Oryx and Crake: an unsettling story about technology
I've been a big fan of Margaret Atwood ever since I read Cat's Eye more than a dozen years ago. Recently I read Oryx and Crake and found it unsettling and a bit frightening. It's a story about the end of human civilization, and perhaps our own species. The end comes as a result of genetic and biological tinkering with animals and humans that seems only a few steps away from recently reported genetic manipulation and cloning experiments. A few unintended consequences and this story doesn't seem like fiction.
And although it seems against our (my) human nature, I fear we will need to learn to think before we act, as we build a world increasingly interdependent on our own technical and scientific creations.
And although it seems against our (my) human nature, I fear we will need to learn to think before we act, as we build a world increasingly interdependent on our own technical and scientific creations.
Technorati Tags: Moral Issues, technology
posted by Bill Anderson at
10:10 AM
2 Comments:
Atwood's A Handmaiden's Tale scared me to the bones! Reagan was president, and the religious right movement was just beginning to make noise. So I try to pick something up by her every year. Just put her book of essays and writings on my library wish list.
Debra, thx for the pointer to her non-fiction writings.
And about being scared: sometimes I think we're creating a society based on just scaring each other to death. That's the in-your-face, f*ck you ma'am, it's all about the Benjamins, society we're constructing. But then I read people like Margaret Atwood and I really get scared on another level. We really might be messing with things we don't understand.
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