Ray Bradbury's "There Will Come Soft Rains" is set today (2026-08-04)

The most striking incongruity with our modern era to me is that the family was all outside when the blast occurred. With pervasive screens, we just don't get outside like we used to.

And why on earth was that dad mowing when the house was able to take care of it?

I read this story in 4th grade. It felt like the future. Now, it feels like most of the technology is within reach - at least, it could be built. The automated stove being the main exception.

But the most unrealistic part of this story is how all the IoT automation continues to work in the absence of the Internet.

Born in 1968 I missed “duck and cover” but rode the wave of Reagan brinkmanship with my skater friends until 1990, watching all the broadcast TV PSAs and songs and art about nuclear war. It was real. It pervaded daily life: the notion that two old white men were having a pissing contest with every human as disposable bargaining chips. And as always, 25% of the US population cheered for purification of the planet because Jesus was coming (see: Hal Lindsay).

I thought this might have been the one about the lush (but dangerous!) Venusian rainforest!

(In Bradbury's time, we knew Venus was covered in thick clouds, and could only speculate about what might be beneath the clouds. Clouds = rain = lush vegetation?)

USSR animated version (1984): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oxP3TyuQx0

A rendition of this was aired on X-Minus One

https://archive.org/details/OTRR_X_Minus_One_Singles/XMinusO...

One thing which I find striking here is that a modern home and attendant conveniences roughly embodies 10--15 horsepower of effort, or the work of 40 or so full time house staff.

Thus far, the only notable robots are little disks which vacuum up floors (and they're getting outlawed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49104371 ) and some innovations just haven't become widespread (an uncle of mine piped his home for a central vacuum system, compleat w/ a switch at each connection for on/off) --- I really can't recall a device with widespread demand since DVD and then Blueray players (or maybe the Wii? the PS2 counts as a DVD player arguably). I don't know anyone who has done more than read about "Smart Mirrors" for example....

What will be the first device to bottle up AI and other modern technologies in a package and become widely in-demand/distributed?

    Eternal rains will come  
    We should say goodbye   
    And suffer on our own  
    As all our thoughts were wrong

I accidentally started a reread of Octiva Butler's Parable of the Sower in late 2024 (I'd read it many years ago, but forgot the timeline). It was eerie...

I feel like the modern version of this would have the neighbourhood largely intact, but humans killed via miniature drones.

Drives home the point how few anticipated that batteries would advance so much.

already posted at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49162653 which is itself a dupe but that was the first one posted today

"There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground, And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night, And wild plum trees in tremulous white,

Robins will wear their feathery fire Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn, Would scarcely know that we were gone."

- Sara Teasdale, 1918

Didn't see the inspiration for Bradbury mentioned here. I love this poem. There's also a great song-rendition of it by The Three D's, a folk group popular in the 50's.

Fun to witness all the things it got right, which we can now remark wasn't close at all. The dystopian robotic future exists somewhere in a Chinese factory if anywhere at all.

this version seems to be missing large sections compared to the other posted version, like how the mice throughly clean up the debris after the dog's entrance, the dog smelling food through the kitchen door and scratching at it, etc etc

One of my favorite versions is read by Nimoy. https://web.archive.org/web/20200615075956/https://www.youtu...

It's interesting to look at the short a story and see where we are still behind on home automation. We still don't have robot firefighting or accurate robot cooking, for example.

Can't wait for all the inductive backdoors that will appear today thanks to this, LOL!

I liked Ray Bradbury's thoughts on the internet when it first came into existence

dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49162653

I'm glad our homes aren't shrieking at us at all hours.

Amazing story, though.

No nuclear apocalypse yet.

Nice.

Growing up, I hated this guy. Boring! Now, I can recognize writing talent.

I love Ray Bradbury. My favorite short story author.

So is The Pedestrian...

Nature won't know or care if humanity erases itself.

[dead]