"At that time, they were teaching that there was absolutely no difference between anybody. They may be teaching that still."
Chapter 8- Mr. Roboto.
"Gutless Wonder...was about a robot who had had bad breath....But what made the story remarkable, since it was written in 1932, was that it predicted the widespread use of burning jellied gasoline on human beings. It was dropped on them from airplanes...They had no conscience, and no circuits which would allow them to imagine what was happening to the people on the ground....And nobody held it against him that he dropped jellied gasoline on people. But they found his halitosis unforgivable. But then he cleared that up, and he was welcomed to the human race" (Vonnegut 168).
What a strange, Vonnegut-like story. I have been wondering the significance of Kilgore Trout and coincidental sci-fi novels. This small story, of his book The Gutless Wonder symbolizes the acceptance of the evils of war by humanity. The robots, being robots, supposedly had no conscience and could not figure out that the dropping of gasoline of civilians would kill the people. On the contrary, humans dropped jellied gasoline in the form of bombs, all over Europe and Asia, and were fully aware of the mass casualties the bombs would cause. Planes flew over, dropped the bombs, and then the pilots were awarded medals for being patriotic and fighting for the noble cause of their country. I have nothing against America, or any other country. The men who give their lives or simply time to the military are extremely honorable, but I believe that war should never have existed at all. Without war, those men wouldn't need to leave their families to sit, wait, and tie a yellow ribbon around that oak tree.
The robot story is a satire of the human race. We outcast people with "halitosis" (bad breath) or similar, foolish characteristics such as mental handicaps, skin diseases, or even different racial backgrounds. The robot in the novel who was cast off by society for his foul breath odor was welcomed back in to the high heights of humanity's cliques, even though he had mercilessly and unknowingly killed thousands of other humans. Real humans knowingly bomb towns and people. Selfless, moral, and peaceful humans live in the marginalized portion of society, stuck in hospitals to wither away or cast in the bitter streets of urban wasteland. Think about that.
Although I think you had the theme of the robot story being basically a satire of the entire human race dead on, I wanted to elaborate on something else that struck me from this passage. Robots and machines are the future of warfare. When a robot or a drone or a UAV is dropping "jellied gasoline" or other weapons of mass destruction on the enemy, they feel no remorse, sympathy, or understanding for what is happening since they are incapable of human emotion. When this happens, who is to blame for inhumane slaughter? Those that make the weapons and design the tools of destruction, not the robots. They are just carrying out human orders.
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