Project Gutenberg 2009-05-20 Public domain in the USA. 67 Sheldon, Walter J. 1917 1996 Sheldon, Walt Sheldon, Walter James Two Plus Two Makes Crazy Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net "Two Plus Two Makes Crazy" by Walter J. Sheldon is a satirical short story written in the early 1950s. The book explores the consequences of an overreliance on technology, particularly through the character of a human liaison working with a vast, infallible computer system. The story critiques a future society that blindly trusts mathematical certainties, suggesting that this reliance can lead to absurd outcomes and a breakdown of rational thought. In the narrative, Krayton, a public liaison officer in Computer City, explains the computerized system that governs various societal functions, addressing the fears posed by underground groups questioning the computer's control over their lives. Mr. Tanter, a seemingly unassuming man, challenges Krayton's assertions and injects doubt about the computer's infallibility. As he poses a thought-provoking question—whether "two plus two" is actually equal to "three plus one"—the computer becomes overloaded, illustrating that rigid adherence to numerical logic can lead to chaos. Ultimately, the story draws attention to the dangers of substituting human judgment with cold mechanistic calculations. (This is an automatically generated summary.) en Science fiction Short stories PS Text Science Fiction Browsing: Literature Browsing: Science-Fiction & Fantasy Browsing: Fiction 35512 35521 2024-09-12T11:15:31.556972 2023-09-13T03:51:32.278162 text/html text/html 31557 2021-01-05T03:31:01 text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 12344 2021-01-05T03:31:01 text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 application/zip 68895 2024-09-12T11:15:34.635986 application/epub+zip 67919 2024-09-12T11:15:32.779970 application/epub+zip 67920 2024-09-12T11:15:32.021001 application/epub+zip 160390 2024-09-12T11:15:36.132032 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 153423 2024-09-12T11:15:34.149034 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 153574 2022-09-13T11:53:11.838806 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 29678 29577 2024-09-12T11:15:31.362978 2023-09-13T03:51:32.125124 text/plain; charset=us-ascii text/plain 29469 2021-01-05T03:31:01 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 11302 2021-01-05T03:31:01 text/plain; charset=us-ascii application/zip 18595 2024-09-12T11:15:36.641022 application/rdf+xml 14968 2024-09-12T11:15:32.358980 image/jpeg 4052 2024-09-12T11:15:32.189010 image/jpeg 70292 2024-09-12T11:15:31.562023 application/octet-stream application/zip Archives containing the RDF files for *all* our books can be downloaded at https://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Feeds#The_Complete_Project_Gutenberg_Catalog