this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2024
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For me the most haunting thing I ever read in English class was The Chrysalids by John Wyndham.
In a sci-fi future post nuclear war the survivors in Labrador on the east coast of Canada completely reject science and all non biblical knowledge. They think everyone not made in their view of gods image needs to die, and that includes their children who begin to develop mutations due to the radiation.
The kids spend a lot of the book trying to escape the crazy, uneducated religious population and try to find a way across the nuclear wasteland that is the centre of Canada and the US in order to get to the Scientific society of survivors, who aren't going to try and kill them, on the island of "Sealand"
I have never believed in religion in spite of being raised in a Catholic family. I read the Bible front to back young and realized it was nothing but contradictory nonsense and fantasy. For me, this novel my public high school teacher assigned to us was pure nightmare fuel.
That's a fantastic story, so well written I couldn't put it down.
What happens when they get there? Given that the people who pushed back against eugenics weren't rationalists.
Pretty hard line atheist myself but the simple historical reality is that that movement was founded by and supported today by extremely well educated and respected scientific and "rational" figures, like Mr Effective Altruism himself, Professor of Bioethics, Peter Singer, who argued for the infanticide of disabled infants.
Turns out the city is full of telepaths like them and they refer to themselves as the "New People"
Oh jeez, a genetically superior humanity you might say?
I was assuming you meant like, they've got six toes but so does everyone.
There's a girl with an extra toe in there too. The telepath thing is just one possible mutation, from what I recall. In the more irradiated parts the mutations get more extreme.
Having 6 toes is as common as webbed feet in today's world, and its not all that uncommon (I was born with 6 toes, my dad had 6 toes and fingers). They don't have bones and surgeons just cut them off at birth these days.
In my mind the more fantastical mutations in the book make it a bit more far fetched and give it that sci-fi feel.
*Wyndham