"Robert A. Heinlein - Waldo" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

Grimes had been afraid that the handicapped child, since it was not
subjected to the usual maturing stresses of growing up, would remain
infantile. He knew now, had known for a long time, that he need not
have worried. Young Waldo grasped at what little life was offered him,
learned thirstily, tried with a sweating tenseness of will to force his
undisciplined muscles to serve him.
He was clever in thinking of dodges whereby to circumvent his
muscular weakness. At seven he devised a method of controlling
a spoon with two hands, which permitted him, painfully, to feed himself.
His first mechanical invention was made at ten.
It was a gadget which held a book for him, at any angle, controlled
lighting for the book, and turned its pages. The gadget responded to
fingertip pressure on a simple control panel. Naturally, Waldo could
not build it himself, but he could conceive it, and explain it; the
Farthingwaite-Joneses could well afford the services of a designing
engineer to build the childтАЩs conception.
Grimes was inclined to consider this incident, in which the child Waldo
acted in a role of intellectual domination over a trained mature adult
neither blood relation nor servant, as a landmark in the psychological
process whereby Waldo eventually came to regard the entire human
race as his servants, his hands, present or potential.
тАШWhatтАЩs eating you, Doc?тАЩ
тАШEh? Sorry, I was daydreaming. See here, son - you mustnтАЩt be too harsh
on Waldo. I donтАЩt like him myself. But you must take him as a whole.тАЩ
тАШYou take him.тАЩ
тАШShush. You spoke of needing his genius. He wouldnтАЩt have been a
genius if he had not been crippled. You didnтАЩt know his parents.
They were good stock, fine, intelligent people, but nothing spectacular.
WaldoтАЩs potentialities werenтАЩt any greater than theirs, but he had to
do more with them to accomplish anything. He had to do everything
the hard way. He had to be clever.
тАШSure. Sure, but why should he be so utterly poisonous? Most
big men arenтАЩt.тАЩ
тАШUse your head. To get anywhere in his condition he had to develop a
will, a driving one-track mind, with a total disregard for any other
considerations. What would you expect him to be but stinking selfish?тАЩ
тАШIтАЩd- Well, never mind. We need him and thatтАЩs that.тАЩ
тАШWhy?тАЩ
Stevens explained.
It may plausibly be urged that the shape of a culture,
its mores, evaluations, family organization, eating habits, living
patterns, pedagogical methods, institutions, forms of government,
and so forth, arise from the economic necessities of its technology.
Even though the thesis be too broad and much oversimplified, it is
nonetheless true that much which characterized the long peace which
followed the constitutional establishrnent of the United Nations grew
out of the technologies which were hot-house-forced by the needs of the
belligerents in the war of the forties. Up to that time broadcast and
beam-cast were used only for commercial radio, with rare exceptions.
Even telephony was done almost entirely by actual metallic connexion