He needs to be talked about more. Not just for his science fiction but his politics. A lot to learn from his brand of utopian socialism even if you dislike it
Utopia is a term invented as satire. The irony is that the term "chud" comes from a film based on this novel. These godless commies don't even realize they are insulting the working class. Only in the realm of fantasy is this anti-Christian ideology.
I've read The Time Machine. One passage that stuck with me was about how nature only appeals to intelligence when habit and instinct are useless. Intelligence is destabilizing and most creatures could live in harmony with nature virtually forever if their entire lives were driven by instinct. Only when intelligence is introduced do you get industrialization, atomic bombs, and other destabilizing forces that could vastly shorten the lifespan of a species
But think about just how long the dinosaurs reigned over the earth. Millions of years driven by instinct. How long has human civilization existed in comparison? A few thousand years? How much longer will we last? I don't see how a civilization that has created technology such as atomic weapons can last indefinitely before we destroy ourselves or, like the Eloi, become like habitual animals ourselves, perpetually made satisfied by industry.
Have you read "House on the Borderland" by William Hope Hodgson? It has a long section which reminds me of this. A guy is in a weird house which might be some sort of portal. As he sits in the front room time accelerates, gradually at first then faster and faster. He sees the gradual decay of the earth, then the heat death of the solar system and all sorts of stuff. It was published in 1908, so a little while after The Time Machine. I bet WHH was influenced by Wells.
Am enjoying The Time Machine so far, it is genuinely entertaining. I can see its influences in many things now, and its metaphor of the decay of a decadent society is still relevant.
I don’t really understand the meaning of the book is. Welles was a socialist but the future society in the book is depicted as a communist world where everyone is passive and decadent. Is that not what his own political beliefs would lead to? So why are they depicted in a negative way in the book?
>Both Wells' depraved admirers and the populist's typically associative, Hobbesian view of a "world government conspiracy," treat Wells, and other lackeys of his type, as either admirable, or despicable geniuses. Wells was no genius; his talent was, as he implictly describes himself, a man with a pimp's insight into the susceptibility of a depraved clientele's not-so-hidden private sexual fantasies.(8) In each case an influential idea is attributed to Wells, whether by devotees or detractors, we discover that no such originality ever existed. His role was never that of a discoverer of principles; indeed, there is nothing of principle in Wells' vocabulary. Wells was not an inventor, but, rather, a publicist, a man like Dick Morris, the recently notorious cousin of the late Roy M. Cohn, a pathetic creature who turned his pimp's instinct for the sexual perversities of a general public, into a public-relations career.
He's the best sci-fi writer of all time as far I'm concerned.
also the father of wargaming
He's damn good. Also, he married his first cousin IIRC.
He needs to be talked about more. Not just for his science fiction but his politics. A lot to learn from his brand of utopian socialism even if you dislike it
I take it from most of his works that he was anti-religion. The Island of Dr. Moreau and The Invisible Man both seem very anti-God.
He wrote an entire book about how religion should be forcibly suppressed with an elaborate fantasy of Mecca being destroyed
>an elaborate fantasy of Mecca being destroyed
he's literally me fr
what book tho
Utopia is a term invented as satire. The irony is that the term "chud" comes from a film based on this novel. These godless commies don't even realize they are insulting the working class. Only in the realm of fantasy is this anti-Christian ideology.
>Only in the realm of fantasy is this anti-Christian ideology.
As in, its value exist only in fantasy. In reality, it was the means by which godless Bolsheviks enslaved and massacred millions of Christians.
He time traveled to the future and fought his rival in New York.
>the grey man passage has to be one of the best things written for me.
Post it.
https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Grey_Man
Really just one of the best sci-fi stories ever written, start to finish.
I've read The Time Machine. One passage that stuck with me was about how nature only appeals to intelligence when habit and instinct are useless. Intelligence is destabilizing and most creatures could live in harmony with nature virtually forever if their entire lives were driven by instinct. Only when intelligence is introduced do you get industrialization, atomic bombs, and other destabilizing forces that could vastly shorten the lifespan of a species
>virtually forever
Tell it to the dinosaurs. Intelligence is the only way to exceed nature.
But think about just how long the dinosaurs reigned over the earth. Millions of years driven by instinct. How long has human civilization existed in comparison? A few thousand years? How much longer will we last? I don't see how a civilization that has created technology such as atomic weapons can last indefinitely before we destroy ourselves or, like the Eloi, become like habitual animals ourselves, perpetually made satisfied by industry.
>human intelligence is le stoopid
Have you read "House on the Borderland" by William Hope Hodgson? It has a long section which reminds me of this. A guy is in a weird house which might be some sort of portal. As he sits in the front room time accelerates, gradually at first then faster and faster. He sees the gradual decay of the earth, then the heat death of the solar system and all sorts of stuff. It was published in 1908, so a little while after The Time Machine. I bet WHH was influenced by Wells.
Am enjoying The Time Machine so far, it is genuinely entertaining. I can see its influences in many things now, and its metaphor of the decay of a decadent society is still relevant.
I don’t really understand the meaning of the book is. Welles was a socialist but the future society in the book is depicted as a communist world where everyone is passive and decadent. Is that not what his own political beliefs would lead to? So why are they depicted in a negative way in the book?
The Eloi are just a food source for the Morlocks,
>Both Wells' depraved admirers and the populist's typically associative, Hobbesian view of a "world government conspiracy," treat Wells, and other lackeys of his type, as either admirable, or despicable geniuses. Wells was no genius; his talent was, as he implictly describes himself, a man with a pimp's insight into the susceptibility of a depraved clientele's not-so-hidden private sexual fantasies.(8) In each case an influential idea is attributed to Wells, whether by devotees or detractors, we discover that no such originality ever existed. His role was never that of a discoverer of principles; indeed, there is nothing of principle in Wells' vocabulary. Wells was not an inventor, but, rather, a publicist, a man like Dick Morris, the recently notorious cousin of the late Roy M. Cohn, a pathetic creature who turned his pimp's instinct for the sexual perversities of a general public, into a public-relations career.
He was a genius as far as sci-fi is concerned.
Just finished War of the Worlds, it's great.
Literal programming for npc slaves