Xenotransplantation. Have you ever heard of the word? Me neither. At least, not until a recent report from NPR (National Public Radio) revealed a study that involves this procedure, which means to harvest organs in another species and then transfer them to humans who are in need of new organs.
Specifically, scientists created "a strain of genetically altered pigs that may be the starting point for producing organs for human patients". Yes, this is really happening. Human donations will hardly ever meet the demands, they say, so studies are in progress toward this new option. Creeped out yet? The scientists even wonder that if a human brain was also harvested in the pigs, they could possibly think and feel like us.
Although extremely disturbing, this actually might sound quite familiar if any of you have read Margaret Atwood's 2003 novel "Oryx and Crake," which describes a community of scientists doing exactly this, which through a series of unfortunate events leads to a pandemic that wipes out their entire world. Oops.
Although the world has not been wiped out yet, this is yet again another instance where life imitates art, in a terrifying way.
You must have read 1984, or at least heard about it. In this book the government controls the public by watching their every move and listening to their conversations through "Telescreens," that have cameras on them. Does this sound familiar? If not, where is your phone right now? Probably within a ten foot radius of you, listening to your conversations and perhaps even being hacked in order to watch you.
These aren't just stories. This is actually happening now, and not only hackers but also the NSA is able to view you through your camera at any given time, track your calls and listen to what you are saying right now.
There is also something you must have heard of called biometrics which is a technology that is used to identify people in cameras through facial characteristics, fingerprints and iris recognition- even street cameras can do this. The telescreens were able to do this. And now our phones, computers and even smart TV's are too. The novel "1984" was written in 1949, and is coming to fruition less than 70 years later. Scary, isn't it?
Have you ever read "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley? If you haven't, know that instead of using torture to turn rebels into obedient citizens (like the "1984" government does), they use pleasure. The government makes the public dependent on pills, specifically one called soma, which produces a stupor and dream-like trance and makes people forget about all their problems. "A gramme is better than a damn," they say. Very similar, in fact, to how dependent our American society is on pharmaceuticals. We believe pills solve everything, forgetting to try and find the root of the problem first.
For example, I once went to the doctor for a check up and they told me I had a mild form of anemia. But instead of telling me I should eat more iron-dense foods, they prescribed me an iron pill, which would waste my money and be much harder for my body to absorb. But the doctor prescribing it was making money off of me, so what do they care? If you have a problem- here's a pill. That makes a dependent society.
Even (get ready for it) clones have begun making their appearance in society, just like it was predicted in books such as "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" (which was later made into the movie "Blade Runner") and many others. Robotic clones are created to look and act exactly like real humans, something we are now beginning to be capable of.
Sci-fi literature has been been famous for predicting the future of society and the dangers of "science for the sake of science", and the influence the government can have, for as long as it has been in existence. These are only a few books, and a few things that were once predicted, that have become to reality.
Lately, life has been imitating art too much, for my liking, but we can't say the authors did not warn us.
