Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"Generally, the human race avoids doing anything radical until forced into it."
- Frederik Pohl
 |
| Hearing Aid | ||
| A service that allows people to anonymously talk with another person who only listens. |
This is another completely unique idea of Brunner's. There is also an interesting technical angle to Hearing Aid, but I don't want to discuss it (to avoid spoiling the novel). It has to do with the manner in which a call to Hearing Aid is done without creating any kind of record, thus ensuring the privacy of the session.
| Stonkered or clutched or quite simply going insane, someone reaches for the phone and punches the most famous number on the continent: the ten nines that key you into Hearing Aid. And talks to a blank though lighted screen. It's a service. Imposing no penances, it's kinder than the confessional. Demanding no fees, it's affordable where psychotherapy is not. Offering no advice, it's better than arguing with that son (or daughter) of a bitch who thinks he/she knows all the answers and goes on and on and on until you want to scream. |
| Technovelgy from The Shockwave Rider,
by John Brunner. Published by Harper and Row in 1975 Additional resources -
|
This remarkable book is deals extensively with technology; issues like privacy and the consequences of keeping vast amounts of data of all sorts on one network are extensively reviewed.
And yet, the key themes of the novel deal with how to stay sane in a world of technological complexity. In the case of Hearing Aid, a powerful technology is employed to allow everyone in a society in which there was little real privacy to have an essential human experience - a sympathetic, nonjudgemental listener.
This excerpt from the book details an experience of a user of Hearing Aid:
Miraculously, there followed no disaster...
The complete anonymity provided by the Hearing Aid service was the result of a special computer tapeworm provided at the inception of the service:
The following statement by philosophy professor Jacob Needleman makes a very strong statement; in the world of The Shockwave Rider, there is support for this important part of the human experience:
From a public veephone at the railcar terminal linking Tarnover to the nearest town
he called Hearing Aid, for the first time in years, and for one dark lonely hour poured
out the secrets of his heart. It was a catharsis, a purgation. But long before he had
regained his room he was shaking, haunted by the fear that Hearing Aid's famous
promise ("Only I heard that!") might not be true. How could it be? It was absurd!
From Canaveral the tendril-ears of federal computers wove through his society like
mycelia. No place could possibly be immune. All night he lay awake in fear, expecting
his door to be flung open and stern silent men to take him under arrest. By dawn he was
half-minded to kill himself.
The poker who
wrote Precipice's original tapeworm was pretty good, but you could theoretically have
killed it without shutting down the net — that is, at the cost of losing thirty or forty
billion bits of data. Which I gather they were just about prepared to do when I showed
up. But mine . . . Ho, no! That, I cross my heart, cannot be killed without
dismantling the net."
Simply put, there is nothing, nothing in the world, that can take the place of one person intentionally listening or speaking to another. The act of conscious attending to another person — when one once discovers the taste of it and its significance — can become the center of gravity of the work of love. It is very difficult. Almost nothing in our world supports it or even knows about it.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 4 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Shockwave Rider
More Ideas
and Technology by John Brunner
Tech news articles related to The Shockwave Rider
Tech news articles related to works by John Brunner
Hearing Aid-related
news articles:
- OK2TALK Like Hearing Aid From Shockwave Rider
- Blahtherapy - You Vent Anonymously To Strangers
- Talkspace Anonymous Therapy App
| Positioned Cybertrucks With Free Starlinks WiFi In LA |
| Will Whales Be Our First Contact? |
| NYC/Dublin Portal Fails To Meet 'Guardian Of Forever' Standards |
| Holobox? Who Doesn't Want A Home Hologram? |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Science Fiction Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
'Hocus-pocus religions and archaic weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side.'
'Oscar picked up a trowel. 'I'm the tool for the mortar,' the little trowel squeaked cheerfully.'
'... he waited for the robotrix attendant to finish fueling up his ship.'
The Roujin Z system provides care to fully bedridden patients - and then some!
'Aerostat meant anything that hung in the air. This was an easy trick to pull off nowadays.'
'The Ringworld had no horizon. There was no line where the land curved away from the sky.'
'An adjustment panel outside the door would cause it to extrude various appurtenances in memory plastic...'
'Annealed in any shape for a time, and codified, the structure of that shape is retained down to the molecules.'
It's not really polite to tear the limbs off robots.
'...the imaginary companions discovered by needful children.'
