IvanOpinion answers “For those who have read this, did you...”

IvanOpinion asked this question about Machines like Me:

For those who have read this, did you think there was much point in creating the alternative 1982?

IvanOpinion If you haven't yet read the book the following comments might seem like spoilers, but they aren't. My point is that the changes in 1982 serve no real …moreIf you haven't yet read the book the following comments might seem like spoilers, but they aren't. My point is that the changes in 1982 serve no real purpose in the book, so knowing about them won't spoil your enjoyment of the book.

My own view is that although it made me smile to think of a world where Lennon was not killed, so the Beatles got back together, I'm not sure if there was much point beyond this.

Clearly it was crucial to the book for it to be set in a reality where technology is a little ahead of ours - at least the many technology advances required to enable making a convincing artificial human. But this technology is probably still 20-50 years away from our 2019, so it seemed implausible that this could have happened in 1982, even if Turing had not died in the 50s and even if he made a number of breakthroughs in science.

It was kind of fun to 'meet' this Turing, but I'm not sure it served any purpose other than being wish fulfilment.

Most of the other changes were just one-line throwaways: JFK survived, Carter beat Reagan, etc. The only changes that were more than just 'set dressing' were Falklands/Thatcher/Tony Benn, but again there didn't seem to be much point. Yes, some of these changes seemed to create a world closer to our 2019, but so what? The parallels with, say, Iraq/May/Corbin/Brexit were not really developed to say anything particularly profound about those things.

Nothing wrong with some fun "what if" alternatives, but I got the impression that the book was striving to be a bit deeper than that. I don't think it achieved this.(less)

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Donald Yes, indeed. An attempt at something deeper if only by the rambling discourses on social convention, modern Ai and the conundrum of revenge vs justice ...more
Feb 29, 2020 07:42PM · flag

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Machines like Me

by Ian McEwan (Goodreads Author)

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