The Tommyknockers and Nuclear Energy :: essays research papers

The Tommyknockers and Nuclear Energy   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Tommyknockers, a book seemingly about an alien ship buried in a small town in Maine that affects the townspeople, has a much deeper message about humans and our usage of nuclear energy. There is much evidence to confirm that King as strong views on nuclear power and is trying to convey them in the book.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  King’s book about himself, On Writing, includes a reference to nuclear war in a passage about his early life. â€Å"I was born in 1947 and we didn’t get our first television until 1958. The first thing I remember watching on it was Robot Monster, a film in which a guy dressed in an ape-suit with a goldfish bowl on his head-Ro-Man, he was called—ran around trying to kill the last survivors of a nuclear war. I felt this was art of quite a high nature.† (34). He later references nuclear superpowers as a fix to overpopulation and a chance to start over (202). Before getting to The Tommyknockers, King seems to have strong ideas about nuclear war. He sees it as the end of the civilization.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The word â€Å"nuclear† appears 39 times in The Tommyknockers. The first mention (on page 56) speaks of fear of a power plant during an earthquake. On page 98, one of the main characters, Jim Gardener, thinks to himself â€Å"insanity of nuclear power† and proceeds to ramble on about conspiracies, meltdown cover-ups, and its overall dangers until the end of the chapter on page 114.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Internet article titled with the quote â€Å"†¦late last night and the night before†¦Ã¢â‚¬  has a lot to say about the dangers of nuclear energy being a motif in The Tommyknockers. The author makes the comparison of the way the ship changes people (known as â€Å"The Becoming†) and effects of radiation poisoning. â€Å"The Becoming† also gives people the power to build tremendous technology, such as a super hot water heater or a mind reading typewriter. However, it neglects to give them comprehension of what they are doing. The comparison to nuclear energy there is â€Å"a society of people playing around with powers they don’t understand.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In On Writing, King says â€Å"I don’t believe any novelist, even one who’s written fortyplus books, has too many thematic concerns; I have many interests, but only a few that are deep enough to power novels. These deep interests (I won’t quite call them obsessions) include how difficult it is—perhaps impossible!—to close Pandora’s technobox once it’s open (The Stand, The Tommyknockers, Firestarter) (207)† One can argue however that nuclear energy is potentially one heck of a Pandora’s box.

Engineers Contributions

Society’s standards always change and engineers contribute to society by meeting these demands. Engineers create technology and devices that people use day to day. They innovate current technology by making it more practical and improving the quality to satisfy consumers. When society’s trends and fads change, engineers comply by redesigning products to accommodate for the changes. Engineers save time and money for every one by speeding up processes and cutting down production costs through efficiency. Society relies on engineers every day.Engineers create and develop various transportation modes, communicational devices and infrastructures that people use on a daily basis. Society uses technology that engineers construct. Many people in society use transportation technology to get to their destinations. Many people drive cars, take the train or bus and ride bicycles. Without engineers, all these transportation modes would cease to exist. Engineers play a major role in vehicle production and efficiency. Without communicational technology society cannot function and would crumble down.Communication takes part in every person’s life through different avenues. People use phones, e-mail and social networks on the internet to communicate with one another. Engineers developed these communicational technologies and continue to find ways to improve it. They discover ways to help society use technology by making it more practical. Practicality embodies an engineer’s mindset and this mentality contributes to society’s economy. Engineers stimulate society’s economy by allowing people to save money.Businesses hire engineers to help their production efficiency and to find ways to cut costs. Engineers redesign products so that they require less material but serve the same functions and capabilities. They find ways to boost the speed it takes to make each product. This allows the company to create more products per day and saves time. With the costs decreasing and production increasing, business can sell their goods for cheaper. Products that only the wealthy society could afford, such as televisions and cars, are now common amenities that many families have today.People can afford to buy vital products such as medicine at an affordable price. Engineers cut production time and costs to allow consumers to save money but always put safety as a priority. Engineers continually explore methods to ensure society’s safety. They look for ways to improve the environment’s health. They minimalize air pollution caused by cars and factories by producing eco-friendly products and components. Engineers improve land conditions for people and animals so that they may live in suitable conditions.The water that people drink goes through a purification and safety process that engineers conduct. Engineers perform test to validate a building’s integrity through simulated earthquakes and wind speeds. Every vehicl e a person drives goes through multiple collision examinations and redesigned multiple times by engineers to ensure the highest safety ratings. The roads that people drive on have speed limits specifically analyzed and set by engineers to reduce accidents. Engineers secure the society’s safety while progressing and planning for the future.Engineers constantly conform to society’s changing needs through innovation. With gas prices increasing rapidly, engineers develop electronic cars and maximize the vehicle’s miles per gallon ratio. People want computers to have better processors, load programs quicker, and carry less weight for traveling. Engineers have configured these electronic devices to perform at faster speeds and reduced material use to enhance the product’s portability. Society wants technology to keep developing with new inventions to provide more comfortability and less work.Engineers hold the key ingredient for technology innovation and they c ontinue to cater to society’s demands. People may not notice the direct contributions that engineers give to society but society can’t function without them. Every infrastructure in this nation is designed with maximum efficiency and practicality by an engineer. The amount that engineers contribute to society measures from small inventions such as a mechanical pencil to as large as a robot landing on the planet Mars. Society will always need engineers and engineers will always contribute to society.

A Communist Perspective - 1325 Words

The question, â€Å"what does it mean to be human†, when viewed from a communist perspective revolves around the four common components that are associated with the communist subject. The first component focuses on the values of community. The goal of community reflects upon the idea of mutual gain, which allows equality for all associated in the society. By incorporating equality into community, the communist subject works to provide basic needs for all. In order to provide for these needs, the communist subject calls for its second component- labor. The communist subject requires labor in order to provide for one another with means to sacrifice time and use one’s talents. The third component of the communist subject ties in with labor by†¦show more content†¦The communist subject’s four components create an atmosphere throughout the community that works toward equality and collaboration in order to provide for all. The capitalist subject answers to different terms when asked the question, â€Å"what does it mean to be human†. In comparison to the communist subject which derives from the values of subordination and impartiality, the capitalist subject believes in a more individualistic society. Individualism, the first component of the capitalist subject, focuses on providing for one’s needs before appealing to another’s. The phrase â€Å"each man for himself† reflects as a perfect example to describe the individuality of the capitalist subject. The capitalist subject must engage in a second component in order to meet one’s basic needs, which is competition. Competition allows everyone in a society to have the opportunity to use one’s talents to administer to obligations. By arranging to supply for basic needs, an individual may gain profit to help support themselves. Karl Marx warns, â€Å"the worker puts his life into the object; but now his life no l onger belongs to him but to the object† (Marx, 72). The communistic view of labor points out that when the work becomes something that the worker cannot attain, the system is futile. The third component, profit, may satisfy additional or unnecessary goods or services which contribute directly towards the satisfaction of the individual at hand. Profit acts as a pecuniary