There is a universal urge for intimacy, for trading subjectivities, in communication. For Telepathy. Our desire for it tells us about what we wish to be: truly intersubjective beings.

Vonnegut's earliest novels hint strongly at his familiarity with Wiener's work, The Human Use of Human Beings, especially his first novel, Player Piano (1952), which shows his concern for the social implications of automation, the replacement of human beings with machines.