Exploring the Human/Technology Relationship in "Rainbow's End"

I think the relationship between humans and technology is very interesting, but everyone has their own opinion about how that relationship works. I want to read “Rainbow’s End” by Vernor Vinge to look at a fictionalized account of one such relationship to see the possibilities that arise from it. I hope that it will give me something to hang on to in my research, because I tend to get lost in technology/the internet when doing research. By reading this novel, I hope to get the aspects of a human mindset in a technological world.

Preview

This novel looks so interesting in light of the relationship between humans and technology. The list of chapters in the table of contents shows a mix between chapters that look to be about humans interacting with each other, and other chapters that have technological references in the title, such as “No User-Serviceable Parts Within” and “How-to-Survive-the-Next-Thirty-Minutes.pdf”. Vinge also looks like a man that is reputable in this field of thought because the About the Author section talks about how he has spoken in conferences about the subject, and he is thought highly of among scientists, journalists, etc. He was also a mathematician and computer-science professor along with being a writer. Quite the mix!

Early Social Proof

This is an idea that has been in my mind for longer than just what we have done in this semester. I talked about it with one of my friends, who also happens to be a high school English teacher. During her science fiction unit of her class, she focused on ideas like this and came up with the tagline, “What makes us human?” for her class. As we discussed this idea, we realized the idea of being human spreads across all aspects of life, as does technology, so it is important to differentiate between the two. She also said that she is interested in the idea that in order to truly have control over the technology in our lives, we must be educated in it. I’m excited that this idea is one that everyone can relate to and have insights to!

Similar Books

Books similar to “Rainbow’s End” are mostly the other novels by Vernor Vinge. He sticks with the theme of technology and humans throughout his stories, but there were also many other types of science fiction stories that explored the same idea. One that struck me is the connection to Isaac Asimov’s stories. His stories, especially “I, Robot” focus a lot on how humans can relate to or interact with technology, and how the lines between the two can be blurred. I think the idea of the blurring of lines is a string of thought that would be interesting to explore a little bit more in my research.

Who Cares?

I did my main search on Twitter because I feel like that is the tool that connects people the most across all tools of the internet, and I found some great stuff! I didn’t find anyone reading this novel at first so I tried “#vernorvinge” and found people who were reading his other work. I even found people who were excited to meet him and have him sign their copies of his books. But I also saw another common hashtag among these posts for “#singularityu” which led me to a community of people who are finding ways of using technology for educating themselves! That ties right back in to my original topic! The ideas of Singularity University tie right in to the ideas that I am exploring, so I am following that hashtag to see what other people are saying about it. It also led me to interesting articles such as this and this that I plan to keep in mind as part of my research. This community is full of people that are excited about learning about technology, through technology! Leaning is such a human trait, and technology can enhance that.

Formal Reviews

Through using Google (to keep the theme of my Google Alerts going) I found a review by Chris Meadows of this novel. An interesting aspect that he explores in the review is the idea of interactive fiction. He quotes Vinge to say that hypertext will allow for a new art form in writing, but there hasn’t been really any full success on that front, but it allows for further creativity on the parts of both the author and reader. He also talks about how the real world overlaps the digital world in the novel and the conflicts that arise through that overlay. Meadows acknowledges that the ideas discussed in the novel are possible, but he doubts that they will happen because there is no way to really predict the future.

Informal Reviews

When I searched through the reviews for this novel on Goodreads, I found that people were really intrigued with the ideas presented in it. One review from “Kris” mentioned that “the book is largely about people trying to discover the significance of their own actions. Another way to put this is, they're trying to discover the meaning of their own life.” I think this goes along with the idea that technology can help us to discover ourselves as long as we don’t let it overtake our lives and drive our actions. We need to keep the human aspect of decision-making. Many reviewers mentioned how the dialogue is not as strong as Vinge’s other works, and it can be a bit dry, but the ideas represented are what drive the novel. I thought that was really interesting. Is that Vinge’s critique on humanity? Is our ability to speak and community giving way to technology and its layers over humanity?

Multimedia

When searching for other media sources that reference “Rainbow’s End”, I actually didn’t find very much. I did find this picture of the book with a caption talking about how much they loved the novel. However, I did find this awesome article about Google X. Google X is taking on some of the ideas brought up from the novel, making some of Vinge’s ideas come true. This reminded me of the book “Fahrenheit 451” because that novel written years ago had elements that are now happening in the world of technology today, and both novels are built around ideas of where the line is between humans and technology.

First Impressions of the Book

As I have been reading this novel so far, I have noticed many small references to a life without technology. These references are easy to pass over, but there have been enough that I think that Vinge is trying to hint at the simplicity of a world without technology, and I am excited to see if he develops that idea more. In particular, there is one passage where he mentions that a character is going out of the city to sight-see in the mountains and he uses language that gives the impression that the city is touristy, noisy, and never-ending, but then the mountains and oceans are peaceful and remind the character of a simpler time. We'll see where these ideas take us!

My Thinking so Far

In combining all of these elements of research, I am excited to see a couple of my scattered ideas revolving around a certain theme. I am fascinated by the idea of what makes us human and what differentiates us from technology, as well as how humans and technology can work together. As I continue my reading of this novel, I am going to be looking more at Vinge's tone about technology to see if he agrees with the mixing of humanity and technology, or if maybe he is using this novel as a way to hint that there needs to be a greater separation. I'm excite to see where it takes me!