“Do you know what a Luddite is? That’s a person who doesn’t like newfangled contraptions. Contraptions like nuclear submarines armed with Poseidon missiles that have H-bombs in their warheads, and like computers that cheat you out of becoming. Bill Gates says, “Wait till you can see what your computer can become.” But it’s you who should be doing the becoming. What you can become is the miracle you were born to work—not the damn fool computer.”
False. That's my assessment. I disagree with the quote for a few reasons. The first is that everything Kurt does in his writing defines him as a hypocrite. For example, even though Harrison Bergeron and the Euphio Question are meant to be satirical, they force the reader to accept technology, not to despise it. If the attempt of these writings was to repulse readers from technology, he failed horribly, resulting in people leaping into the science fiction genre with a vigor. Second, this idea that everyone has stoppped "becoming" is complete rubbish. Mr Vonnegut, I believe, doesn't understand the fact that becoming is really a form of development, and development is something disinctly human. The only true form of "not becoming" can be found in harrison Bergeron, where everyone has been handicaped from developing. It is through this development that we as humans can make better decisions, communicate faster, create new ideas. Finally, the very essence of this quote threatens the jobs and livelyhoods of thousands of people that work with technology. What I mean is that people who work with machines are working the mircale they were put on the earth to do. This could be making car parts, fine tunning microsoft software, or typing up reports in an office. In summary, no matter how you look at it, technology is part of the "miracle" were supposed to do on earth.
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