In class on Thursday we noted how both Oryx and Crake as well as The Stone Gods depict a future in which life is dominated by oppressive corporations who destroy the environment. There seemed some consensus that these dystopian worlds were a somewhat exaggerated product of literary imagination, that things most likely would not get that bad. I argue that modern American society is already as bad as the portrayal seen in those works. Continue reading
The Stone Gods felt vaguely familiar to me, and then I realized that between Battlestar Galactica, Minority Report, and The Hunger Games, which I’ve read recently, I have already seen and become familiar with many of the elements of The Stone Gods. It seems that our fears for the future as humans all have something in common: an apocalyptic environment, starting over on a new planet, the grouping of the world into fewer and more distinct alliances, the introduction of the android robot as a potentially perilous thing. The other thing that struck me was just how commercial each of these future worlds was. Continue reading
As the development of a free-market system gave rise to the notions of liberal humanism in the 17th and 18th centuries, I see current understandings and developments in modern capitalism as the most powerful force causing the evolution of the post-human. In a nation obsessed with gaining a competitive edge over economic rivals, the idea of a post-human physically and mentally superior to humans in other countries is incredibly tantalizing. Continue reading