{"id":172,"date":"2004-11-19T15:36:29","date_gmt":"2004-11-19T20:36:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/server97.snhdns.com\/~ravik\/wp\/?p=172"},"modified":"2004-11-19T15:36:29","modified_gmt":"2004-11-19T20:36:29","slug":"automaton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/classic\/200411\/automaton\/","title":{"rendered":"Automaton"},"content":{"rendered":"

Being a sequel to The Dead Sea<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

Mr. Stone and Mrs. Stone lived happily, more or less, ever after. As soon as his loneliness was taken care of, and his love-boil a souvenir, Stone\u2019s mind encountered the problem of changing the world. How can we change the world? How, how, how? He constantly thought about that. A popular science book, a history book, and a cigarette later he came up with an answer.
\n
\nSuppose one didn\u2019t really factor in that the world should be changed for the better. The way it is, any change would probably reflect positively on most things and life. Therefore, if an idea was energized enough, it would ripple across the social fabric of the planet, changing everything that lay in its path. A philosophical neutron bomb, so to speak.<\/p>\n

Moreover, it didn\u2019t even need to be a system of coherent and complete ideas. Just one bare-bone idea could change the world, he surmised. The chaotic effects could butterfly, caterpillar and bumblebee across the cosmos and make sure that the results are always unpredictable. Even if the zygote has no room for moralistic considerations, or merit, it could metamorphose into a variety of phenomenon once it really got going in a complex way. The actual seed-idea was a problem, since it now represented an almost infinite number of possibilities. <\/p>\n

One day Mrs. Stone came back from work, mumbling about how high the mangoes were priced. <\/p>\n

Immediately, Mr. Stone\u2019s desperate mind found an epicenter for its aforementioned thesis, a fulcrum for his philosophy. What if, you couldn\u2019t sell anything in the world, goods or services, above a certain price? What if human commerce had a ceiling price attached to it? This would mean that one couldn\u2019t buy airplanes and Ferraris, but that was a rather insignificant number of aggrieved people compared to the gigantic hordes living in stark poverty who would probably remain unaffected until some kind of wealth re-distribution took place as a result of this policy. Would it make mangoes any cheaper?<\/p>\n

He spoke to Chief about it. \u201cWhoa! The Ceiling!\u201d said the Chief, \u201cthat sounds great, I will apply the changes and reboot the system, immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo wait!\u201d pleaded Mr. Stone, \u201cI haven\u2019t thought this out fully. The repercussions are totally unpredictable!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter, you won\u2019t feel a thing. Unless you really want the memory.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI want it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs you wish.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cOne more thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMangoes. Can you make sure that at least mangoes are half the price they are right now? It\u2019s just an extra line of code.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Chief thought it over but finally said okay. After a few instants the world dissolved into a rebuilding chaos and reappeared. <\/p>\n

The Chief lay enjoying the sun on a cane easy-chair, watching the sprinklers water his garden. Mrs Chief came back from the Sunday market. She looked very worried for some reason. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happened, sweety?\u201d asked Chief. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s weird! There was this mango-seller and when he saw me he caught my hand! He kept saying \u201cI\u2019m your husband! I\u2019m your husband!\u201d\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy, the scoundrel?!I\u2019ll fix him in no time.\u201d Said the Chief and flipped open his laptop. <\/p>\n

[contd…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Being a sequel to The Dead Sea Mr. Stone and Mrs. Stone lived happily, more or less, ever after. As soon as his loneliness was taken care of, and his love-boil a souvenir, Stone\u2019s mind encountered the problem of changing the world. How can we change the world? How, how, how? He constantly thought about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}