Techno-Visions: Overview of this Summer's Schedule

And we’re off! This week is the official start of Techno-Visions. It means it’s time to get reading, and that you can keep your eyes out for bonus content starting this week. We’ll also announce the expert conversation lineup soon. 

As we begin, I want to share an overview of this summer’s schedule and more about what you can expect from the bonus content, discussions, and expert conversations. I also wanted to point out something worth noticing in Vonnegut’s approach to this topic.

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Overview of the schedule

Techno-Visions will run through August and finish the first week of September. The first three weeks are slated for reading Player Piano and bonus content. During the following three weeks, starting August 19, we’ll host live discussions and expert conversations. If you’re looking for a target date by which to complete the book, then aim to turn the last page the week of August 19. 

We’ll set more specific times and dates for discussions and expert conversations during the first half of August. We’re factoring in the number of participants, time zones, etc., to design a lineup that’s both doable and meaningful for you. And remember, you’ll be able to choose what you participate in live or asynchronously, so that it works for your summer schedule. 

We’ll update the schedule over the course of the summer on this page, which you can access through the top menu of the book club website. As we progress through the schedule and confirm dates and times for discussions and events, we’ll add these details to that page and share them with you via email. 

What can you expect for bonus content, discussions, and expert conversations?

Bonus content: This week, we’ll begin publishing bonus content—articles, essays, media, and resources—that will help illuminate the Techno-Visions theme. In the first weeks, we’ll focus on content that will help deepen your understanding of the book and theme, but won’t give away any spoilers. So you’ll be able to read the bonus content, while you’re reading the book. 

We’ll start by exploring Player Piano itself and Kurt Vonnegut’s influences and motivations. Then, we’ll go deeper into the themes from the book complemented by live discussions with other members and expert conversations with behavioral scientists, technologists, and others. 

Live discussions: One of the coolest parts of this summer’s book club is that it’s truly an international crowd, now with members from more than two dozen countries. We’re planning to schedule several opportunities for discussions with other members based on time zones of the group. We’ll announce dates and times in the first half of August.

Expert conversations: There are so many great themes to explore from the book. Soon we’ll be announcing the lineup of behavioral scientists, technologists, futurists and others who we’ll tap to help illuminate questions and ideas inspired by Player Piano. To help it fit within members’ schedules, we’ll feature both conversations you can attend live and recorded conversations you can listen to asynchronously. 

Something worth noticing

Techno-Visions is seeded by the ideas, questions, and observations that were on Vonnegut’s mind about society and technology more than 72 years ago. And to them we’ll get to add our own; the ones bubbling to the surface in our own minds today.

As we begin, I think there’s something worth noticing about Vonnegut’s approach.

When Vonnegut explored these ideas in Player Piano, the stakes were high. It was 1952, only a handful of years after World War II, and people everywhere were trying to figure out where and how they fit into the new social and economic landscape. 

His task amounted to nothing less than trying to understand the human condition at this inflection point and to work out where we might be headed. That’s some serious stuff. You could get pretty weighed down by it. But when he explored these ideas, he did so with an abundance of humor. He had fun. 

We chose Techno-Visions as a theme because of its relevance and importance to what we’re going through and witnessing today. Important ideas can feel heavy, but that doesn’t mean thinking about them needs to be a slog. 

As we break champagne—or ice cream and iced coffee—on the bow of the summer book club, Vonnegut’s approach is worth keeping in mind: Our ideas, questions, and observations about where we are now and where we’re headed aren’t going anywhere, so we might as well have fun and enjoy ourselves while we’re thinking about them. 

This Sunday, I received a photo from a member reading Player Piano in a hammock in their backyard on a sunny afternoon. Not a bad start.

If that isn’t nice, what is?

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