A group of awe-stricken visitors punched it and read replies. [fact]
The hall was a paradigmatic representation of the economist as an unerring, neutral source of information. Its central feature was a computer that would print out answers on slips of paper to questions visitors typed in. The New Republic reported, "There is a kind of oracular infallibility to this machine that makes it more impressive than a live pundit. A group of awe-stricken visitors punched it and read replies. What it said must be so, they seemed to feel, because after all a machine is unbiased and impartial."
Quinn Slobodian, Globalists, loc. 538