I finally finished reading Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. I also finished putting together the audio for a Bone Lab episode featuring our interview with a bioarchaeologist. Together, these things are giving me a less despairing lens with which to view this strange and tragic era. And can’t we all use a little less despair right now.
Last week felt more than ever like the plot of a dystopian novel. In 2015, we have self-driving cars, inexpensive personal genetic sequencing, eyeglass computers guiding surgical procedures, and an apple that is engineered to resist bruising. We seem to have the tools to create a utopia. And yet, people around the world lack food and clean drinking water. Entire villages, countries are raped, pillaged, and murdered. In 2015, North Korea executes its citizens for gaining exposure to the outside world, old men can marry and rape young girls without repercussions, and a Hitler-like Donald Trump is a viable presidential candidate in a country that is supposed to represent freedom. In 2015, ISIS, in spite of its technological savviness, tortures and beheads prisoners, commits unspeakable acts of terror and barbarism reminiscent of the Dark Ages or the ancient Middle Kingdom.
What the fuck.
How can this read as anything other than a work of dystopian fiction or an absurdist play? How can we, on a global scale, be doomed to constantly repeat the same kinds of mistakes, enact the same ridiculous tragedies?
Jenny Qi, Ph.D. 