Arriving on the second floor of a super plaza, I paused to look back at the mechanical stairs which were collapsing like rows of defeated soldiers before being buried beneath the floor and out of sight. As I stood and watched the shining staircase rise and collapse, I realized that I did not have to move a muscle In order to go from one level to another. That simple realization fascinated me for a moment, and then - appalled me.
I realized, suddenly, that the science fiction books which I used to read could soon serve as a book of fact. Soon man would be able to go from his home to any destination on automatic highways or travel on sidewalks, which move with amazing speed and mercury smoothness, straight to his place of work. And what of man? What will he be like when he no longer uses his God-given limbs to walk or stroll about? He may conceivably evolve, in the not-too-distant future, into a limbless creature or be converted into a central brain mass with no other function than to think and spill out its ideas into the creation ,of new devices.
I was distracted from my philosophical mood by the buzzit- buzzit sound of wheels spinning in a computer which was "helping" to solve the annual dilemma of "what to buy Uncle Joe for Christmas."
On recalling other computers I had heard and read about, I was launched into another pensive mood. Now, there are electronic "brains" which can write poetry and television westerns, play checkers, calculate the trajectory of missiles and even act as marriage counsellors.
The thought occurred to me that man might become a vegetable. With machines able to analyze and reason out problems and even create new machines, it seems possible that man cauld become such an Idler, that "civilization" might became extinct.
I shrugged off the frightening thoughts and made my way to the escalator going down. Rebelliously, I ran down the moving stairs. As I was about to leave the building, the automatic doors whisked open in front of me. On my way through, I purposely gave the door a jolt with my foot. I glanced back and noticed that the door did not close as it should have. I felt slightly triumphant!
Harold Martin
"Man" Wendy Forbes
