E. M. FORSTER´S FUTURE or WELCOME TO THE MACHINE

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We will learn, debate, enjoy and investigate philosophers and diverse themes from the philosophical perspective. Each reunion is structured as a conversation among all attendees about that day s philosopher softly moderated by the organizer. The conversation will kick-off from the very brief suggested reading providing easy access to all attendees both to the philosopher and the conversation.

Let´s be greek and dive today on…

how E. M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops” (1909) foretold how our problematic relationship with technology would develop.

In January 1908, a year before the story was published, Forster wrote in his diary that rather than freeing us, science was enslaving us, especially new ‘machines’. He was, at the very least, a technosceptic, if not a full-on technophobe.

In the future, Mankind dwells underground where they rely on the Machine for all their needs. Everyone owns a book, known as ‘the Book’, which is not the Bible (a bible in fact, yes) but rather a sort of instruction manual telling people about the Machine.

The narrator tells us that the ‘clumsy business of public gatherings had been long since abandoned’. People stay in their own rooms, under the ground, and interact via technology – living a virtual rather than face-to-face existence in both their education and socialising.

People ‘isolate themselves’ when they go to sleep, unplugging themselves from this technological world of telecommunication.
They are allowed up to the surface, but only under supervised and permitted conditions.

The inhabitants do not merely use the Machine. They inhabit a world whose entire structure is provided by it: communication, education, entertainment, information, social relations and material survival. Direct contact with other people becomes unnecessary; direct experience of the physical world becomes almost strange.

"The Book” becomes authoritative; questioning the system becomes socially unacceptable; people begin venerating the Machine.
The Machine does not need to become conscious or deliberately enslave humanity.

The Machine, which everyone is now wholly dependent on slows down and grinds to a halt.

Then the whole communication system shuts down.

The story sees humanity helplessly come to an end as the machine they became over reliant on...
Collapses.

Lets think about the Human beings...
The machines are making.

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As always, you can perfectly participate in the debate without knowing the story, but if you want here a some links...
E.M. Forster´s "The Machine Stops" (Spotify)
E.M Forster´s "The Machine Stops" - Full Audiobook

If you want to join, just join us...

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