “It is a curious fact” that Isaac Asimov wrote this story in the first place (1). Thanks to the monotonous and repetitive nature of the writing, no one will ever “remember the title of the story or (for sure) the author” (1). Throughout “The Last Question,” Asimov crafts a dreadful, boring tale through the lack of relatable characters, use of outdated technology, absence of action
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. . interesting (to say the least) ideas about technology. He comes up with some half-baked ideas about speech-to-text technology and artificial intelligence, and he understands that as time progresses, computers shrink in size and their “self-adjusting and self-correcting” nature allows them to become more portable while exponentially increasing in power (1). While he advances toward the right direction, the majority of instances of Multivac either exhibit antiquity or rely on indefinite concepts out of reach. Considering the fact that he published this short story in 1956, much of the technology already went archaic. Not to mention “[t]he cold, clicking, flashing face—miles and miles of face—of that giant computer” clearly before our time (1). Heavy reliance on inapplicable perceptions and theories undermines Asimov’s credibility and increases the growing distance between his writing and the reader. On the other hand, the Universal AC “in hyperspace” in some unimaginable form or entities like “Man fused with AC” just seem so far-fetched (7, 9). It impossible for present-day readers to relate to clunky electronics or some “higher digital being,” and failing to grasp these unconvincing abstractions, readers give up altogether. Overall, the lack of relevance of these bizarre absurdities make the story as a whole
Ray Bradbury is widely famous for being a man who predicted a lot of future inventions in his novels and short stories. Not only he created the image of future but also warned the generation of the consequences of the thoughtless use of new. “The Veldt” is a short story about Hadley family who lives in a smart house full of devices designed to simplify and brighten their everyday life. But the addiction of Hadley children to their nursery results in tragedy and broken family. The technology plays an important role in the short story, moreover, it can be considered one of its main characters. Thereby, the technology shown in “The Veldt” can be definitely considered as a prototype of modern technology with all its affinity, however, the misuse
In present day, technology has helped in the ways of distributing news, stories, and general entertainment. In the book Fahrenheit 451, technology is still used for these purposes, however, it has a much more drastic role in the status quo of society. With technology such as the television and small ear-piece sized
The future is an interesting subject. Any little choice or action could change the future for the better or worse. In the stories “Harrison Bergeron”, by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., and “By the Waters of Babylon”, by Stephen Vincent Benet, we read about two distinctly different futures affected by technology. Both have terrible outcomes but the difference is great and let me explain why.
Within the prominent novel feed, M. T. Anderson contributes his beliefs to those who have already challenged the fate of humanity with his phenomenal characterization, ingenious formatting, and heartbreaking setting to expose man’s most renowned disease, technology. This monstrosity may prevail if we as humans continue to accept technology into our daily lives. Schools resorting to online assignments instead of pen and paper making it impossible to succeed without the proper technology. Billions of factories and cars pollute the environment; the world falling apart while we listen to ads on the radio for sales on TV's. And now over ninety percent of adults leave home with a cellphone on their person. Anderson’s feed may take place in the future,
Technology has had many positive and negative effects in both Fahrenheit 451 and the real world.
The stories “The Veldt” and “Marionettes Inc.” in Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man show the many sides of technology. Bradbury makes it seem as if technology is an amazing thing towards the beginning of the story. In “The Veldt” Bradbury fascinates us with incredible technology. The children have a nursery that takes them to whatever place that they imagine. The children can play however they want without bothering the parents The entire house that they live does everything for them They don't have to do anything for themselves. In “Marionettes Inc.”, a new company has created automatons that look exactly like their client. Right down the exact way they smell. The idea of being in two different places at the same time through technology, is
Introduction- Technology may seem very important in today’s society, but in these two novels these authors bring it to a whole other level. In one book called Fahrenheit 451, written by Ray Bradbury, discusses the issues in its society and how one can be considered vile for believing something that is not in the ‘norm’. Similarly, in a novel Feed, a character named Violet represents a previous society where people can be perspicacious without using high tech devices. Both of these authors exemplify the direction society is turning into-technology is taking over the world and there are fewer intelligent people because of this.
Have you ever wondered how how much our life have changed since technology modernized? Technology has advanced so much that it is present everywhere in our lives and there is almost no place on the globe where this important trend of the last two centuries has not entered. Technology has taken control of the world. This situation leads to the decline of the society, including human’s ability to think. The book “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury provides the interaction of the protagonist, Guy Montag, in a particular way with the technology. Guy Montag is a fireman whose job is to to burn books. Fahrenheit 451 presents a world where, under the motto, “...the books says nothing” (Bradbury 51-63), people start burning them and bookless happiness is illustrated by the empty streets of the city, people could not detach for a moment from the screens that give the images of a perfect world. The science fiction film “Wall-E” (2008) is the story of the last robot on Earth, whose job is to clean up the trash left by hymans. Meanwhile, the planet had to leave the planet. As a consequence, the robots take the control of it. So, technology changes the ways in which people interact with each other that does not move humanity forward.
As Montag sets a single book into flames, a meaningful conversation dies, dragging intelligent thoughts into the ground with it. From “Seashell Radio” sets and Spotify on Bluetooth to the story-telling power that television strips away from literature, Bradbury looks more than 64 years into the future in Fahrenheit 451 to predict the fatal outcome of the technology-infested intelligence, or the lack thereof. The invention of TV, Radio, headphones, iPods, and much more, along with a rapidly increasing gain of access to technology has created a civilization that is dependent on a battery as they are on their own heart. This dependency has sculpted a 1984-sort of society that Bradbury can explain just as well as Orwell. Ranging from
“All kinds of creative possibilities are made possible by science and technology which now constitute the slave of man, if man is not enslaved by it” as quoted by Jonas Salk during a speech about the technological advances in modern medicine in the 1950s. In the short stories by Ray Bradbury, he illustrates how the characters are struggling to live with the futuristic capabilities of technology. “The Pedestrian” focuses on a man named Leonard Mead who is the only person in society who does not use the technology in his home, his hobby is to walk. However, he is viewed as an outcast. “The Veldt” focuses on how George and Lydia Hadley figure out how their children’s nursery is powered by their mind and how they use it to have a tragic advantage over their parents in the end. While technology can let people connect to others much more efficiently, Ray Bradbury shows how the characters in his short stories “The Pedestrian” and “The Veldt” prove how technology is capable of isolating people from reality.
According to ResearchGate, "The story itself shows the atavistic nature lurking beneath humankind’s civilized surface and leads the reader to examine such
6. The underground chambers where the Multivac computer was stored. The story takes place immediately after earth wins the war against the Denebians. The setting of this story is sometime in the distant future. Asimov wisely did not put a date into his story. This allows the story to take place in the future for a very long time.
Society today possesses an over-reliance on technology. Advancements in technology paved the way for the formation of new applications and forms of social media that potentially lead to the loss of the intimacy of communication and personal relationships among users. As a result of the ease of communication through technology, face-to-face interaction rarely occurs anymore. Long before technology began advancing at a rapid pace, authors used their medium of writing to comment on the dangers of relying on technology too excessively. E.M. Forster’s short story, “The Machine Stops,” written in 1909, highlights a dilemma that society’s over-reliance on technology created between virtual connectivity and face-to-face interaction. That over-reliance, perfect for the futuristic, dystopian society in “The Machine Stops,” also serves as a cautionary tale for the technological culture of today.
Technology has long been recognized as a mixed blessing. Its up/downside nature was illustrated nicely in Walt Disney's Fantasia by the myth of the Sorcerer's Apprentice:not only does the "magic" of the machine produce what you desire, it often gives you much more than you can use--as Oedipa Maas, the heroine of this stark American fable, discovers on her frenetic Californian Odyssey. Information which strains to reveal Everything might well succeed only in conveying nothing, becoming practically indistinguishable from noise.But there is noise, and Noise. Many of the devices Pynchon uses to establish informational patterns in Lot 49 are metaphors for life in a mythic, fractionalized and increasingly noisy modern America.
In Isaac Asimov’s All the Troubles of the World, Multivac is described as “the greatest industry on Earth”. It is responsible not only for directing the entire world’s economy and scientific learning, but also for knowing everything there is to know about every single human, from their health and habits to their innermost thoughts and wishes, and using this data to extrapolate and predict future events. It does this with startling accuracy, and is able to foresee crimes of all sorts, from robbery to murder. While this may seem marvelous–something befitting of a futuristic utopia–there are always consequences, and Multivac is no exception. While it may be able to prevent crime and aid global progress, it also places a restraint on human logic,