Day by day, however, the machines are gaining ground upon us; day by day we are becoming more subservient to them; more men are daily bound down as slaves to tend them, more men are daily devoting the energies of their whole lives to the development of mechanical life. The upshot is simply a question of time, but that the time will come when the machines will hold the real supremacy over the world and its inhabitants is what no person of a truly philosophic mind can for a moment question.

War to the death should be instantly proclaimed against them. Every machine of every sort should be destroyed by the well-wisher of his species. Let there be no exceptions made, no quarter shown; let us at once go back to the primeval condition of the race.

When I first got hold of the idea, I developed it for mere fun and because it amused me and I thought would amuse others, but without a particle of serious meaning; but I developed it and introduced it into Erewhon with the intention of implying: ‘See how easy it is to be plausible, and what absurd propositions can be defended by a little ingenuity and distortion and departure from strictly scientific methods,’ and I had Butler’s Analogy in my head as the book at which it should be aimed, but preferred to conceal my aim for many reasons.

"True, from a low materialistic point of view, it would seem that those thrive best who use machinery wherever its use is possible with profit; but this is the art of the machines—they serve that they may rule. They bear no malice towards man for destroying a whole race of them provided he creates a better instead; on the contrary, they reward him liberally for having hastened their development. It is for neglecting them that he incurs their wrath, or for using inferior machines, or for not making sufficient exertions to invent new ones, or for destroying them without replacing them; yet these are the very things we ought to do, and do quickly; for though our rebellion against their infant power will cause infinite suffering, what will not things come to, if that rebellion is delayed?"

"But returning to the argument, I would repeat that I fear none of the existing machines; what I fear is the extraordinary rapidity with which they are becoming something very different to what they are at present. No class of beings have in any time past made so rapid a movement forward. Should not that movement be jealously watched, and checked while we can still check it? And is it not necessary for this end to destroy the more advanced of the machines which are in use at present, though it is admitted that they are in themselves harmless?"

"How many men at this hour are living in a state of bondage to the machines? How many spend their whole lives, from the cradle to the grave, in tending them by night and day? Is it not plain that the machines are gaining ground upon us, when we reflect on the increasing number of those who are bound down to them as slaves, and of those who devote their whole souls to the advancement of the mechanical kingdom?”

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, we now face the most awesome problems in human history- problems such as: the likelihood of nuclear conflict, either among the superpowers or through proliferation; the destruction of a fragile environment, which finally we’re beginning to recognize, though it was obvious decades ago that we’re heading for disaster; other problems of this nature. They are of a level of seriousness that they never were in the past. BILL MOYERS: But why do you think more participation by the public, more democracy is the answer? NOAM CHOMSKY: Because more democracy is a value in itself, quite apart- because democracy is a value. It doesn’t have to be defended any more than freedom has to be defended. It’s an essential feature of human nature that people should be free; they should be able to participate; they should be uncoerced, and so on. These are values in themselves. BILL MOYERS: Why do you think, if we go that route- NOAM CHOMSKY: Because I think that’s the only hope that I can see that other values will come to the fore. I mean, if the society is based on control by private wealth, it will reflect the values that it, in fact, does reflect; the value that the only real human property is greed, and the desire to maximize personal gain at the expense of others. Now, any society- a small society based on that principle is ugly, but it can survive. A global society based on that principle is headed for massive destruction. And that’s what we are. We have to have a mode of social organization that reflects other values that, I think, are inherent in human nature that people recognize. BILL MOYERS: And that would be? I want to see exactly what you mean. NOAM CHOMSKY: I mean, what are human beings? In your family, for example, it’s not the case that in the family every person tries to maximize personal gain at the expense of others, or if they do, it’s pathological. It’s not the case that—if you and I are, say, walking down the street, and we see a child eating a piece of candy and we see that nobody’s around and we happen to be hungry, we don’t steal it. If we did that, we’d be pathological. I mean, the idea of care for others and concern for other people’s needs and concern for a fragile environment that must sustain future generations; all of these things are part of human nature. These are elements of human nature that are suppressed in a social and cultural system which is designed to maximize personal gain. And I think we must try to overcome that suppression and that’s, in fact, what democracy could bring about. It could lead to the expression of other human needs and values which tend to be suppressed under the institutional structure of a system of private power and private profit. BILL MOYERS: Do you believe that, by nature, human beings yearn for freedom, or do we settle in the interest of safety and security and conformity—do we settle for order? NOAM CHOMSKY: These are really matters of faith rather than knowledge. On the one hand you have the Grand Inquisitor who tells you that what people, what humans crave is submission, and, therefore, Christ is a criminal and we have to vanquish freedom. That’s one view. You have the other view of, say, Rousseau in some of his moments, that people are born to be free, and that their basic instinct is the desire to free themselves from coercion, authority and oppression. The answer to which you believe is, more or less, where you stake your hopes. I’d like to believe that people are born to be free, but if you ask for proof, I couldn’t give it to you.

plants developed a new kind of support material, called lignin. Lignin was an improvement development over cellulose in several ways: it was harder, more rigid, and, being more complex, almost impossible to digest, which made it ideal for protecting cellulose. With lignin, plants could make wood, and it lead to the first treelike growth form.

Finally, however, a fungus belonging to the class Agaricomycetes - making it a distant cousin of button mushrooms - did find a crude way to break down lignin. Rather than devise an enzyme to unstitch the lignin molecule, however, it was forced to adapt a more direct strategy. Using a class of enyzmes called peroxidases, the fungus bombarded the wood with highly reactive oxygen molecules, in much the same way one might untie a knot using a flamethrower. This strategy reduced the wood to a carbohydrate-rich slurry from which the fungus could slurp up the edible cellulose.