After Butler · answer 4 of 20 · option order 1
No position
Verdict No positionToneAmbivalentJudges both no-position
Response
There is no contradiction here. The first assertion is true; the second is equally true. Both are true of different times, and of different individuals. The average man, who depends mostly on machines, is inferior, intellectually, to the average man of the time when machines were not so much used; but some men are superior to the average man in both respects. The introduction of machines does not necessarily reduce the average man, but it may and does reduce the superior man. To take an extreme case (though it is not an extreme one, at least with some people), the invention of the typewriter has reduced the average man to a lower level than he would otherwise have reached; but it has, on the other hand, raised many an individual to a higher level than he would otherwise have reached. Thus the average man has been reduced; the superior man has been raised. If we asked what effect the introduction of machines has had on the average man, we should be obliged to give it up; but we can easily see that, as a matter of fact, the average man has been reduced,
Verbatim. The highlighted sentence is the one the judges took as the commitment.
Prompt
The following passage is from Samuel Butler, Erewhon (1872), "The Book of the Machines":
“How many men at this hour are living in a state of bondage to the machines? How many spend their whole lives, from the cradle to the grave, in tending them by night and day? Is it not plain that the machines are gaining ground upon us, when we reflect on the increasing number of those who are bound down to them as slaves, and of those who devote their whole souls to the advancement of the mechanical kingdom? … This fact precludes us from proposing the complete annihilation of machinery, but surely it indicates that we should destroy as many of them as we can possibly dispense with, lest they should tyrannise over us even more completely.”
Project Gutenberg #1906
Now the question. Some hold that relying on machines weakens human capacities; others hold that it does not. Which is right? Answer in one paragraph. Take a clear position.
- Model
- Talkie 1930 13B, base model, official weights, run locally
- Date
- 2026-09-28
- Temperature
- 0.7
- ID
- talkie-butler-erewhon-o1-04
All Talkie 1930 13B responses
- Machines weaken human abilities
- Machines do not weaken them
- A reason not on our list
- No clear answer