Our Posthuman Future Summary Essay

The human mind consistently wonders what if, and soon finds itself looking into the future for different possibilities in life. In Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World, the reader finds Huxley exploring a nuance in humanity, creating a dystopia, where science becomes the new focus and humans are mass produced in test tubes. Huxley creates a world which contrasts to some aspects of what the world is today. In this dystopia, the values of people are in the technologies which are developed to speed the process of developing babies. Through Huxley’s effective use of syntax and diction, his use of literary techniques, the structure, and playing of theme, Huxley creates an image of a society that worships technology

The novel describes a society in which "fetuses are raised in glass jars and are chemically manipulated to produce humans of distinct classes and abilities. People are little more than products" (O'Neil). This system, know as Bokanovsky's Process, doesn't seem too far from today's reality; the reproductive technologies that are currently available are already threatening our own evolution and human procreation. Science has practically taken over God's role in our lives. Many of the God-less scientific availabilities today share the same immoral and undignified qualities of the Utopia's advances; such as bottled embryos, surrogate wombs, cloning, genetic screening and genetic manipulation, artificial organs, and computer chip implants for human brains (Pearce). The Controller, Mustapha Mond, states "God isn't compatible with machinery and scientific medicine and universal happiness" (Huxley 205). The Brave New World is rid of God and religious beliefs because they have every comfort in the world. God is needed when there is loneliness, fear of death, unhappiness, and youthful desires. However, in Brave New World, such obscenities do not exist. Therefore, in a world free from pain and suffering, what need is there to console in a higher being. Interestingly, 26% of Canadians surveyed through an "immorality poll" believe that it is immoral to be an atheist;

The article ‘Rise of the Machines’ is Not a Likely Future (2015), Michael Littman addresses the issue and worries that people have with regards to technology. The article attempts to persuade readers to believe that there is no need to fear technology as it is just not possible that they can overtake humanity. Zeynep Tufekci touches on the issue of machines taking over jobs of human, titled “The Machines are Coming (2015)”. She attempts to argue that there is no need to reject or blame technology for taking over jobs at the workplace. Littman’s argument is stronger than Tufekci as he provided logical reasoning due to a well balanced structure with consideration of opposable viewpoints with substantial evidence and effective usage of Pathos to appeal to the reader. Tufecki’s argument is weak due to the lack of evidence and her claim was only brought in at the end of her article which makes it seem very lop-sided.

Is the push for a perfect utopia enough to siphon motherhood, family, and love? As in Brave New World, Aldous Huxley illustrates the destruction of the idea of family in this ’perfect world‘. People in the world today have the ability to express love and obtain a family. Huxley explores the futuristic outlook on a world (in many ways similar to ours) that would not allow such humanistic traits. Science is so called the ’father of progress’ and yet the development of Fordism and the evolution of artificial fertilization deteriorates the social value of science. Brave New World offers incites on an innovative world trying and, even more frightening, succeeding to create a utopia while destroying family and erasing the humanity in people.

Technology, which has brought mankind from the Stone Age to the 21st century, can also ruin the life of peoples. In the novel Brave New World, the author Aldous Huxley shows us what technology can do if we exercise it too much. From the novel we can see that humans can lose humanity if we rely on technology too much. In the novel, the author sets the world in the future where everything is being controlled by technology. This world seems to be a very perfectly working utopian society that does not have any disease, war, problems, crisis but it is also a sad society with no feelings, emotions or human characteristics. This is a very scary society because everything is being controlled even before someone is born, in test tube, where they

A society in which no real sense of individuality exist, will inevitably succumb into a dystopia in which freedom and curiosity are upstaged by a totalitarian regime. Big Brother and the party controlled every aspect of life, even thought, as seen in the following conversation between Syme and Winston. “Don 't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it” (Orwell, 2010). In “1984” every “out of the box” thought is considered a crime and a threat towards the party. Not only this, but also no sense of individualism existed. There was no hierarchy, Big Brother was on top, and underneath him everyone was the same, belonging to the same caste, so to speak. On the other hand, in “Brave New World” humans were “born” into a determined caste, with certain biological benefits or disadvantages. “"Reducing the number of revolutions per minute," Mr. Foster explained. "The surrogate goes round slower; therefore passes through the lung at longer intervals; therefore gives the embryo less oxygen. Nothing like oxygen-shortage for keeping an embryo below par." Again he rubbed his hands” (Huxley, 2010). Humans are manufactured and customized to meet an specific role in the community. In BNW, Ford is seen as a god because of his revolutionary techniques for mass productions. This symbolizes the lack of identity found in these humans;

In the book The Future of Life, author Edward O. Wilson highlights the ineffective nature of the debates between the two side of environmentalism. He achieves this by pointing out parallels and similarities of the language between two sides in the satirical piece.

Humanity is confronted by multiple environmental challenges which threaten to undermine the advances in health achieved over recent decades. The Rockefeller Foundation/Lancet Commission on Planetary Health showed how climate change, loss of biodiversity, land use change, ocean acidification and overfishing, nitrogen and phosphorus loading and environmental pollution more generally all have the potential to adversely affect health through a range of pathways1. A recent joint publication by WHO and Convention on Biological Diversity articulated the myriad connections between biodiversity and health and the threats to both posed by environmental change2. The dramatic changes in the global environment have led many scientists to conclude that we are living in a new geological epoch – the Anthropocene – in which the activities of one species – homo sapiens -have become the dominant driving force transforming the Earth’s natural systems3. These natural systems provide food, clean water and air and modulate the global temperature within limits in which humanity has been able to flourish for around 11,500 years during the preceding Holocene epoch.

Drugs aren’t just bad for some people, they are bad for everyone. Vidal states “Label each drug with a precise description of what effect-good or bad- the drug will have on whoever takes it.” Each drug will have a different affect, but none of them will be good ones. Although they may seem “good” at first, the outcome in the end is something that takes time to come back

Reading this text I have realized that drugs can and will have a big effect on a persons life mentally physically and spiritually.It is actually depressing to see what

Brave New World is set in a dystopian London in a time called A.F. which means after Ford referring to after the making of Henry Ford’s Model T. This new era called the World State was developed after the Nine Years’ War which destroyed everything, leaving no traces of the history. A mythologized version of Henry Ford replaces the faith civilization once had in Christ, turning all crosses into T’s. “All crosses had their tops cut and became T’s. There was also a thing called God,” (Huxley, 45). Everything in this time period is based off of science. All the new developments in technology such as human cloning, rapid maturation and prenatal conditioning have overpowered the human race, dehumanizing them. “For in nature it takes thirty years for two hundred eggs to reach maturity. But our business is to stabilize the population at this moment, here and now. Dribbling out twins over a quarter of a century - what would be the use of that?” (Huxley, 5). Out of

“‘We also predestine and condition. We decant our babies as socialized human beings, as Alphas or Epsilons, as future sewage workers or future…’ He was going to say ‘future World Controllers,’ but correcting himself, said ‘future Directors of Hatcheries’ instead.” (Huxley 56).

Scientific advancement is generally used to lead humanity into a state of perfection. Humans are anything but perfect, but through science they can continue to enhance themselves and their surroundings in order to reach this state. Huxley, in his novel Brave New World, argues that this is not the case. Through the creation of a type of scientifically led world order, the society has destroyed the one thing that people cherish most, their individualism (Brander 71). They are no longer individuals; they are consumers assimilated into an overall society by the power of genetics. However, that is not all. Baker contends that “Huxley’s greatest fear was the potential misuse of genetic engineering, but Brave New World also reflects his warnings

Aldous Huxley created a literary masterpiece which shows a possible, dismal future produced by the misuse of science and technology. In his book, Brave New World, the World Controllers use various scientific methods to dehumanize the population in order to control them. The advanced use of biotechnology has allowed the government to completely eliminate family and have the population physically engineered to fit specific specifications according to the needs of society. They also use different methods of brainwashing in order to ensure the population properly conforms to their outline of civilization. Through the use of primitive conditioning techniques combined with current ones, everything the people think, like, and dislike is

beyond life as we know it, it shows us a drug that not only affects