Ok I stewed on this for a hot second, and whether or not KV intended it to be so, it feels like this book is a cautious endorsement of half measures (per the title lol).

The first most obvious example is Paul. First, he was whole hog for technology, until he realized the destruction it was doing. So he flipped to wanting to become a yeoman farmer (of course, will ignore for a second I guess that farming itself is a technology). That comes across in the story as comical, of course, because it's a whole measure. When Paul is presented the opportunity to either turn informer and become a company man or support the Ghost Shirts, he again takes a whole measure, supporting the Ghost Shirts, only for his revolution to (probably) fail.

Then there is the technology itself, and the operating concept is that technology has gone a full measure too far and is now doing things it shouldn't and is constructing society in damaging ways. When the Ghsot Shirts start their revolution, and how they want a blank slate, that also ends up coming across as a bit comical. The only integration of technology that doesn't come across as comical are the half measures - farming (if you can count that as a half measure), and the young boy that wants to make a mechanical drum machine from the rubble of Illium, having humans and technology creatively working in harmony aka a half measure.

Kroener, a company man that believes unwaveringly in the value of technological advancement, comes across a bit like a well meaning buffoon. Similarly, the Lascher, who believes unwaveringly in promoting a movement regardless of the outcome or destruction comes across as a lunatic accelerationist. An example of someone that comes across to me at least as completely reasonable, is Garth - who plays both sides of all conflicts, remains lukewarm. Is pro technology, but rebels that it has gone too far when his son, by all accounts a great kid (lol) is ousted for bad scores. Most other characters, Ed, Anita, Shephard, the Shah etc. all more or less extremists in their own way, all come across as comical and in each their own way morally failing.

[i'll probably edit this review later, because even though I stewed a bit I'm not really satisfied with this]

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Below is some scratch ideas that could be used as context for understanding

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Paul Proteus, as the MC vs Proteus the greek mythic character that changes forms to avoid telling the future

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Below is my first review before I stewed, titled:
The Un-cancellable Mr. Vonnegut accidentally makes an impossible utopia

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Okay, the title is tongue and cheek, I guess. But wowza right off the top it is impressive how KV has avoided the wave of cancellations (as if anyone was actually cancelled lol). Maybe he died at just the right time? The unspoken racist and sexist tropes that lie a hairs-width below the surface of this book feels much more pronounced than some of his other work. That alone makes it difficult to feel like Vonnegut is really as humanistic as his other works suggest, and is often assumed. But for the sake of interest, I guess, let's leave aside the occasional horrifying tid-bit he would drop that if worked into the analysis might as well tear what I think his whole point was down by hand-waving and saying "... well. he was of his time."

Go to wikipedia if you want a synopsis : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_Piano_(novel)

TL:DR because I ramble and don't really ever get to a point : it's an okay book. Maybe it was perceived as a dystopia back when it was first published. Feels relatively quaint nowadays, though, given the state of... waves hands at everything . I probably wouldn't recommend unless you are a KV fan, feels second tier of his stuff, but definitely not his worst.

It seems like KV accidentally made a utopia in this book by painting an entirely too clean view of the history of disaffected men. You can draw some parallels to today - with each generation having their own form of being screwed over by the titans of industry. For some, maybe it is the mechanical processes as described in the book, for others, maybe it's 'shipping jobs overseas' for others, it's computers integrating into the workplace, and for the newest wave, it's probably LLM's. Each time, technological advancement comes along, kicking people out of the workforce 'for Their own good' (of course, it's much more benevolent in the book, I suppose, where there are actual social programs in place for these men kicked out of the economy...). An increase in cosplaying back to the land (looking at you - pandemic era farm vloggers...).

So there's a group of men, riled along by some (mostly) benevolent powerful elite, to bring their wrath against the technology and systems that have oppressed them in (mostly) solidarity with each other, and while maybe the revolution failed (which, in my opinion, seemed like an ambiguous reading at best), they at least could build from the rubble as they wanted to.

Man doesn't that sound nice. And, as we've seen over the past decade and a half or so - completely NOT what is happening in our world.

Today we have disaffected men committing horrible acts of violence, fed media to individualize them. We have no benevolent elite guiding the ship under a common direction. What solidarity does exist is inherently exclusionary. There is no desire to take anger out on actual systems of power, because what the system of power is has been so obscured.

I obviously don't actually want violent revolution - but man - it does feel like a dream to even consider the idea that there could be a solidaristic movement nowadays.

That's not even including the ways in which the dystopic future that KV illustrates is actually kinda nice compared to what we've got going on now. Like - wouldn't it be nice to at least KNOW why you got ghosted from 1500 companies you spammed your resume to? Wouldn't it be nice to at least experience some kind of stability if you were someone blessed from birth with the right kind of intelligence economic production? Wouldn't it be nice if the 'heads of the economy' and richest people in the world actually seemed like they believed in some sense of human progress (ignoring the validity of their vision), instead of just seeming like amoral psychopaths?

[i'll probably edit this review later, because I just finished the book and haven't stewed]

Player piano

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