what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck how did e. m. forster predict smartphones and smart homes 100 years ago
"She knew several thousand people; in certain directions human intercourse had advanced enormously."
helloooo i'm literally typing this on tumblr, the Online Friends Siteâ˘
"[T]he round plate that she held in her hands began to glow. A faint blue light shot across it, darkening to purple, and presently she could see the image of her son, who lived on the other side of the earth, and he could see her."
this isn't even funny anymore how did he write all of this in 1928
i am not exaggerating when i say that this is theeee pandemic mood
"For a moment Vashti felt lonely. Then she generated the light, and the sight of her room, flooded with radiance and studded with electric buttons, revived her. There were buttons and switches everywhere -- buttons to call for food, for music, for clothing. There was the hot-bath button, by pressure of which a basin of (imitation) marble rose out of the floor, filled to the brim with a warm deodorized liquid. There was the cold-bath button. There was the button that produced literature. And there were of course the buttons by which she communicated with her friends."
she literally lives in a smart home and owns an ipad. but this story was written in 1928
"The clumsy system of public gatherings had been long since abandoned; neither Vashti nor her audience stirred from their rooms. Seated in her arm-chair she spoke, while they in their arm-chairs heard her, fairly well, and saw her, fairly well."
UPDATE: he is describing zoom meetings now???????
"No one confessed the Machine was out of hand. Year by year it was served with increased efficiency and decreased intelligence. The better a man knew his own duties upon it, the less he understood the duties of his neighbour, and in all the world there was not one who understood the monster as a whole. [...] But Humanity, in its desire for comfort, had overreached itself. Quietly and complacently, it was sinking into decadence, and progress had come to mean the progress of the Machine."
i'm feeling so normal about this hundred-year-old cautionary tale perfectly describing modern algorithms (i'm lying)





















