The story, “Machine Stops”, is set in the future. You can tell by how everything is operated by one thing and that is the Machine. There are a lot of buttons in each room that people live in and so everything literally everything is done by pressing the buttons. Now days things are still operated by humans and few machines. Another reason is that everything was really organized. What I mean is that everything was controlled. For example, how all the rooms in the world were exactly the same and so was every place all the people lived. Everybody lived underground, and everybody was separated neatly, and all floors had the same layout in all places in the world.

A lot of things have been removed. For example, human interaction was no longer a thing they just talked to each other electronically. So, people did not really like each other, they would not even go check on each other even though some of them are next to each other. The two protagonists in this story, Vashti and her son Kuno. Kuno asked his mom to come over to see him and that idea really annoyed her, since people in that age got annoyed easily and human interaction was a huge thing in a negative way. It’s really bad to the point where if you touch someone it will really annoy that person. One big thing that was supposedly removed was religion. This subject, however, is quite ironic. Even though no religion existed people still worshipped the Machine. Everyone had a book, which was about the Machine, and people around the world would go to it to kiss it or caress it when they weren’t feeling well or getting anxious about something and that would make them feel better which is very weird.

When Vashti visited her son, he told her about everything. He told her about the surface world. How he went there to visit and how he was slowly understanding what it means to be a human and not controlled by a machine. This fact angered a lot of people, so he was threatened with “homelessness”. It means you will be removed from your room and that will cause you to die. People who were removed from their room probably did not die because the outer air won’t kill anyone as Kuno found out.

People literally thinks the Machine is a god. It went to the point where they brought back religion just, so they can worship the Machine for all the things it did for them. Which honestly is nothing since people built the machine and they were the ones operating it. That just shows how if we keep relaying on technology to do everything for us we will end up like the people in the story controlled by the Machine. And panic like it is the end of the world when it stops. This story shows that too much reliance on technology will slowly kill us and instead of advancing we will be stepping back a civilization and nothing will be accomplished. Everything will stay the same and humanity will slowly go extinct.

    In the short story , “The Machine Stops” , The two protagonist , Vashti and Kuno  argue about seeing each other physically rather then through electronic messaging.  Between that time , we see that Vashti and Kuno have different beliefs. Kuno is more of sensualist meaning someone who is devoted to physical pleasure while Vashti worships the mechanical being  ” The Machine”.

     In the beginning of the story,  Kuno is asking his mother Vashti to come over physically to him because they haven’t seen each other in such a way in a very long time . Vashti is making all sorts of excuses to go and meet her son, even though that airspace travel is permitted but it is a unpopular way of  traveling to meet and communicate with someone. On the second page of the story , Vashti suggested the use of ” Pneumatic post” or instant messaging through the use of air or gas. The is more of popular use of the communicating intangibly. Kuno still insist that his mother takes the journey to other side of the world, where her son resides. What I realize throughout the  story is that Kuno is sensualist and rebel because he wants the physical presence of his mother and everything else in the world. In addition, Kuno has gone to the surface before , but was threaten with “Homelessness ” which is expulsion from the underground world and probably death. 

      Further on , there seems to be that the setting of  is set in apocalyptic setting. As described by Vashti point of view on page 12 , the city  resides underground and vomitories pushing out of the earth surface. On page 3 of the article , Kuno wanted to see the stars on the earth surface ” as our ancestors did, thousands of years ago”. Also on page 2, you can read that Vashti is disgusted  by the earths surface when asked by her son to come and physically see her ” “I dislike seeing the horrible brown earth, and the sea, and the stars when it is dark. I get no ideas in an air-ship.” This suggest that there was some kind of chaotic or troubling ending thousands of years ago that caused humanity to retreat below the surface of the earth. 

In addition, I read that the people have this “Book” that everyone reads from. Its like a Holy Bible , but veneration to the Machine. Vashti and other people worship The Machine like a god, however, they where the ones who created giving it omnipotence. Later in the story, its ironic how people worship the Machine like a god, but it starts to break down. In addition, that people don’t know how to fix the Machine because they have forgotten how to . So it is like they are worshiping  a false God that seems  not all powerful.So what it seems is that  humanity cannot rely on technology forever, for in this case that the short story of The Machine Stops ,it has shown negative consequences of little human interaction, ignorance, over reliance in technology. Kuno believes that after the Machine has completely stops  , humanity will learn for there lesson and won’t repeat there mistake again.