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Dario D Giavazzi
Prof. McKenna
ENC 1102H
14 March 2025
We are heading to The Machine Stops Environment.
Our current technology can allow humans to do all kinds of things for us remotely, but it
also has made full isolation a viable option for us. For human survival, you would say you will
need four things: a job, food, a stable environment & relationships. These can be fully obtained
through a machine as in The Machine Stops. This short story provided an insight into a future
consequence of the forceful dependence of technology on all human needs. As a society we are
heading to the same scenario as in the story, some of us are fully relying on technology that
allows us to be isolated at home as our digital machines can provide what we need as in the story.
In a sense, we are currently capable of acquiring anything we need without moving from
our homes since our machines are capable to provide what we want through delivering apps. In
the short story, “There were buttons and switches everywhere, buttons to call for food, for music,
for clothing. There was the hot-bath button… There was then a cold bath button. There was the
button that produced literature.” Does this sound familiar? Our machines can call for food,
music, clothing and even our own bath. We have apps such as Uber eats, Door Dash, & Amazon
that provide these services and currently they are experimenting with autonomous vehicles to get
rid of the human factor in deliveries as Tesla is trying to accomplish. But providing services is
not the only thing that our machines allow us to do.
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A person can fully work at home without the need to attend the workplace at all and jobs
can be done with minimum human intervention as machines can replace the place the physical
human being. In the story Kuno stated the following: “it occurred to me that our cities had been
built in the days when men still breathed the outer air, and that there had been ventilation shafts
for the workmen.” That means that the infrastructure they were in was built by the work of these
workers. But in our time, we have one up against this story. Modern technology has created giant
automated machines, such as 3D printers and autonomous construction robots to build homes
layer by layer, with minimal human intervention (Parton). Not only in construction but in almost
any other field. A great support of how many jobs were done remotely is the historical event of
Covid-19 where close contact was dangerous, so companies rely on apps in machines such as:
TeamViewer, Teams, Zoom, and even delivery services that allowed them to do their work
isolated from people. So, the possibility of a career to be fully experienced remotely is currently
a thing.
Moving on to another area of technology dependence on human needs will be that we can
form relationships online with no need for physical introduction. The machine in the story
provided Vashti with bottoms that allow deliveries of objects “And there were of course the
buttons by which she communicated with her friends.” If you think that relationship cannot
happen in the online media, then you are totally mistaken. “As the web becomes more accessible,
once-timid nontechnical types are using it to shop for everything--including love” (Larkins).
Dating apps, social-media apps, academic apps, online games, zoom meetings are a few
examples that you are familiar with and have experience with, that relationships can happen
without meeting face-to-face. We are by nature social beings, but these machines have allowed
us to still be social beings while being isolated physically as in the story.
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If we add all these points, we could say that our situation is heading to the result of The
Machine Stops. If the four things that humans need are fully obtained digitally, in the future we
might see the same scenario where people are isolating might happen. As stated before, modern
technology now has the capability to do such things. It has allowed humans to obtain whatever
they want through a digital website and delivered without human factors involved. It has allowed
humans to work their full careers without moving from home with remote-work apps. It has
allowed humans to create relationships with no need to physically see each other with the use of
social media & games apps. The story provided an insight into future consequences if we keep
heading in the direction we are heading, and as you can see, we are not that far.
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Work Cited:
Larkins, Jeanne. "Virtual Foreplay: Making Your Online Relationship a Real-Life Success."
Library Journal, vol. 126, no. 13, Aug. 2001, p. 139. Gale General OneFile,
link.gale.com/apps/doc/A77703192/ITOF?u=lincclin_hcc&sid=bookmarkITOF&xid=923c29f2. Accessed 15 Mar. 2025.
Parton, Mitchell. “Your next House Could Be Built by a Giant Robot.” Techxplore.com, Tech
Xplore, Feb. 2023, techxplore.com/news/2023-02-house-built-giant-robot.html. Accessed
14 Mar. 2025.