Page 28 - Three Adventures

Deflator Mouse

judgement generally more accurate than the average human
practitioner, subject to irrational inconsistencies, can hope to
achieve. Thus, the progression obtains:

(1) Humans, relying totally on their own minds.
(2) Humans, relying on machines to provide semi-processed
data.
(3) Machines, relying on humans to provide unprocessed
data.

The fourth step is obvious; as information hunters and
gatherers, humans are increasingly inferior to process-
control sensors and automated databases. The self-
propelling dynamic of efficiency drives expensive humans
out of the job market in favor of cheap machines. Despite
earlier prognostications of bounty and leisure for all, the
results of this shift have been dystopic. Anthropologists and
psychologists warn that culture and personality balance
precariously on the individual’s integration into productivity
units, but the wealth generated by advances in mechanized
agriculture and industry has not been equally shared, nor has
prosperity led those in control of the means of production
to more responsible policies of management. The cybernetic
structure is accreting around society like the rigid walls and
tunnels of a bee-hive, where the great mass of drones toil at
meaningless labor while the royalty siphon off the honey—
all to no purpose save the preservation of the system itself.

The perils facing the planet require a radical re-evaluation of
and turnabout from business as usual. The strength and
flexibility necessary to accomplish this Herculean task will
not be found among demoralized machine-tenders. The
lemmings will go over the cliff, carried not by their own legs,
but by brightly-colored, air-conditioned vehicles. It is
possible, of course, that a mechanical hive will be developed
which covers the entire world and whose prime directive is
“protect the Earth from its own inhabitants.” The political
will to institute such a system, however, is probably just as
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