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by visarga
3385 days ago
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With the trend towards automation, hikikomori are just ahead of the curve. I am sure there will come a day when almost anyone will be able to "retreat" in their own space and never leave again. The recluse will create worlds and experiences where they spend their time, and it will become very difficult to reach them, if not impossible. Before automation, people had to reach out, to meet other people in order to survive. Maybe in Japan they used "parents" as an automation of sort, in order to separate themselves from other people, but with the advent of internet and home deliveries, it becomes easier and easier to be a recluse. Especially that there is company and a whole culture around this lifestyle. |
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"The Machine Stops", by E. M. Forster, is the classic on this. Published in 1909, it doesn't sound dated today.
"Imagine, if you can, a small room, hexagonal in shape, like the cell of a bee. It is lighted neither by window nor by lamp, yet it is filled with a soft radiance. There are no apertures for ventilation, yet the air is fresh. There are no musical instruments, and yet, at the moment that my meditation opens, this room is throbbing with melodious sounds. An armchair is in the centre, by its side a reading-desk - that is all the furniture. And in the armchair there sits a swaddled lump of flesh - a woman, about five feet high, with a face as white as a fungus. It is to her that the little room belongs."
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"Vashanti's next move was to turn off the isolation switch, and all the accumulations of the last three minutes burst upon her. The room was filled with the noise of bells, and speaking-tubes. What was the new food like? Could she recommend it? Has she had any ideas lately? Might one tell her one's own ideas? Would she make an engagement to visit the public nurseries at an early date? - say this day month."