kepano

E. M. Forster predicted the gradual decline of Spotify and Sonos in his 1909 short story The Machine Stops:

"I can never be sure of my music now. It gets worse and worse each time I summon it."

"Time passed, and they resented the defects no longer. The defects had not been remedied, but the human tissues in that latter day had become so subservient, that they readily adapted themselves to every caprice of the Machine."

You can read the full short story here:
https://stephango.com/the-machine-stops

The Machine Stops

This short story by E.M. Forster continues to be some of the most prescient science fiction ever written. My appreciation for it only grows with time. I have...

Steph Ango
Apr 5, 2025 at 5:53pmElk
Show thread⁂ Fish Id WardrobeApr 5, 2025
@kepano FWIW, this is supposedly one of Musk's favourite stories. If that's true he must be reading it very differently from me…
Show threadBasilApr 5, 2025
@kepano 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.