The Air Ship

Although I liked the Johnny Mnemonic story better (I love that kind of writing style where things aren’t really explained “cyberpunk”, of what have you- like A Clockwork Orange. I had more to say about this story- sorry it ended up so long- please comment with your thoughts.

The Air Ship paints an image of the world plunged into mediocrity, plainness, conformity and remoteness. Stale and empty of ideas, the underground inhabitants vacant of any knowledge, inkling, or tribute to the far past and history of the people they once were. [They are] Stagnant in a pneumatic shell, virtual and impersonal. The Matrix, A Brave New World and autonomy of the The Jetsons all rolled into one and (sans the machine domination, at least in a direct, aggressive style).
The dependency of The Machine is to the same effect: a domination of The Machine over humans, these people. It also causes an awkward (social) fear out of extreme inwardness and outward reliance on machines that compensate for no first hand knowledge or experience.
The complete isolation and indirect observation of it all reminds me of scenes from the novel The Collector by John Fowles.
The extreme apathy of duty formed out of this mechanical reliance not only caused complete disbarring of sense or responsibility but also mental and PHYSICAL atrophy; an obvious effect like one who is confined to bedrest for several months and must be rehabilitated after his term. (p192) A man simply dropping his book throws off the entire operation of boarding the Air Ship. Thinking about it makes me replay the Visa commercial where the patrons turn through like gears with pneumatic precision in the cafeteria line until one man pays with cash and the entire procedure halts to a stop. Only in the Air Ship’s case, the “Good Enough” mediocrity mind set, a kind of embodiment of everything I think and feel when I remember the phrase “meh”, prevails and the travelers merely walk over the book, despite its obvious rank and importance in their lives.
The abrupt irritability and detachment of these underground dwellers makes me thinks of rapid moles running around on the surface, cursing, if they could, at each other when they cross paths, unaccustomed the warmth of the sun or interaction with others.
The counterintuitive scene where Vashti gets angry with the attendant for preventing her fall is disturbingly amusing. Like a hyperphysical “personal space” shield exists that should never be crossed. Although it seemed possible for someone to become like that, the thought that I would ever witness it in the sense it is written in and not a highly affected autistic or gemaphobic person seemed unreal.
The whole story seemed eerie. It also seemed familiar in the sense that it addressed a common and cumulating theme through a lot of sci-fi: the undeniable and complete dependence on machines by man, the idolization and even divinization of machines or The Machine. This story represents the man made “G-d”, one so aged and accepted it is almost forgotten that it is man who made it. It gives the machine unquestionable authority, logic seems absent within explanations, a kind of “because The Machine has made it so” attitude.
This story also addresses how put up barriers between are self and constantly retreat further and further behind our closed doors. “When the air-ships” had been built the desire to look direct at things still lingered in the world.” The disturbing part is you can see this happening now. Through instant messages, video chats, emails, text messages. People IM people within the same house (or dorm/school). Multitasking. We have already eliminated one sense. The book portrays it as if one can’t be bothered with an actual experience. We separate us from each other. It’s all sterile.
One thing I think this story got wrong is the direction the remoteness went to. The story describes the indirect contact and representations as approximations and estimates of contact, while I think our world will bring us, possibly to this level of isolation, but with a sort of more real than real conversation/communication system. High Def, 3D and electronically simulated.