In A Brave New World, Huxley presents us a disturbingly familiar view of a technocratic totalitarian society. Life in this society is almost entirely manufactured. In turn, this way of life is supported by said manufacturing, life’s continuation predicated on a never-ending cycle of production and consumption; Ouroboros in spirit, if not in the flesh. It is not difficult to see how this cyclical behavior is paralleled in our world today. Companies produce, we consume.
Virtually everything in Huxley’s imagined society is formulaic. Technology is black-boxed and treated almost as a medicine is prescribed: authorized and administered by the proper authorities, applied only when necessary in the proper location and in the proper amount. Further exploration using science a tool for probing the depths of knowledge is strictly forbidden. Our society has black-boxed select bits of science and commodified them. We consume little bits of black-boxed science with virtually anything we buy, from automobiles to zippers and even in our food. Our society doesn’t necessarily frown upon scientific exploration, but we seem to be more comfortable with it when it produces something that can be bought and sold.
There are other parallels to our world as well. Society is stratified in A Brave New World according to a caste system based on scientific processes. I’d make the argument that our society is stratified according to a caste system based on economic processes. The concept of free will doesn’t exist in A Brave New World. People there don’t choose to go to work, they just do it. No matter the caste, it’s literally what they were born to do. While we in our world may have free will, work for most of us isn’t a choice, either. You can choose to go to work (any kind of work; both subsistence farming and hustlin’ on the street corner, among other things, count), or you can choose to starve, which isn’t really much of a choice. Unless you should you be lucky enough to be born into a family of high socio-economic status, this is likely your lot.
Through selectively black-boxing certain technologies while suppressing others, technocrats, like Mustapha Mond and others of his ilk, have effectively arrested human evolution. In doing so, they also eliminated the possibility of anyone raising ethical questions about their society, and therefore stabilized it. There really isn’t any room for change in this world. Fortunately, our world is vastly different. New technologies alter our lives on an almost daily basis and more information about the world is generated in exponentially increasing amounts. No one, at least to my knowledge, has used technology to stop human evolution. Yet.
Perhaps our new technologies are actually contributing to human evolution. A symptom of autism is the ability to hyper-focus on a particular subject. Could the rise in the incidence of autism be an adaptive response to the sheer amount of information available today? Here’s another example: Let’s assume that apotemnophilia is caused by a physiological trait. Information and awareness about it spread via the internet. As a result, more people choose to have amputations. Some people find these amputations attractive and choose to mate with the amputees to produce offspring who might then carry the trait. Could we argue that technology facilitated a selection for that particular trait in this instance?
What does evolution look like in a technologically driven species?
Maybe like the technology of fire helping man evolve into cooked meat eaters? I understand your logic yet would have to answer your question as a no. In my opinion, technology is not directly contributing to the evolution of humans. I understand your position on the selective trait being able to thrive if the niche situation of genetic traits would be passed on. However, if you go by the darwinian survival of the fittest notion of evolution. These amputees no matter if the genes would happen to be passed to one generation, these second generation would have to actively seek out other mates. Albeit the internet's reach, it would still be harder than lets say the majority of other people merely being able to literally walk out of their houses on a serendipitous day to find their match. This is the crux of my answer. I would be difficult not impossible to let this gene manifest into an "evolution" of this trait because species evolve and individual don't. As handy as the internet is in order for apotemnophilia to evolve it would have to mean that it would play a role in the eventual trait of this sexual likeness to change the whole human race into apotemnophiliacs. I just don't think it is possible.
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