On June 13, 1863, a curious letter to the editor appeared in The Press, a then-fledgling New Zealand newspaper. Signed “Cellarius,” it warned of an encroaching “mechanical kingdom” that would soon bring humanity to its yoke. “The machines are gaining ground upon us,” the author ranted, distressed by the breakneck pace of industrialization and technological development. “Day by day we are becoming more subservient to them; more men are daily bound down as slaves to tend them, more men are daily d...