Final answer:
E.M. Forster's 'The Machine Stops' predated many technologies it described, with his vision emerging from imagination and contemporary influences, not from actual foresight. Like other speculative fiction authors, Forster was inspired by themes of technology's impact on society, a topic also explored by movements such as futurism and in literary critiques like Marx's 'The Machine in the Garden.'
Step-by-step explanation:
E.M. Forster wrote 'The Machine Stops' quite some time before many of the technologies he described came into existence. Given that Forester was writing at the beginning of the 20th century, he could not have known about future technologies with certainty. However, like other writers of speculative fiction, such as Edward Bellamy in his novel 'Looking Backward, 2000-1887,' Forester used his imagination and the context of his times to extrapolate and envision a future shaped by the growing influence of machines.
It's important to note that futurism as a movement celebrated the potential of machines before the devastation of World War I, which significantly altered perceptions of technology in Europe. After the war, the idealistic view of technological progress was tarnished. Writers, including Forster, were certainly influenced by this shift, but given the lack of actual future knowledge, their depictions were speculative rather than predictive.
Moreover, the notion of technology and progress has long been a subject of literary exploration. Authors have reflected on the tensions between the natural and the mechanical, as seen in Leo Marx's 'The Machine in the Garden.' Similarly, futurists like Filippo Tommaso Marinetti embraced the promise of the Machine Age. All these literary and cultural movements contributed to the backdrop against which Forster may have crafted his vision.