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
"I went [to the top of] Vehicle Assembly Building and looked down, and tears burst from my eyes. The size of this cathedral where the Rockets take off to go to the moon is so amazing."
- Ray Bradbury
 |
| Government Machine | ||
| The automata that constitute the entire government, all in one building. |
| "That square massive building just below us is the one we were in? And you say that is the center, the
brain, the key of the whole World Government?" "That is the Government," Quentin replied. "Just as your brain is you. These other countless acres of buildings are merely its arms and lingers and eyes and ears. Without this building they could not function, and the world would be chaos." Jack stared down fascinatedly. "And yet," he breathed in amazement, "I ran through miles of corridors, passed hundreds of rooms full of apparatus and instruments, and not a soul did I see,*' Quentin nodded in confirmation. "For an hour I ran, and by the end of it I was caring less about being caught than about finding some people about in these buildings. Is there no one?" "No one," Quentin replied. "And yet you say it's the Government!" The boy seemed dumfounded. "After all my explaining," Quentin said, "haven't you realized that the Government is merely a huge machine, made of metal and rubber and glass and run by electricity and light and heat?" "But—but how can machinery govern the world?" "Better than human beings can. Even your business men in Democratia use machines to help them run their businesses; their offices are full of automatic machines for managing a business, time-clocks, adding-machines, bookkeeping machines, cash-registers, dictaphones—no end of them. The Government Machine is not essentially different. Merely a little more automatic and a little more complex." "And are all the people willing to be governed by a machine?" It was all amazingly strange to Jack. "They cannot conceive of anything else," Quentin explained. "For three hundred years they have grown up in it. They are intensely loyal to it, because it not merely governs them as you understand the wrord govern ; it takes care of them as a mother takes care of children." "They seem to be happy," Jack observed. Quentin nodded down toward the beautiful countryside over which they were flying at a swift rate. The green fields were intersected by broad roads and huge power lines, and the blue bulk of a city loomed on the horizon. "The world is more prosperous than it has ever been before," he replied. "Life is thoroughly comfortable, absolutely safe and certain. But you would call it monotonous. Everybody does everything by rule and schedule, all alike, the world over. Standardize. You wouldn't like it." "I couldn't stand it!" Jack exclaimed. |
| Technovelgy from Mechanocracy,
by Miles J. Breuer. Published by Amazing Stories in 1932 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the games Machine from AE van Vogt's World of Null-A. Compare to other computers large enough to run whole planets or societies: see the City Fathers from James Blish's Cities in Flight, Watchdog from Jack Haldeman's story of the same name, and Deep Thought from Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the Vulcan 3 from Vulcan's Hammer (1960) by Philip K. Dick.
See also the way computers design computers in Isaac Asimov's 1958 short story The Feeling of Power.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Mechanocracy
More Ideas
and Technology by Miles J. Breuer
Tech news articles related to Mechanocracy
Tech news articles related to works by Miles J. Breuer
Government Machine-related
news articles:
- Rule Of Humans By Software Not Transparent
- 'Feel the AGI' OpenAI Leader Now OpenWorship
| Is Agentic AI The Wrong Kind Of Smartness? |
| Jetson Orin Nano Super 70 Just $249 |
| Automatic Bot Traffic Is 38 Percent Of HTTP Requests |
| Neuroplatform Human Brain Organoid Bioprocessor Uses Less Electricity |
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
'Power could be compressed thus into an inch-square cube of what looked like blue-white ice'
'It's so light that you can set it up in five minutes by yourself...'
'Heavy penalties... were to be applied to any one found driving manually-controlled machines.'
'Buy a Little Dingbat... electropen, wrist watch, pocketphone, pocket radio, billfold ... all in one.'
'... an elastic, tinted material that had all the feel and appearance of human flesh and epidermis.'
'It is remarkable that the long leverages of their machines are in most cases actuated by a sort of sham musculature...'
