July 1931 by Unknown
Author:Unknown [Unknown]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-07-03T04:00:00+00:00
The Revolt of the Machines
By Nat Schachner and Arthur L. Zagat
[Sidenote: Something in the many-faceted mind of the master machine spurs it to diabolical revolt against the authority of its human masters.]
PROLOGUE
For five thousand years, since that nigh legendary figure Einstein wrote and thought in the far-off mists of time, the scientists endeavored to reduce life and the universe to terms of a mathematical formula. And they thought they had succeeded. Throughout the world, machines did the work of man, and the aristos, owners of the machines, played in soft idleness in their crystal and gold pleasure cities. Even the prolat hordes, relieved of all but an hour or two per day of toil, were content in their warrens--content with the crumbs of their masters.
Then the ice began to move, down from the north and up from the south. Slowly, inexorably, the jaws of the great vise closed, till all that was left of the wide empire of man was a narrow belt about the equator. Everywhere else was a vast tumbled waste of cold and glaring whiteness, a frozen desert. In the narrow habitable belt were compacted the teeming millions of earth's peoples.
In spite of the best efforts of the scientists among them, the crowding together of the myriads of earth's inhabitants brought in its train the inevitable plagues of famine and disease. Even with the most intensive methods of cultivation, even with the synthetic food factories running day and night, there could not be produced enough to sustain life in the hordes of prolats. And with the lowering of resistance and the lack of sufficient sanitary arrangements, disease began to spread with ever increasing rapidity and virulence.
* * * * *
The aristos trembled, for they were few, and the prolats many. Already were arising loud and disheveled orators, inciting the millions to arise against their masters. The aristos were few, but they were not helpless. In the blackness of a moonless, clouded night there was a whispering of many wings, and from dark shapes that loomed against the dark sky, great beams swept over the tented fields where the prolats lay huddled and sleeping. And when the red sun circled the ice-chained earth he found in his path heaps of dust where on his last journey he had warmed the swarming millions.
The slaves thus ruthlessly destroyed could well be spared, for the machines did the work of the world, even to the personal care of the aristos' pampered bodies. Only for direction, and starting and stopping, was the brain and the hand of man required. Now that the inhabited portion of the terrestrial globe was so straitly circumscribed, radio power waves, television and radio-phone, rendered feasible the control of all the machines from one central station, built at the edge of the Northern Glacier. Here were brought the scant few of the prolats that had been spared, a pitiful four hundred men and women, and they were set to endless, thankless tasks.
I was one of those few; and Keston, my friend, who was set at the head of the force.
Download
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.
The Complete Stick Figure Physics Tutorials by Allen Sarah(6638)
Secrets of Antigravity Propulsion: Tesla, UFOs, and Classified Aerospace Technology by Ph.D. Paul A. Laviolette(3450)
Thing Explainer by Randall Munroe(3327)
The River of Consciousness by Oliver Sacks(2992)
The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli(2714)
I Live in the Future & Here's How It Works by Nick Bilton(2524)
How To by Randall Munroe(2475)
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking(2473)
The Great Unknown by Marcus du Sautoy(2186)
What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe(2170)
Blockchain: Ultimate Step By Step Guide To Understanding Blockchain Technology, Bitcoin Creation, and the future of Money (Novice to Expert) by Keizer Söze(2137)
Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham(2078)
Networks: An Introduction by Newman Mark(1998)
The Meaning of it All by Richard Feynman(1909)
Easy Electronics by Charles Platt(1864)
The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra(1848)
When by Daniel H Pink(1777)
Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster by Adam Higginbotham(1775)
Introducing Relativity by Bruce Bassett(1754)