Name: Looking backward
ISBN: 9780486290386

Looking backward

Bellamy's novel tells the story of a hero figure named Julian West, a young American, who towards the end of the 19th century, falls into a deep, hypnosis-induced sleep and wakes up 113 years later. He finds himself in the same location (Boston, Massachusetts), but in a totally changed world: It is the year 2000, and while he was sleeping, the United States has been transformed into a socialist utopia. The remainder of the book outlines Bellamy's thoughts about improving the future. The major themes include problems associated with capitalism, a proposed socialist solution of a nationalization of all industry, and the use of an "industrial army" to organize production and distribution, as well as how to ensure free cultural production under such conditions.

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kthejoker2Dec 2021

5 books not on this list that might expand your.mind:

* The Dice Man by George Cockroft.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dice_Man?wprov=sfla1

* The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda.

* Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/624

* Poverty and Progress by Henry George

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/55308

* The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt

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ghosthamletNov 2018

Which books do you think created the best Perfect/Utopia worlds? or others not list here?

540 BC - 400 BC, Analects of Confucius, Confucius

380 BC, Republic, Plato

1516, Utopia, Thomas More

1602, The City of the Sun, Campanella

1726, Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift

1848, The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

1877, The Dream Of a Ridiculous Man, Dostoevsky

1887, Looking Backward, Edward Bellamy

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justncase80Jan 2016

I recently read an interesting book called Looking Backward, by Edward Bellamy. It was written in 1887 but could have been written yesterday.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looking_Backward

It was basically about a guy who accidentally travels forward in time (sort of like idiocracy) except he finds himself in an American Socialist Utopia. It was a really good book in general but there was one idea in particular that the author had, which seems pertinent here.

Essentially in this utopia everyone gets the same pay check and the opportunity to work. Instead of getting paid more money for a demanding job you get "paid" in less hours. Meaning, all jobs start out at, say 40 hours per week. A job that doesn't get any applicants would decrease the number of hours it demands and correspondingly, the number of open positions would increase. Eventually an unappealing job would decline to a number of hours where someone would be willing to do it.

For example, that coal mining job that nobody wants to do? Well it pays the same as every other job but you only need to do it for 4 hours a week. You can work more of course if you want but you get the same paycheck. The rest of that time you can do whatever you want, spend time with your family or do art or whatever.

Also, in For Us, The Living: A Comedy of Customs by Robert A. Heinlein there are some very interesting ideas about American social economics, including a social credit system. Which I believe is a pretty old fashioned idea that we have almost completely forgot about.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Us,_The_Living:_A_Comedy_o...

This constant back and forth about work hours and minimum wage and the inexorable pull towards wage slavery makes me think its time to explore some completely lateral options.

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dredmorbiusFeb 2014

I've seen some interesting noises out of IBM on this front, though I also remember IBM making noises about inventory management control systems with nuns advertising OS/2, so ... they've been at that a while.

What the Web offers is a way to remove the distance and friction between people and product information: specs and reviews, despite the limitations of both. I've found that numerous stores are pretty good about talking me through what I'm looking to buy, and, if they don't have it in stock, ordering it for pick-up. Often within a day or so. What the store offers is existing relationships with manufacturers and distributors, as well as, well, a storefront in which I can walk in and collect the purchase when I choose to. Additionally, I've got a choice of payment methods, including cash, most of which avoid the various risks of fraud (to both the shopper and merchant) associated with online payments.

There are few cases in which the option of "look up information online, place order through local merchant, be notified of availability, transact payment and pick up product" fails to work for me. For large or bulk purchases, arranging for delivery if necessary.

Better: if on examination the product isn't what I was looking for, or fails to meet expectations, the merchant has a far easier time arranging returns (including, as noted, an existing relationship with the manufacturer / warehouser) than I as an individual have.

Side note: Edward Bellamy's socialist utopia Looking Backward, written in 1887 about the year 2000, is a fascinating read. Some of its predictions are wide of the mark, but what I found particularly accurate, though his description was of an essentially socialist emporium, was his description of shopping. It's almost a perfect capture of the shopping mall experience, minus the advertising, down to the utterly ignorant and useless sales staff. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looking_Backward

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wrycoderSep 2021

I suspect the reference to 1890 may be to Bellamy’s Looking Backward, one of the most popular books its time.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looking_Backward

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notahackerSep 2014

An odd question for the article to pose really. The art of telling a story involves change which is far more compelling if it creates at least some conflict and confusion[1], and if AI or artificial mind enhancements are key, they're more interesting as a cause than a solution to the problem[2], and you'd have to be writing for an audience of pretty hardcore nerds to bother pointing out the background music was composed by a creative computer. When it comes to assessing how people might react when blessed with superaugmented intelligences, there are plenty of cautionary examples of people with natural but notable extremes of intelligence who've been tripped up by crippling vulnerabilities. The history of experiments on human minds is pretty grisly too. Given plenty of reasons to believe the acceleration of technical progress won't lead to blissful happiness, and the tendency for blissful happiness to be a dull storyline anyway, why wouldn't SciFi continue to be glum about AI

For all the article's comments about the "mindboggling" potential of Moore's law, my word processor looks about the same as it did nineteen years ago, and computers still suck at simple games like Go that, unlike chess, can't be brute forced. I'm grateful to Google for making finding information that bit easier, but I'm even more grateful for humans for creating or curating the content in the first place.

[1]Compare "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" with Edward Bellamy's utopian "Looking Backward". Both versions of the early second millenium are pretty far from the mark (indeed even the technology of the latter book is more arguably more accurate despite it being written in the nineteenth century) but only one of these books is considered to be a riveting read that says profound things about human nature. Similarly, there's a reason some of HG Wells' work is lauded and some of it's laughed at.

[2]Deus Ex Machinas suck and "luckily the AI figured it out" is definitely a loss of imagination and nerve.

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