The Machine Stops

One of the most insightful books about the isolating effects of screens and technological overreach was written 114 years before any of our modern technology existed. 

The Machine Stops is a highly-acclaimed science fiction novella by E. M. Forster (the author of A Passage to India). It provides a shocking view of a technology-addicted world, much like ours, that is now fully dependent on the Machine. This stunningly prophetic work from 1909 features technology eerily similar to today’s computer screens, social media apps, group chat forums, and even Artificial Intelligence. 

Here’s a passage from this brilliantly disruptive book: We created the Machine, to do our will, but we cannot make it do our will now. It has robbed us of the sense of space and of the sense of touch, it has blurred every human relation and narrowed down love to a carnal act, it has paralyzed our bodies and our wills, and now it compels us to worship it. The Machine developed—but not on our lies. The Machine proceeds—but not to our goal. We only exist as the blood corpuscles that course through the arteries, and if it could work without us, it would let us die. 

The story must have seemed highly exaggerated and impossibly surreal to early readers. Yet more than a century later, the setting and observations feel far more real than most care to admit. The Machine, to me, represents what ultimately happens when the Tree of Knowledge is chosen over the Tree of Life. 

At only 46 pages, you can experience it in one sitting—but the images and ideas will stay with you long after that. I hope you’ll give it a read.

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