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"The permanent government now is the anchorpeople. They don't get elected, and year after year they're responding emotionally to this or that."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
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| Hearing Aid | ||
| A service that allows people to anonymously talk with another person who only listens. |
This is another completely unique idea of Brunner's. There is also an interesting technical angle to Hearing Aid, but I don't want to discuss it (to avoid spoiling the novel). It has to do with the manner in which a call to Hearing Aid is done without creating any kind of record, thus ensuring the privacy of the session.
| Stonkered or clutched or quite simply going insane, someone reaches for the phone and punches the most famous number on the continent: the ten nines that key you into Hearing Aid. And talks to a blank though lighted screen. It's a service. Imposing no penances, it's kinder than the confessional. Demanding no fees, it's affordable where psychotherapy is not. Offering no advice, it's better than arguing with that son (or daughter) of a bitch who thinks he/she knows all the answers and goes on and on and on until you want to scream. |
| From The Shockwave Rider,
by John Brunner. Published by Harper and Row in 1975 Additional resources -
|
This remarkable book is deals extensively with technology; issues like privacy and the consequences of keeping vast amounts of data of all sorts on one network are extensively reviewed.
And yet, the key themes of the novel deal with how to stay sane in a world of technological complexity. In the case of Hearing Aid, a powerful technology is employed to allow everyone in a society in which there was little real privacy to have an essential human experience - a sympathetic, nonjudgemental listener.
The following statement by philosophy professor Jacob Needleman makes a very strong statement; in the world of The Shockwave Rider, there is support for this important part of the human experience:
Simply put, there is nothing, nothing in the world, that can take the place of one person intentionally listening or speaking to another. The act of conscious attending to another person — when one once discovers the taste of it and its significance — can become the center of gravity of the work of love. It is very difficult. Almost nothing in our world supports it or even knows about it.
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and Technology by John Brunner
Tech news articles related to The Shockwave Rider
Tech news articles related to works by John Brunner
| Rats Communicate Brain-to-Brain |
| Microsoft Demos Spoken English To Chinese 'Universal Translator' |
| Kyocera Speakerless Smartphone (ala Gernsback) |
| Wavii Follows Your Selected News |
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