Last weekend my colleague, John Authers, argued that George Orwell’s 1984 (1949) is the most prophetic novel about our era. I would suggest that an earlier book written by another Old Etonian deserves to share the palm: Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932). Brave New World envisions a future in which genetic engineering has become so advanced that human beings are designed as cogs in the great industrial machine that is modernity: rulers (Alphas), middle managers (Betas) semi-skilled workers (Gammas), low-skilled workers (Deltas) and menial workers (Epsilons).
Everywhere I look these days I am reminded of Huxley’s world. The latest Silicon Valley fashion is for tech investors to fund fertility start-ups such as Orchid Health, which proclaims, “Sex is for fun, and embryo screening is for babies.” The latest billionaire status symbol is a quiver full of children: Elon Musk has more than a dozen and Peter Thiel, a late starter, reportedly has four. The plot of a new science-fiction series, Alien: Earth, features trillionaires, ensconced in rival territories, who compete to produce the best super-humans.