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"We [science fiction writers] always wanted to believe in "private sector" space -- hucksters make better characters than a government does."
- Larry Niven
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| Electrical Farming Implements | ||
| Labor-saving automatic farm equipment. |
| It is not to be supposed that farming, the greatest of all American industries, had not Farm Hands at a Discount.made any progress during the twentieth century. Probably in no other field of labor was electricity employed to better advantage. [181]Farm hands in the nineteenth century were as unreliable in some cases as balky horses. The farm owner’s distress and nightmare in 1899 was the farm laborer. But in 1999 the “farm hand” was practically done away with. Horses and farm laborers were no longer employed in the cultivation of the land. Electricity was on tap in every part of the farm. Even the milking and stable cleaning was done by mechanical means. In 1899 a farmer who hired all his work done and lived along comfortably on the proceeds The Dignity of Labor.of the property, was called by the absurd title of a “gentleman farmer.” The farmer who rolls up his sleeves and toils is none the less a gentleman. A gentleman is not always the one who spends a life of leisure and lives on the toil of others. The hard working farmer in many cases proves to be the real gentleman; he dignifies labor and commands the respect of his neighbors.
 (Farm Equipment from 'Looking Forward' by Arthur Bird) In 1999 all agriculturalists were “gentleman farmers.” Their great slaves were the electrical machines. They never groaned, complained or knocked off work in the busy season to go on an excursion. The electrical farming implements could work all day without sitting under a shade tree, with a jug of cider and a corn-cob pipe. They labored patiently and faithfully and performed their tasks with great accuracy. |
| Technovelgy from Looking Forward: A Dream of the United States of the Americas in 1999,
by Arthur Bird. Published by L.C. Childs & Son in 1899 Additional resources -
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'... he had tightened the chest to gain maximum pumping action from the motion of breathing.'
'...a prayer wheel swung into view and began spinning at a furious pace.'
'And are all the people willing to be governed by a machine?'
'It's an old model,' Rawlins said. 'I'm not sure what to do.'
'the robot-boss was busy at the lip of the new lode instructing and egging the men on to greater speed...'
'He rode the bike with an intense lack of physical grace...'
