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By Root 566 0

Donovan’s Brain was its title, and the brain in question was being kept alive in a large fish tank and fed on brain food. The hope of the scientists doing this was that the brain would grow in power and strength, and solve problems, such as “Why is there something rather than nothing?” and benefit humankind. But Donovan when he had a body was a stock manipulator or the equivalent, and he bent his newfound mind powers in the direction of world domination, zapping people who got in his way. A big brain does not mean a nice brain. This was made clear to me at the age of twelve, and it’s made even clearer in Enough. There are some very clever people at work on the parts that will go into making up our immortality, and what they’re doing is on some levels fascinating—like playing with the biggest toy box you’ve ever seen—but they are not the people who should be deciding our future. Asking these kinds of scientists what improved human nature should be like is like asking ants what you should have in your backyard. Of course they would say “more ants.”

And while we’re on the subject, who exactly is “we”? The “we,” that is, who are promised all these goodies. “We” will be the “GenRich,” the rich in genes. “We” are certainly not the six billion people already on the planet, nor the ten billion projected for the year 2050—those will be the “GenPoor.” “We,” when we appear, will be a select few, and since our enhanced genes and our immortality are going to be so expensive, and will not survive—for instance—being squashed flat by tanks, we will have to take steps to protect ourselves. Doubtless “we” will devise almost impenetrable walls, as in the Zamyatin novel of the same name, or “we” will live in a castle, with “them”—the serfs and peasants, the dimwits, the mortals—roiling around outside. We will talk like James Dewey Watson; we’ll say things like “It’s not much fun being around dumb people.” In fact, we’ll behave a lot like the aristocrats of old, convinced of our own divine right. The serfs and peasants will hate us. Not to throw cold water on it, but if the serfs and peasants are true to form, sooner or later they’ll get hold of some pitchforks and torches and storm the barricades. So to avoid the peasants, we’ll have to go into outer space. Having fun yet?

The agenda of those who visualize themselves as the GenRich—like Past Lifers, Future Lifers never see themselves playing the role of ditch digger—is being pushed in the name of that magic duo, progress and inevitability, the twins that always make an appearance when quite a few potential shareholders smell megabucks in the air. (Along with them come the usual my-dick-is-bigger adjectives, as McKibben points out—guts and risk-taking and so forth—so if you don’t rush out and get your genes spliced and your head frozen, you’re some sort of a wuss.) “Progress” has deluded many, but surely its pretensions as a rallying slogan have been exploded by now. As for “inevitability,” it’s the rapist’s argument: the thing is going to happen anyway, so why not just lie back and enjoy it? Resistance is futile. (That was the old advice: now you’re told to scream and vomit, thus influencing the outcome. Times change.)

McKibben takes on both of the magic twins, and is particularly moving on “inevitability.” We still have choice, he says. Just because a thing has been invented doesn’t mean you have to use it. He offers as exempla the atomic bomb; the Japanese samurais’ rejection of guns; the Chinese abandonment of advanced sea power; and the Amish, who examine each new technology and accept or reject it according to social and spiritual criteria. We, too, he says, can accept or reject according to social and spiritual criteria. We can, and we should. We must decide as ourselves—as who we already are as human beings. We must decide from the fullness of our present humanity, flawed though it may be. As I’ve said, McKibben is an optimist. I agree with him about what we should do, but I’m not too sure we’ll do it.

The fact is—and this is not an argument McKibben uses explicitly—that the argument