Technophobia…more reading July 6

I read more of Technophobia! and it’s still so fascinating. I think it is the most important book I ever chose for my research. It has just what I need: robots, androids and cyborgs and their history in science fiction. There were some explanations about machines and artificial humans in science fiction that were not limited to the following titles: The Golem, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Metropolis (1927), We (1924), H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau, and E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops” (1909).

Important themes came up too, all and more of which I want to explore:

• Robots who want to be human, loved

• Master creates artificial slave------------slave dominates master

• Humans will be enslaved by technology

• Redefining what it means to be human

This is a quote from the book that I found to be a very important one:

“The gothic myth of artificial humans—the golem, the homunculus,

and the Frankenstein monster—will transform into robots, cyborgs,

androids, and clones of science fiction.” (Dinello, 46)

I read E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops” in a Science Fiction class that I took at Cal State University Northridge. It was the only time in my college career at CSUN that I would be able to take the class. “The Machine Stops” was the first story we read. Of course not all the stories and novels we read were about machines or robots, but that class opened up my eyes to other topics that science fiction can explore and ask questions about, and introduce possible answers to them (therefore creating more questions). “The Machine Stops” was especially a good piece because it introduced the topic of all humans being completely dependent on machines to live, and all these machines were controlled by this one huge machine that everyone’s living quarters are a part of.

Personally I am a bit afraid of growing technology myself. The most hi-tech thing that I own is my purple iPod Nano. I don’t need an iPhone or an Android Phone, or whatever other multi-purpose phones people use for reasons other than for talking. I have a cell-phone for that. I found out from a an ad on TV that there is an iPhone App that can turn off the house lights, or close the garage door while you are away, in case you forgot to turn the switch earlier.  I mean, HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE???