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There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

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Re: There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

#141

Post by officeplant »

srean wrote: post #76
twotwotwo wrote: post #28

Okay, a stretch for HN, but: singer-songwriter Silvana Estrada named an album released last year Vendrán Suaves Lluvias (meaning There Will Come Soft Rains). She talked about how she and her brother read The Martian Chronicles as kids and she remembered the Sara Teasdale poem quoted at the end. She said she composed the songs at a difficult time in her life and, I guess, something about that image in the story (and t…

Does Tiny Desk have the best sound engineers or what ?

They constantly blow my mind, especially with the more recent Napalm Death tiny desk concert.

Re: There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

#142

Post by cautiouscat »

thrtythreeforty wrote: post #134

I read this story in 4th grade. It felt like the future. Now, it feels like most of the technology is within reach - at least, it could be built. The automated stove being the main exception. But the most unrealistic part of this story is how all the IoT automation continues to work in the absence of the Internet.

We're closer to the stove, kind of. At least with things like Tovala. I've never actually met someone with one though.

Re: There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

#143

Post by automatic6131 »

thrtythreeforty wrote: post #134

I read this story in 4th grade. It felt like the future. Now, it feels like most of the technology is within reach - at least, it could be built. The automated stove being the main exception. But the most unrealistic part of this story is how all the IoT automation continues to work in the absence of the Internet.

> In the living room the voice-clock sang, Connecting to Brand(tm) servers... Connecting to Brand(tm) servers... Connecting to Brand(tm) servers...

Re: There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

#144

Post by wat10000 »

pfdietz wrote: post #99
kibwen wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The great sleight-of-hand of the 20th century is that it never went away, we all just collectively decided to stop thinking about the fact that at every given moment for the rest of human history we'll never be more than thirty minutes away from total nuclear annihilation.

The world doesn't have enough nuclear weapons for "total nuclear annihilation".

There's plenty enough to make the second-worst war in human history look like an enjoyable beach vacation by comparison.

Re: There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

#145

Post by officeplant »

laszlojamf wrote: post #66

The most interesting thing about science fiction to me isn't the things the authors get right, but what they get wrong. Like, the whole house talking in a ChatGPT voice, intelligent appliances, etc: brilliant prescience. But he still thought we'd be having linoleum on our floors...

>he still thought we'd be having linoleum on our floors...

We still do! Idk if that is changing anytime soon in my life at least.

Re: There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

#146

Post by mrloopex »

pavlov wrote: post #122
mrloopex wrote: post #110

Born in 1968 I missed “duck and cover” but rode the wave of Reagan brinkmanship with my skater friends until 1990, watching all the broadcast TV PSAs and songs and art about nuclear war. It was real. It pervaded daily life: the notion that two old white men were having a pissing contest with every human as disposable bargaining chips. And as always, 25% of the US population cheered for purification of the planet beca…

[flagged]

The rebuilding of the temple. Yeah that faction is still in power. Blows my mind.

Re: There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

#147

Post by wat10000 »

pbronez wrote: post #5

Yeesh how bleak

It's nothing particularly special in that regard, there's plenty of apocalyptic fiction that came out of the nuclear arms race. What's really bleak is that the story's depiction has been a real possibility for longer than most of us have been alive, and pretty much nobody cares to do anything about it. It's to the point where people talk about the threat of sudden nuclear annihilation as something relegated to the past, when it never went away.

Re: There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

#149

Post by ajmurmann »

intrasight wrote: post #102
WillAdams wrote: post #98

One thing which I find striking here is that a modern home and attendant conveniences roughly embodies 10--15 horsepower of effort, or the work of 40 or so full time house staff. Thus far, the only notable robots are little disks which vacuum up floors (and they're getting outlawed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49104371 ) and some innovations just haven't become widespread (an uncle of mine piped his home for…

It'll be a US or Japanese or South Korean robot since it's not allowed to come from China. I'd be in favor of Apple entering that market. I think they'll be a huge first-mover advantage because of the Chinese blockade preventing cheap clones.

Sorry, in the US it's, AFAIK, now not allowed to come from anywhere but the US: https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/fcc-bans-future-roomba...

The admin seems to have a tendency to fearmonger over China and then ban or tariff globally. Allies don't exist apparently.

Re: There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

#150

Post by troyvit »

thrtythreeforty wrote: post #134

I read this story in 4th grade. It felt like the future. Now, it feels like most of the technology is within reach - at least, it could be built. The automated stove being the main exception. But the most unrealistic part of this story is how all the IoT automation continues to work in the absence of the Internet.

> But the most unrealistic part of this story is how all the IoT automation continues to work in the absence of the Internet.

It's actually one way this story about the apocalypse is more hopeful than the present day. We don't need the internet to make most of the things in that story work, but in our timeline we'd add it anyway to get and sell those good analytics.

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