The Flying Machine by Ray Bradbury

I like the way The Flying Machine depicts the immense potential destructive power of technology back in 1953. I think the story has a kind of dystopia tendency which casts serious doubts on the technological world in the future.

“But there are times when one must lose a little beauty to save other beauty…Some other man will see you and build a thing of bright papers and bamboo like this. But the other man will have an evil face and an evil heart, and the beauty will be gone.”

The inventor is flying in the sky with his own invention – bright papers and bamboo sticks like a dragon and thinks it is very beautiful up there. However, he has never thought that his creation/invention would be left to the hands of evil men for evil purposes. It questions the ethics of technological advancement and its potential threat, danger and even disaster that would be brought to the entire humanity and our earth mother Nature. Just imagine. When robots can now be so smart as to write poetry and play chess, would people and Nature finally be controlled, enslaved or even destroyed by robots one day in the future? What greater threat and danger would automation and robots bring to the entire humanity? We should be very cautious and responsible about technological invention; otherwise, government regulation must come into rescue to prevent any disastrous consequences brought about by technology on the entire humanity and our earth mother Nature.