Thoughts on “The Machine Stops”

I though the short story ā€œThe Machine Stopsā€ was a very interesting and depressing read for me. The first thing that came to my mind was the similarities that we share with the society in this short story. For example, a lot of what we do in our every day lives is dependent on technology, which we humans, have created. If you eliminate that, most of civilization will turn into chaos. In addition, I also find it very interesting that the humans in this story do not have any physical contact with one another, nor do they travel outside out their ā€œcell.ā€ If you compare it to our current day, lots of people are stuck on social media and other forms of technology, that they donā€™t make the time to travel outside or meet people face to face. People begin to lose the ability to socially communicate with one another, and that has clearly happened with the Vashti. When traveling on the air-ship, people hardly even make any eye contact and avoid touching each other. What is amazing about the conclusion of this story is the idea that we humans are not infallible; therefore, the technology we create is also a reflection of us. The technology in ā€œThe Machine Stopsā€ almost becomes a religion to these people, because they depend on it so much. We cannot depend exclusively on technology, because when something does go wrong, we have to learn to live within our natural world as well. The ending highlights some of the negative outcomes that could occur if we begin rely to heavily on technology to dictate the way we live our lives, which is amazing given the time this was written (1908) when technology wasnā€™t nearly as advanced as it is now.

The Machine Stops Metropolis

I like my combination of the titles. When I started reading “The Machine Stops” I was very confused on what it was all about but then on page 2 there was a line that spoke to me “The Machine is much, but it is not everything”. I think it somewhat sums up the conflict between the Son Kuno and the mother Vashti and her obsessive addiction to The Machine. She is a slave to it and that fact cannot be even more relateable to what is happening in the real world now. Nowadays with all of the new technology and our smartphones we have become a slave to it, the machine. It does so much for us, like the machine, but we have become so dependent to it and made it a bad habit and isolated ourselves, like Vashti, from social interaction. “The Machine Stops” is an exaggerated example of the negative effects on the dependency of technology but I think we’re on that track.

Watching “Metropolis” was actually fun, the music helped a lot for me. I think a good score can make or break a film, but that is just my opinion but to me it really did give the story an extra spice. I see a similar concept in the sense I can relate the concepts to the real world. Greed of power and control can only lead to the revolt of the oppressed, how many times has that happened in the history of this earth. I can’t stop mentioning the music, I am infatuated with the rescore it really gave it a new layer to the classic film.