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"What I have in my stories is ethics. Ethics and morality are very different cups of tea. I adhere to a very strict rigor of personal ethics and I demand it of those around me as well."
- Harlan Ellison
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| Brain Class | ||
| Class ten brain is the lowest. |
| "Why have you had no orders
this morning?" asked the fieldminder. "Because the radio issued none," said the unlocker, slowly rotating a dozen of its arms. "Because the radio station in the city was issued with no orders this morning," said the penpropeller. And there you had the distinction between a class six and a class three brain, which was what the unlocker and the pen-propeller possessed respectively. All machine brains worked with nothing but logic, but the lower the class of brain-class ten being the lowest-the more literal and less informative answers to questions tended to be. "You have a class three brain; I have a class three brain," the field-minder said to the penner. "We will speak to each other. This lack of orders is unprecedented. Have you further information on it?" "Yesterday orders came from the city. Today no orders have come. Yet the radio has not broken down. Therefore they have broken down," said the little penner. "The men have broken down?" "All men have broken down." "That is a logical deduction," said the field-minder. "That is the logical deduction," said the penner. "For if a machine had broken down, it would have been quickly replaced. But who can replace a man?" |
| Technovelgy from But Who Can Replace A Man,
by Brian Aldiss. Published by Infinity in 1958 Additional resources -
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'Our study of your race has convinced us that you are not fitted to leave your planet in the present state of your civilization.'
'...the spreading beam of the deranging ray struck them, and Then one toppled and fell. Then another.'
'Within seconds the material was spread out over fifty yards, in a matter of hours it might occupy several cubic miles of space...'
'The men are dead, but their acquired wisdom lives on and I am the beneficiary.'
'Young people found the driverless car admirable for petting.'
'After twenty generations of shillyshallying...'
