The world came awefully close in the 1930s …

This reminds me of what Joy Davidman wrote:

ONCE THERE WAS a boy named James Watt, and he had an old kettle that belonged to his mother. And one day, behold a great hissing cloud, and a vague shape that said, “I am the Genie Steam; and I serve the owner of the kettle. What is your will, O Master?”

And the boy said, “Make us all rich. Bring us miles of woven cloth, and piles of food, and acres of diamonds; let us have houses that touch the sky and coaches that run swifter than the wind, and let all this be done without our having to strain ourselves with overwork.”

“To hear is to obey, Master!” answered the genie. And in the twinkling of an eye all men became rich and happy, neither did they study war any more, but spent their time contentedly enjoying the flow of good things provided by the genie of the kettle….

Or so the dream ran, for its first dreamers. Since then we have extended it somewhat. We have sent the genie for his swifter brother Petroleum, and then for his tall, glittering sister Electricity, and we have put all three to work turning out riches for us, until every man of us has become entirely happy and peaceful…. Well, perhaps not quite. But now we have learned to call up the great-granddaddy of all genies, the towering cloud-and-fire shape named Atomic Power, and by his efforts we are certain to content all our desires at last….

And the genie won’t go back in the bottle will he?