The Machine Stops

E.M. Forster’s The Machine Stops is a prescient, powerful short story. Writing in 1909, Forster imagined a future in which humanity lives in dependence on technology to meet all its needs. Everyone relies on an all-powerful Machine which provides all the food, water and medicine they need — and even music! Yet they are cut off from real connection with one another, and with any deeper reality. Is that kind of life enough for them — or for us?

Michael Sacasas, a Trinity Forum Senior Fellow, provides an introduction and discussion questions perfect for group exploration. This Reading helps us work through questions that have become urgent about progress, control, and what it means to be human. Join us in exploring life in an imagined future that is increasingly becoming our reality.