Hopped across to it after reading a piece about some aesthetic christian monk type people who lived alone in holes or caves around the 3rd Century north Africa.
There was a comment about people living in hexagons underground on an apocalyptic Earth. These humans eschew all physical contact and within their hexagons communicate by videophone (Skype), watch lectures (youtube), and recycle original ideas (everything).
Although only a novella, written in 1909, it packs a powerful punch.
Beware of first- hand ideas!' exclaimed one of the most advanced of them. 'First-hand ideas do not really exist. They are but the physical impressions produced by live and fear, and on this gross foundation who could erect a philosophy? Let your ideas be second-hand, and if possible tenth-hand, for then they will be far removed from that disturbing element - direct observation
Vashti was seized with the terrors of direct experience. She shrank back into the room, and the wall closed up again
“Cannot you see, cannot all you lecturers see, that it is we that are dying, and that down here the only thing that really lives is the Machine? We created the Machine, to do our will, but we cannot make it do our will now. It has robbed us of the sense of space and of the sense of touch, it has blurred every human relation and narrowed down love to a carnal act, it has paralyzed our bodies and our wills, and now it compels us to worship it. The Machine develops - but not on our lies. The Machine proceeds - but not to our goal. We only exist as the blood corpuscles that course through its arteries, and if it could work without us, it would let us die.”
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