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Why The Machine That Won The War

Decent Essays

Since the time the computer was created, there have been wild fantasy stories about computers taking over the world. During the 1950’s, when “The Machine that Won the War” was written, the first programmable computers were just being made. These computers were a glimpse of how the world was about to change. Isaac Asimov takes advantage of the new fascination of America in his writings. “The Machine that Won the War” is a science fiction story that shows that technology no matter how advanced will always still rely on humans and how humans will never grow to fully trust technology. When computers were first being made they were not available to the public. Even if you had access to these computers, you probably would not know how to use them because they were just lots and lots of switches all connected to each other. Only special people who were trained to use them could enter in information to them, this was a …show more content…

Typically it is the people who lived before computers were in existence. It is like how a 10 year old knows more about how to use an iphone than his grandmother does. Instead of looking up a recipe online a grandmother would use an old cookbook, something tried and true. This same theme is seen in “The Machine that Won the War” instead of using the data calculations that he would receive he would flip an old coin to make decisions. This shows that he did not trust technology enough to put his life, and all of humanity at risk, but he trusted the flip of a coin. This coin was his good luck coin, that he made all of his military decisions on. Instead of this supercomputer that all of humanity collaborated on and spent billions of dollars making and running, he decides to flip a coin to make all of his decisions. This means that he essentially makes this massive computer useless. The computer that was credited to winning the war essentially did nothing toward the war

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