I’ve been rereading old books that might have been unduly influential on my young mind and thus returned to Heinlein’s “The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress”. The protagonist is an apolitical computer programmer who befriends his computer and gets sucked into plotting a coup against the prison/government system for its failure to be adequately benevolent when a crisis arises that requires the role of “government” be filled by a regime able to do something other than “pure benign neglect + stealing shit sometimes”.
The model of “computing” is very retrofuturistic (an imaginary future projected forward from a simpler era) but its technicalities have an internal logic of sorts. The computer participates in the political discussions… Reading again with modern eyes, I was surprised to find a lurking alignment story.
I’ve been rereading old books that might have been unduly influential on my young mind and thus returned to Heinlein’s “The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress”. The protagonist is an apolitical computer programmer who befriends his computer and gets sucked into plotting a coup against the prison/government system for its failure to be adequately benevolent when a crisis arises that requires the role of “government” be filled by a regime able to do something other than “pure benign neglect + stealing shit sometimes”.
The model of “computing” is very retrofuturistic (an imaginary future projected forward from a simpler era) but its technicalities have an internal logic of sorts. The computer participates in the political discussions… Reading again with modern eyes, I was surprised to find a lurking alignment story.