Governments and religions should fear the Air pump and electrical machines because they go against the mass beliefs of what they are trying to put upon the people. Religion is one that has supported science but on the science that does not threaten religion and does not take the money away from the church because of people seeing what the money is spent on. The government has the same fear because if people find the truth about where their money goes and that it is being spent on something that they don’t need to when everything can be fixed by machines for much cheaper prices.
Johnson’s work does shed new light on some current day technologies that hold both social and political consequences. Some of the technologies would be the ability to cure cancer or other diseases or the ability to make humans not age and essentially make them immortal. This would be bad for government because they rely on people working hard and paying taxes but if one cannot die they may not see the purpose to work and create the money they are looking for. Also, people could start to go against what the government wants. This is the same for religion, they do not want people to go against what the churches allow people to believe and the hope that the church requires for people to continue to follow is gone and people will stop supplying and believing in what no longer seems true.