Well, after carefully analyzing Ray's Question and Answers in "Martian Tourist", I have been inspired to find a new author to read. He makes very naive statements, which were seemingly intended to be offensive.

quote:

Q: How about A.T.M.'s?

Why go to a machine when you could go to a human being? Everything we're doing is inefficient. I called the other day to change an appointment with my hearing-aid people, and it took two minutes, because they have everything on the computer. If they'd had a pad and pencil, you could change it in five seconds.

Because, machines do not argue with you.
Machines do not count incorrectly.
I think it's rather efficient to have a computer calculate interest from each account, rather than having people sitting around wasting their time when they could be doing something productive.
Let's not forget just how much more organized files can be when held on a chip minute enough to fit in my pocket with enough space to fit hundreds of file cabinets full of paper into.

quote:

Q: If you could eliminate one invention from the last 100 years, what would it be?

The automobile. We've killed two million people now. It's been a major war, and we're not paying any attention to it.

Perhaps, it isn't apparent that the automobile is one of the most convenient inventions of all time? It's interesting that someone, seemingly so bright, could have missed that.
Let's think about this, two million people have died, but there's still seven billion people left. That's about 0.0003% of the world population that have died in automobile accidents.

Hi Skyl3r, and welcome.

I don't know that Ray intended these answers to be "offensive". More likely that he was just stating his opinion as honestly as he could. (If someone takes offense, so be it, but that doesn't mean that offense was intended, nor that it was the motivation).

I tend to agree with you about ATMs. As for cars, yes you're right - but Ray's statement about the car being a big killer is actually quite true. This is part of the reason that Ray supported monorails and other integrated transport systems.

Too bad if you are turned off Bradbury by his interview comments. Some of the issues he discussed in interviews are dealt with beautifully, poetically and insightfully in his short stories. For the automobile, read the story "The Crowd" before you reject Bradbury. It might just change your mind!

Granted, people are not careful enough in cars and there should be better public transportation, but they have also saved many lives. If you were sick or injured, would you rather be transported by automobile ambulance or horse and wagon?

I sometimes think that horse and cart would be just as quick as a modern ambulance in built-up cities...

I don't agree with Bradbury that cars are all bad. But I do think he made a valid and thought-provoking point about cars.

I also think that, the older he got, the less he was able to see the good in any new technology (other than space technology, which he seemed to think was unreservedly wonderful).

In any case, his best and most insightful observations on technologies (old and new) appear not in his interviews and essays, but in his short stories.

Think of how long it must have taken to arrive, gather in, and then return home to offer the vital care needed by the ten year old in this historic anecdote nearly two hundred years ago!
http://rogerjnorton.com/Lincoln19.html

Yet, isn't this the "perfectly ironic metaphor" for this post's exchanges?
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/ru...tiny-test-drive.html

quote:

Originally posted by fjp451:
...Yet, isn't this the "perfectly ironic metaphor" for this post's exchanges?...

Yes! Plus the detail that the only driving licence Bradbury ever owned was for "driving" the Mars rover.