From: Lucian Mogosanu Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2017 13:26:35 +0000 (+0200) Subject: posts: 056 X-Git-Tag: v0.9~1 X-Git-Url: https://git.mogosanu.ro/?a=commitdiff_plain;h=3aea730c170cbe61c8ebac441cf097dc1ef6f6a8;p=thetarpit.git posts: 056 --- diff --git a/posts/y03/056-player-piano.markdown b/posts/y03/056-player-piano.markdown new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b3ff4c4 --- /dev/null +++ b/posts/y03/056-player-piano.markdown @@ -0,0 +1,173 @@ +--- +postid: '056' +title: Player Piano +date: January 22, 2017 +author: Lucian Mogoșanu +tags: reading +--- + +Player Piano represents Vonnegut's attempt to predict the future, a +prediction which has proven to be mostly accurate with respect to +present day. Its ingredients are typically Vonnegutian in nature, at +least as far as I can tell; and I can't tell too much, since I've only +read Cat's Cradle in addition to this one. But let's stick to the +subject. + +The first ingredient of the novel is maybe Vonnegut's obsession with the +war, or at least *a* war. War in general makes people go nuts, but this +war in particular coerced people, and in particular the so-called +"engineers and managers"[^1] into genuine ingenuity and whatnot. So the +second ingredient follows naturally: a post-war America with its social +particularities and peculiarities. + +The third ingredient is a narrative told from a mostly-omni-scient point +of view, in fact comprising two (eventually) interweaving narrative +threads. Player Piano tells the story of Dr.[^2] Paul Proteus, "engineer +and manager", but as an aside provides an outside perspective through +the Shah of Bratpuhr, who just happens to be visiting the US during the +unfolding of the novel's main events. The Shah and his nephew, and in +fact the whole thread is a plot device created to illustrate that +America's "progress" is for naught[^3]. + +The fourth ingredient is satire. Satire of American democracy, satire of +"progressive" "liberal" socialism, satire of [endless PR][marketing], +and, the most visionary and the best of them all, satire of "computers +will make the world a better place"[^4]. To quote: + +> "This is EPICAC XIV," said Halyard. "It's an electronic computing +> machine -- a brain, if you like. This chamber alone, the smallest of +> the thirty-one used, contains enough wire to reach from here to the +> moon four times. There are more vacuum tubes in the entire instrument +> than there were vacuum tubes in the State of New York before World War +> II." He had recited these figures so often that he had no need for the +> descriptive pamphlet that was passed out to visitors. +> +> Khashdrahr told the Shah. +> +> The Shah thought it over, snickered shyly, and Khashdrahr joined him +> in the quiet, Oriental merriment. +> +> "Shah said," said Khashdrahr, "people in his land sleep with smart +> women and make good brains cheap. Save enough wire to go to moon a +> thousand times." + +and + +> [...] "In order to be self-supporting, a book club has to have at +> least a half-million members, or it isn’t worth setting up the +> machinery -- the electronic billers, the electronic addressers, the +> electronic wrappers, the electronic presses, and the electronic +> dividend computers.” +> +> [...] +> +> "Well, a fully automatic setup like that makes culture very +> cheap. Book costs less than seven packs of chewing gum. And there are +> picture clubs, too -- pictures for your walls at amazingly cheap +> prices. Matter of fact, culture's so cheap, a man figured he could +> insulate his house cheaper with books and prints than he could with +> rockwool. Don't think it’s true, but it’s a cute story with a good +> point." +> +> "And painters are well supported under this club system?" asked +> Khashdrahr. +> +> "Supported -- I guess!" said Halyard. "It's the Golden Age of Art, +> with millions of dollars a year poured into reproductions of +> Rembrandts, Whistlers, Goyas, Renoirs, El Grecos, Dégas, da Vincis, +> Michelangelos ..." +> +> "These club members, they get just any book, any picture?" asked +> Khashdrahr. +> +> "I should say not! A lot of research[^5] goes into what's run off, +> believe me. Surveys of public reading tastes, readability and appeal +> tests on books being considered. Heavens, running off an unpopular +> book would put a club out of business like that!" He snapped his +> fingers ominously. "The way they keep culture so cheap is by knowing +> in advance what and how much of it people want[^6]. They get it right, +> right down to the color of the jacket. Gutenberg would be amazed." + +and + +> No cabs had bothered to meet the unpromising train. Paul phoned the +> cab company, but no one answered. He looked helplessly at the +> automatic ticket vendor, the automatic nylon vendor, the automatic +> coffee vendor, the automatic gum vendor, the automatic book vendor, +> the automatic newspaper vendor, the automatic toothbrush vendor, the +> automatic Coke vendor, the automatic shoeshine machine, the automatic +> photo studio, and walked out into the deserted streets on the +> Homestead side of the river. + +and I could go on for a long time with this. + +The climax of the whole story is reached when a bunch of derps delude +themselves that they can change "the system" by throwing a +revolution. And they do, and the coup sort of succeeds, that is, until +[the slaves][freedom] start going back to the initial process of making +their own lives miserable. Other than that, Vonnegut might have gone +wrong in a place or two; I don't remember exactly where and how, so that +makes it mostly unimportant. + +To sum this up, the novel is recommended reading for those who don't +understand why we sane people don't want to run Windows and rely on +Google, Wikipedia and "on [the Cloud][cloud-software]" in general. To +further sum it up, Vonnegut's novel is a nice story of how technology is +fundamentally a tool of oppression, and he who controls it is invested +with a great amount of power, at least until it all fails. + +[^1]: Had Vonnegut published Player Piano as his last novel in the + 2000s, instead of his first in the '50s, he could have called them + "CTOs and CEOs" or some other equally boring Newspeak + designation. Fortunately for him, he expired shortly before the + 2010s came about. + +[^2]: They're all Doctors and whatchamacallthem over there. + +[^3]: What is Bratpuhr, and who are the Kolhouri, you ask? Well, as + fictional as they are, they also serve to emphasize a certain + misconception of the USian ilk, that on one hand there's America, + and on the other there's the rest of the Third World, with no Second + World in-between worth knowing and exploring to the + averager. Bratpuhr is, like Romania or Papua New Guinea, a sort of + soup: there's no oil there, and thus no need for them to be + "civilized"* by the "civilized"* Western folk. + + \-\-\- + \* By which I mean, in the words of the great Frank Zappa, + overeducated shitheads. + +[^4]: With variations such as "Make America Great Again" and whatever + else you will. + +[^5]: Research, like in today's "big data", "analytics", "data science", + machine "learning", etc., etc. Basically all the tools required to + reduce the average person to a [statistical model][google-stupid]. + +[^6]: In case you were wondering, this is exactly how the so-called + movie and music industries have been working in the last five + decades or so. But-but-but, what about the Beatles and the Pink + Floyds, the King Crimsons and the Frank Zappas spawned by these + industries? you will ask. + + Sure, these were honest outliers, but the only thing their success + did was to further the idiotic belief that there is a recipe to + create art. This is of course a clear semantic contradiction, since + art is by definition [the very best there is][on-art] and + [culture][on-security] is by definition that which distinguishes + [humans from sheep][humanity]. Once the best becomes accessible to + the masses, it stops being the best, "the best being accessible" + being itself a paradox. + + As somewhat of a side note, the quote can also be interpreted as + machines becoming the actual creators of art, which is fashionable + nowadays with Google using data-based techniques to imitate poetry, + music and whatnot. + +[marketing]: /posts/y02/043-on-the-failure-of-marketing.html +[google-stupid]: /posts/y02/046-google-is-making-you-stupid.html +[on-art]: /posts/y00/004-on-art.html +[cloud-software]: /posts/y02/041-cloud-software-is-unreliable-ii.html +[on-security]: /posts/y02/04a-on-security.html +[humanity]: /posts/y01/032-your-worth-to-humanity.html +[freedom]: /posts/y03/04f-freedom-is-slavery.html