Today was the day for a Russian film I found on youtube. Turns out it is one of the most popular Russian films of all-time. I eventually managed to work out it was set some time after WW1 and some time before WW2 either around the Black or Caspian sea. The film was delightful to watch. There was also nothing like a pistol being able to kill a man in one shot from a large distance.

I found the interaction between Sukhov and the harem most amusing. He protects them after they are liberated and he takes on the task of trying to tell them that they would actually be better marrying one man each rather than all being married to the same man. He sees it as a clear duty of the revolution to promote equality of the sexes and although one woman tempts him he remains true to his wife.

This is probably the first play I have read since high school. It tracks the story of a company who has designed the first robot. The robots are in human form and although the technology isn’t explained in depth they seem more biological in creation than later robots we might expect to see. My greatest amusement came from the treatment of Helena Glory. She comes to the factory to try and bring justice for the robots and immediately ends up marrying the general manager basically because he said she should.

The main thrust of the story is the robots are created so humans are freed from work. They will allow them to live as aristocrats. That would be a boring story so we eventually find out that the robots eventually develop a will of their own. This leads to the eventual downfall of man as the robots are more capable in every respect except reproduction. I would have loved to have seen how the wider populace finds it as they are freed from work but this was not possible as the entire play is set in the factory.

The thought running through the back of my head is that our society is in a similar position today. We do not have these humanoid robots but we have automated many things and in the future it looks like we might even be able to automate a lot of the brain work we do now. R.U.R. suggests humanity will destroy itself but I don’t think that is very likely. We will need to come up with a way to distribute resources effectively though or it might be our fellow humans who rise up rather than robots.

The play does end on a positive note that when all is seemingly lost we find out that some of the robots were created differently and start experiencing human emotions. This leads to a new Adam and Eve who seem to have the likelihood of procreating and so continuing “human” life on earth as Alquist the final human man alive cannot procreate by himself. We are left with hope that the new robot human race can continue where the old failed. This is in sharp contrast to the bible where if all of humanity were to die out we would expect Jesus to return to bring in the new heavens and earth.

This is a blog I have created for myself to write down whatever interests me at the time. Right now I am hoping to post daily for one year and then see how that goes. I plan to comment on books I am reading, to deepen me thoughts about God and just post whatever comes to my head.