Catholic Info
Traditional Catholic Faith => Computers, Technology, Websites => Topic started by: Matthew on May 21, 2024, 02:11:34 AM
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...wanted. Gotcha!
Seriously, I asked years ago, and I'm going to try again: does anyone know the name of a sci-fi short story that goes like this:
Time travel is invented, but it can only snatch someone from the future and bring him BACK to the present. So this is done, and a single man is brought back in time. A huge meeting of world leaders and dignitaries is invoked, like a big UN meeting. The man is questioned on various things.
The man says they have cured disease -- but he doesn't know the details. They have this and that gadget that do absolutely wonderful and magical things by our standards -- but he doesn't understand at all how they work.
In the end, we get nothing from this future man, not enough to advance our technology or knowledge forward *one iota*.
Because, the moral of the story is: technology is a huge edifice, a structure, that no one person owns or understands. And it's possible to *live in* and *enjoy* an advanced technological society without understanding even 1% of it.
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I tracked it down!
Microcosmic Tales, edited by Isaac Asimov
The short story is "Renaissance Man by T. E. D. Klein"
Now if I could just get my hands on a copy of either!
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Star Trek had an episode where people lived with and served by their AI for so long that they forgot how it worked & how to fix it, and how to live without it when it malfunctions.