I was introduced to it by The Hugonauts podcast. Have a great audio rendering of it[0].
I went into it not knowing anything about the book or the author and was really surprised to find out it was written over 100 years ago.
I first read it decades ago. As time goes on, it has become more relevant.
"The Mending Apparatus was itself in need of repair."
stavros · 2h ago
I was really struck by the phrase "better thus than not at all", expecially where it appears in the story. It's made an impression on me since.
throwanem · 3h ago
Whether so intended or not, I like to think it was a response to Angell's The Great Illusion.
Both were written at, and the film Moulin Rouge! strives to depict, a time whose specific and rather rancid vibe the phrase fin de siècle (literally 'end of cycle' sharing the relevant root with 'secular,' but in proper translation 'end of the century') was adopted into English to describe. That phrase has been occurring to me with some frequency this year.
detourdog · 2h ago
I love when history shows that we have always had the same human ambitions.
The magic of the technology described in the story is where we have always been headed.
roxolotl · 1h ago
There’s something very comforting about a story like this. Humans have always been humans. The names may change but our fears have been our fears, our ambitions have been our ambitions.
rexarex · 58m ago
This was the first prediction of The Internet. It’s such a great short story too. It’s pretty salient even today.
jodrellblank · 2h ago
> "I was surrounded by artificial air, artificial light, artificial peace, and my friends were calling to me down speaking-tubes to know whether I had come across any new ideas lately.”
Hi HN waves; Reddit, news aggregators, the 24 hour news cycle. One quote I went looking for, which sticks in my mind, was about novel ideas:
> "Had she had any ideas lately? ... That she had no ideas of her own but had just been told one —that four stars and three in the middle were like a man: she doubted there was much in it."
She's talking of the Orion's Belt constellation[1], which she has never seen because she lives underground in The Machine (city). It stuck with me how quickly she dismisses the idea because it isn't immediately useful. Jony Ive said that once in an interview decades ago, why he had to move to America, because new ideas are weak and need nurturing and the UK culture dismisses them too easily but America supports them. I saw that basic concept just now on HN comment about EU startups, that EU people see startups as too risky and Americans are enthusiastic about them[2]. Orion's Belt ties to so many ideas, the stars as a shared canvas, projection of our own view up onto them, culture-specific constellaitons, the signs of the Zodiac mark the path the Sun takes overhead, different constellations visible in different hemispheres, imagery as dots, imagination filling in missing details, an ancient time when skies were clear and everyone could see them. I see Orion's Belt through Winter here in the UK but maybe there are people in the Southern Hemisphere who don't see it, so I linked to DuckDuckGo below; worse, maybe there are people in cities with light pollution who never see stars or constellations at all?
Social Media notifications:
> "Vashti’s next move was to turn off the isolation-switch, and all the accumulations of the last three minutes burst upon her. The room was filled with the noise of bells, and speaking-tubes. What was the new food like? Could she recommend it? Had she had any ideas lately? Might one tell her one’s own ideas? Would she make an engagement to visit the public nurseries at an early date? —say this day month."
The rise of interest in Urban planning and human scale cities:
> “You know that we have lost the sense of space. We say ‘space is annihilated,’ but we have annihilated not space, but the sense thereof. We have lost a part of ourselves. I determined to recover it, and I began by walking up and down the platform of the railway outside my room. Up and down, until I was tired, and so did recapture the meaning of ‘Near’ and ‘Far.’ ‘Near’ is a place to which I can get quickly on my feet, not a place to which the train or the airship will take me quickly. ‘Far’ is a place to which I cannot get quickly on my feet; the vomitory is ‘far,’ though I could be there in thirty-eight seconds by summoning the train. Man is the measure. That was my first lesson. Man’s feet are the measure for distance, his hands are the measure for ownership, his body is the measure for all that is lovable and desirable and strong."
LLM Stories:
> So respirators were abolished, and with them, of course, the terrestrial motors [access to the surface / outside], and except for a few lecturers, who complained that they were debarred access to their subject-matter, the development was accepted quietly. Those who still wanted to know what the earth was like had after all only to listen to some gramophone, or to look into some cinematophote. And even the lecturers acquiesced when they found that a lecture on the sea was none the less stimulating when compiled out of other lectures that had already been delivered on the same subject.
Was it prescient or was it just observing things already happening 100 years ago?
> That was my first lesson. Man’s feet are the measure for distance, his hands are the measure for ownership, his body is the measure for all that is lovable and desirable and strong.
Americans were much slower to forget, which is why we correctly spurn the metric system for all save technologists and likewise self-fettering minds. Unfortunately, the tech industry exists, for the moment.
HocusLocus · 1h ago
"
On this bridge, Lorca warns, 'life is not a dream. Beware. And beware. And beware.' And so many think because Then happened, Now isn't. But didn't I mention the ongoing "wow" is happening right now? We are all co-authors of this dancing exuberance where even our inabilities are having a roast. We are the authors of ourselves, co-authoring a gigantic Dostoevsky novel, starring clowns. This entire thing we're involved with called the world, is an opportunity to exhibit how exciting alienation can be.
Life is a matter of a miracle that is collected over time by moments, flabbergasted to be in each other's presence. The world is an exam to see if we can rise into direct experience. Our eyesight is here as a test to see if we can see beyond it. Matter is here as a test for our curiosity. Doubt is here as an exam for our vitality. Thomas Mann wrote that he would rather participate in life than write 100 stories.
Giacometti was once run down by a car, and he recalled falling into a lucid faint, a sudden exhilaration, as he realized that at last something was happening to him. An assumption develops that you cannot understand life and live life simultaneously. I do not agree entirely. Which is to say I do not exactly disagree. I would say that life understood is life lived. But the paradoxes bug me, and I can learn to love and make love to the paradoxes that bug me. And on really romantic evenings of self, I go salsa dancing with my confusion.
Before you drift off, don't forget. Which is to say, remember. Because remembering is so much more a psychotic activity than forgetting. Lorca, in that same poem said that the iguanas will bite those who do not dream. And as one realizes that one is a dream figure in another person's dream, that is self awareness...
"
~Timothy Levitch in “Waking Life”
++upvoted to null the dofus who thinks expressing opinions about the metric system is a crime against humanity
throwanem · 1h ago
Oh, one needn't. A downvote is an honest cri de coeur, if not an honest signal. And they are in any case more likely because I had the temerity to remind someone he is about to be still standing as the music stops, or likelier still I reminded him all he can find to value within himself merits pity from the generous and contempt from everyone. I only died to get out, for which I never blame people hating me; they must, no coward can ever withstand the acknowledgement of courage.
> But the paradoxes bug me, and I can learn to love and make love to the paradoxes that bug me. And on really romantic evenings of self, I go salsa dancing with my confusion.
I was introduced to it by The Hugonauts podcast. Have a great audio rendering of it[0]. I went into it not knowing anything about the book or the author and was really surprised to find out it was written over 100 years ago.
[0] https://hugonauts.simplecast.com/episodes/the-machine-stops-...
"The Mending Apparatus was itself in need of repair."
Both were written at, and the film Moulin Rouge! strives to depict, a time whose specific and rather rancid vibe the phrase fin de siècle (literally 'end of cycle' sharing the relevant root with 'secular,' but in proper translation 'end of the century') was adopted into English to describe. That phrase has been occurring to me with some frequency this year.
The magic of the technology described in the story is where we have always been headed.
Hi HN waves; Reddit, news aggregators, the 24 hour news cycle. One quote I went looking for, which sticks in my mind, was about novel ideas:
> "Had she had any ideas lately? ... That she had no ideas of her own but had just been told one —that four stars and three in the middle were like a man: she doubted there was much in it."
She's talking of the Orion's Belt constellation[1], which she has never seen because she lives underground in The Machine (city). It stuck with me how quickly she dismisses the idea because it isn't immediately useful. Jony Ive said that once in an interview decades ago, why he had to move to America, because new ideas are weak and need nurturing and the UK culture dismisses them too easily but America supports them. I saw that basic concept just now on HN comment about EU startups, that EU people see startups as too risky and Americans are enthusiastic about them[2]. Orion's Belt ties to so many ideas, the stars as a shared canvas, projection of our own view up onto them, culture-specific constellaitons, the signs of the Zodiac mark the path the Sun takes overhead, different constellations visible in different hemispheres, imagery as dots, imagination filling in missing details, an ancient time when skies were clear and everyone could see them. I see Orion's Belt through Winter here in the UK but maybe there are people in the Southern Hemisphere who don't see it, so I linked to DuckDuckGo below; worse, maybe there are people in cities with light pollution who never see stars or constellations at all?
Social Media notifications:
> "Vashti’s next move was to turn off the isolation-switch, and all the accumulations of the last three minutes burst upon her. The room was filled with the noise of bells, and speaking-tubes. What was the new food like? Could she recommend it? Had she had any ideas lately? Might one tell her one’s own ideas? Would she make an engagement to visit the public nurseries at an early date? —say this day month."
The rise of interest in Urban planning and human scale cities:
> “You know that we have lost the sense of space. We say ‘space is annihilated,’ but we have annihilated not space, but the sense thereof. We have lost a part of ourselves. I determined to recover it, and I began by walking up and down the platform of the railway outside my room. Up and down, until I was tired, and so did recapture the meaning of ‘Near’ and ‘Far.’ ‘Near’ is a place to which I can get quickly on my feet, not a place to which the train or the airship will take me quickly. ‘Far’ is a place to which I cannot get quickly on my feet; the vomitory is ‘far,’ though I could be there in thirty-eight seconds by summoning the train. Man is the measure. That was my first lesson. Man’s feet are the measure for distance, his hands are the measure for ownership, his body is the measure for all that is lovable and desirable and strong."
LLM Stories:
> So respirators were abolished, and with them, of course, the terrestrial motors [access to the surface / outside], and except for a few lecturers, who complained that they were debarred access to their subject-matter, the development was accepted quietly. Those who still wanted to know what the earth was like had after all only to listen to some gramophone, or to look into some cinematophote. And even the lecturers acquiesced when they found that a lecture on the sea was none the less stimulating when compiled out of other lectures that had already been delivered on the same subject.
Was it prescient or was it just observing things already happening 100 years ago?
[1] https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=orion%27s+belt+constellatio...
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44050394
Americans were much slower to forget, which is why we correctly spurn the metric system for all save technologists and likewise self-fettering minds. Unfortunately, the tech industry exists, for the moment.
Life is a matter of a miracle that is collected over time by moments, flabbergasted to be in each other's presence. The world is an exam to see if we can rise into direct experience. Our eyesight is here as a test to see if we can see beyond it. Matter is here as a test for our curiosity. Doubt is here as an exam for our vitality. Thomas Mann wrote that he would rather participate in life than write 100 stories.
Giacometti was once run down by a car, and he recalled falling into a lucid faint, a sudden exhilaration, as he realized that at last something was happening to him. An assumption develops that you cannot understand life and live life simultaneously. I do not agree entirely. Which is to say I do not exactly disagree. I would say that life understood is life lived. But the paradoxes bug me, and I can learn to love and make love to the paradoxes that bug me. And on really romantic evenings of self, I go salsa dancing with my confusion.
Before you drift off, don't forget. Which is to say, remember. Because remembering is so much more a psychotic activity than forgetting. Lorca, in that same poem said that the iguanas will bite those who do not dream. And as one realizes that one is a dream figure in another person's dream, that is self awareness... " ~Timothy Levitch in “Waking Life”
++upvoted to null the dofus who thinks expressing opinions about the metric system is a crime against humanity
> But the paradoxes bug me, and I can learn to love and make love to the paradoxes that bug me. And on really romantic evenings of self, I go salsa dancing with my confusion.
Now this is the way to live.