Response to “All the Troubles of the World”

I thought the plot of this tale was superb, and all in all a very good story, as it made me think. I began to think what the world would be like if a computer such as Multivac ran the world. What would the world be like if a computer told police to arrest Rosa Parks, right before the fateful day she refused to sit in the back of the bus, starting the civil rights movement? How different would the world be if police never had to solve crimes? What would it be like to have your most troubling problems solved with the press of a button? How would the face of the political world change, if JFK was still alive, because Multivac predicted his assassination? “All the Troubles of the World” displays a portrait of a world run by a true dictator, a dictator who can force people to kill it, a world where a computer can arrest anyone it wants, and even though the historical changes if he existed could be great, Multivac himself would make an awful 21st century ruler.  

A short story like this makes you think, would humans really have the courage to create a machine smarter than itself, a machine smart enough to plot the death of mankind? All this information also made me wonder, would humans be able to live as one multicultural, multilingual, multi economic, and multi political, country without all out war? Simply, I think the world would be a very different place with Multivac being the all knowing ruler, I also believe that life would be horrendous under Multivacs fist.  Even though this possibly bleak future could become reality, this story shows us how great our lives truly are, and for that we are thankful. Simply for being so thought provoking, this story is truly one of the best short stories I have read so far.