Oryx and Crake Questions #1

Oryx and Crake includes many details that seem futuristic, but are in fact already apparent in our world. What parallels were you able to draw between the items in the world of the novel and those in your own?

The author describes many of the items in the novel as very advanced. Unknowing to some, these technologies already exist today. The predominant “technology” that is described in the book is the genetic modification of animals to change their behaviour and to benefit humans by growing organs. Modification and merging of genes are capable of being performed today, one of the most notable being glowing cats where a cat had bioluminescent genes inserted into them. The computer games are quite viable today, as we see that they are mainly adaptations of board games to an electronic media. The websites shown with topics relating to mature matter are also present in this current day, yet they are frowned upon. Many of the technologies used in the novel are available today and this contributes to one of the factors of dystopian fiction: the ability for all the events to happen in the current day.

These "Glow in the dark" cats are a demonstration of the genetic modification available today

In the world of Oryx and Crake, almost everything is for sale, and a great deal of power is now in the hands of large corporations and their private security forces. There are already more private police in North America than there are public ones. What are the advantages of such a system? What are the dangers?

Private police forces are existent today such as they are in Oryx and Crake. In the novel, these police forces act in a manner that security personnel of corporations would today. There are advantages to the system of privately owned police forces such as these forces have fewer restrictions set upon them, as some of the policies are created by the employer to better suit the environment that they may be working within. Moreover they are usually paid by performance and not regulated rate, lowering the chance of corruption within the force and creating competition to other forces and improving the economy. Lastly, if the force is smaller than a conventional public force, they may have more funding per person and that would allow for better equipment to be utilized. There are disadvantages to this scheme as well: Each privately owned force will have different policies which may lead to bad practices and poor training. Additionally, because they have policies set by a corporation, they may use radical actions such as violence against other citizens. The systems of public and private police forces are present in the world today and have their pros and cons. They are sometimes more suited for some situations and less for others.