Life 3.0
Duration: January1 – March 1
Optional in-person meetings: 3 total
Online guidance: Chapter-by-chapter / weekly
This is a guided non-fiction reading circle for readers who want to think carefully. It is designed to honor busy lives, solo readers, and deep thinkers alike.
Program Overview
The Ladies’ Literary Club of Grand Rapids invites readers into a calm, serious exploration of intelligence, power, and human choice.
Life 3.0 is not read here as prophecy, but as a mirror, without panic, posturing, or pressure, focused on the future we are already living inside.
This circle does not require technical knowledge. It asks only for attention, patience, and a willingness to sit with questions that do not resolve quickly.
There is no debate to win and no consensus to reach.
We read to notice:
what feels acceptable
what feels dangerous
and what kind of future we are quietly authoring already
This is not a technology course.
It is not a debate club.
It is not about predicting what will happen.
It is about noticing what matters.
The book asks a deceptively simple question:
What kind of future do we want, if intelligence itself is something we can design?
Together, we will read slowly, reflect honestly, and hold space for questions that do not resolve easily.
Why This Book, and Why Now
This book was chosen not because it tells us what will happen, but because it reminds us that the future is not neutral.
Life 3.0 asks us to consider what it means to live in a world where intelligence itself can be designed and what responsibilities come with that power.
You are not here to decide the future.
You are here to notice where you stand inside it.
Read slowly. Let uncertainty do some of the work.
You do not need answers; only honesty.
All reactions, feelings, and forms of engagement are valid.
How It Works
Three optional, salon-style, in-person meetings over two months
Weekly online framing notes and reflection prompts are released between meetings
Reading at your own pace, within shared chapter boundaries
There is no pressure to keep up perfectly.
The structure is designed to support real lives.
Meeting Dates & Structure
January 11 - Opening Salon
Participants should have read up to Chapter 3.
This gathering sets the tone of the circle and opens the conversation.
February 8 - Midpoint Salon
Discussion focuses on Chapters 4–6, exploring power, control, and responsibility.
March 1 - Closing Salon
A reflective, salon-style gathering centered on Chapter 7, the Epilogue, and the experience of reading the book as a whole.
*To preserve shared ground, participants are asked not to read ahead of the agreed sections before each meeting.
The Arc
The circle closes not with answers, but with a single civic question held, not solved:
What kind of future becomes inevitable if people like us remain silent, and what kind becomes possible if we do not?
Participation
Attendance at all three meetings is encouraged but not required.
Engaging online only, in person only, or both are all valid ways to participate.
This circle honors attention, not output.