Download - Dystopia or real life

Dystopian Literature or Real Life

Dystopia, Real Life, or Both?

• Genetically engineered creatures (you might call them "muttations") have escaped from captivity and bred with the native animal population, wiping out their non-engineered counterparts

Dystopian

• Hunger Games: Mockingjay birds used as spy tools


• Most food is produced in specific agricultural regions, and is shipped long distances to people who will eat it. This system is so fragile that an unexpected event, like a drought or a worker strike, could mean food shortages across the country.

Both

• 4 companies control 80% of all beef processing.

• Consolidated lettuce and spinach in California has caused problems in the past

• When one part breaks down, it puts all the consumers at risk

• E. Coli (2006

Dystopia, Real Life, or Both

• The government has the ability to monitor civilians both in their home as well as in the public.

Both

• In the book 1984 the concept of “Big Brother is watching” demonstrates the intrusion of government into civilians’ privacy. In real life, through technology, the government has the ability to monitor civilians, justified through the extension of the Patriot Act.


• New varieties of food have been engineered to produce their own toxins, killing certain pests that try to eat them. The government insists that these foods are perfectly safe for people.

Real Life

• In 2011 engineers developed sweetcorn that produces its own pesticide, yet the FDA passed the product as safe to eat.

Real Life

Although still under consideration from the FDA scientists have produced Salmon to withstain colder temperatures allowing them to grow quicker, therefore reaching market more quickly.


• One government-supported "muttation" fish survives in colder climates by producing antifreeze in its blood.


• In many agricultural districts, farmers go hungry because they can't afford to buy the food they grow.

Both

• Farmers are being paid less and less for the crops they produce, and grocery stores are charging consumers more and more.


• The government supports a project to integrate human DNA into new breeds of genetically engineered dogs, to make them smarter and more useful.

Dystopian

• In Hunger Games, Human DNA has been used in animal breeding projects


• Food packaging often contains microscopic nanotechnology to help food stay "fresh" on its long trip from where it's grown to the remote districts where it's eaten.

Real Life

• Hundreds of projects currently use Nanotechnology.


• To address the country’s hunger crisis, scientists have discovered a way to grow meat in a lab. In time, this could replace the need for farmers to raise livestock, and could further distance ordinary citizens from their food sources.

Real Life

• Dutch scientists have created a way to produce lab raised meat from animal stem cell tissue