Today’s eugenics is much more dangerous

MY COLLEAGUE, John Authers, recently 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).

It 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 startups such as Orchid Health, which proclaims, “Sex is for fun, and embryo screening is for babies.”