"It was supposed that no one but the gods could exist above their summits. How we have advanced, thanks to the Machine!"
Did he just compare the Machine to God?
Now, I may be wrong here, but unless God is some kick-ass robot, and he’s cool with this sort of thing, I’m going to go ahead and place that quote under the “Heresy” category. I’m no heretic expert, but I’m pretty sure that idolizing a machine is a no-no. This is just another prime example of how admiration leads to obsession leads to addiction leads to dependency leads to idolatry… I think.
I also think that Foster is on to something here. The predictions in this story come a little too close for comfort. Modern society has become infatuated with technology. Just think of the progression of everyday technology and how heavily we rely on the objects we possess. First it was the wheel, then the horse, then the stove, then the toaster, then the TV, then the snowmobile, then the internet. We have already consumed ourselves with advancement so much that we have surrounded ourselves with a safety blanket of technology. It’s to the point that if we go back two years, we’d be lost. We’re advancing ourselves at such a pace that we could eventually end up like this underground civilization, sitting around our ipods and blackberries, thanking them for destroying individualism and any threat of free thinking.