This article will wait patiently - unlike the smart-home instruments described in the story.įor those who’ve finished - or already know - the story, you can see where this is going.

If you haven’t read There Will Come Soft Rains, the Board of Co-operative Educational Services for Broome-Tioga Counties have provided a full pdf of the text for those who are curious. It just works.” - Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.

“The best customer service is if the customer doesn’t need to call you, doesn’t need to talk to you. Soft Rains asks the question of what happens after humanity is wiped away h ow long will our creations continue to survive without us when we are gone?Īnd it’s this question - and inevitable conclusion - that makes Soft Rains arguably even more relevant today than 451. However, this same sort of ‘death and rebirth’ is also present in There Will Come Soft Rains, albeit one that almost takes the opposite view of Fahrenheit. The refusal to read and learn - whether through cultural conditioning or governmental persuasion - can ultimately result in the collapse of civilization. While the rise of visual and interactive media has far outpaced the crude ‘wall-screens’ described in Bradbury’s novel, the overall message remains timely and relevant: if humanity’s way of life comes to an end, the remaining few who have knowledge of the past will be responsible for saving it. In a geopolitical climate containing everything from a social-credit score to alternative facts, dystopian novels about governments trying to destroy works promoting free-thought are hotter ticket-items than short-stories about smart homes catching on fire.įahrenheit 451 still has a place in today’s vernacular. “Soft rains? How are rains soft?”Įven if their assumption lacks the finer points of the novel’s thesis, the guess wouldn’t be completely wrong. If you mention the other story, you may just get a confused look. It’s something about the government trying to control knowledge in the future, right?” Even if you spoke to somebody born in a country which used Celsius instead of Fahrenheit, they’d have a good chance of saying “oh yeah, the book-burning thing…I’ve heard of that. Although he is widely known by high-school-students and science-fiction-fans everywhere for Fahrenheit 451, the short-story which proceeded it always seems to be overlooked in mainstream discussion. In the year 1950, prolific speculative-fiction author Ray Bradbury wrote a short-story entitled There Will Come Soft Rains. Just get people to stop reading them.” - Ray Bradbury, author. “You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. “Hey Alexa…play ‘It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine) by R.E.M.” The Story So Far

Author of there will come soft rains