Blog #6

The novel, Player Piano, by Kurt Vonnegut, is set in the United States in the future. The U.S. society is highly technologically advanced and most human labor is eliminated because of the use of machines. Engineers keep the society running and they regulate the machinery that is being used. Eventually a conflict between the upper class, the engineers, and the lower class emerges. The lower class is upset because they were replaced and there jobs were taken over by machines. Paul Proteus is the leader of the rebellion against the machine society and eventually they are able to defeat the machine society. The title Player Piano is used because it was one of the first applications of automation being used.

Technology: The Emergence of a hazardous Concept by Leo Marx, is about things that go wrong with technology. Marx discusses how technology is a threat to society because people have turned technology into something apart from people who people who invent it. He sees technology as something that is outside of society’s control.

I think Nye uses Player Piano as an example because the book discusses what could happen to the United States society. New technology is going to be created So Vonnegut was saying that eventually technology could get so advanced that it could take over the United States. Robots or other machines could be created to takeover the need for human labor. Assembly lines and other things were created that reduced the need for human labor so could a society described in Player Piano eventually come true?

Technology: The emergences of a hazardous Concept, was used because Marx describes how technology is becoming so advanced that is could cause problems in our society. Technology has become so advanced because people in our society have made it that way. Nye also used this novel as an example because Mark’s discusses how technology is getting out society’s control because it is getting so advanced and eventually most people will not understand how to use it.