https://padlet.com/c_kessler4431/qirkeeo6dtif hhh en-us 2018-05-15 14:33:20 UTC 2018-05-15 15:17:51 UTC hello@padlet.com c_kessler4431 https://padlet.com/c_kessler4431/qirkeeo6dtif/wish/260873431 This statement summarizes Crake's entire philosophy surrounding the ideal Mankind. His beliefs include genetically modifying organisms to increase their efficiency, disregarding the moralities of his actions.

"“If you take ‘mortality’ as being, not death, but the foreknowledge of it and the fear of it, then ‘immortality’ is the absence of such fear. Babies are immortal. Edit out the fear and you’ll be…”
“Sounds like Applied Rhetoric 101.” (304)

The unforeseen limits of his ideas are foreshadowed throughout the novel since the beginning, examples of this include his creation of the Crakers, which leads up to his fabricated lethal injection.

"Human society, corpses and rubble. It never learned, it made the same cretinous mistakes over and over, trading short-term gain for long-term pain."  (243)

His willingness to destroy the emotional part of humankind is more proof of the extremes he will take in order to achieve his "ideal mankind". ]]> 2018-05-15 14:35:09 UTC https://padlet.com/c_kessler4431/qirkeeo6dtif/wish/260873431 https://padlet.com/c_kessler4431/qirkeeo6dtif/wish/260873736 Our modern society would positively react to a BlyssPluss pill. In Margaret Atwood's novel, Oryx and Crake, the pill is advertised to the general public as a pill for a longer youth, increase of self worth, and  protect against sexually transmitted diseases "a) would protect... against sexually transmitted diseases b) ...eliminating feelings of low self-worth c) would prolong youth (pg. 294)" The above results would draw in any person as these are the things, like a short youth, that have plagued humanity for centuries. It would seem that everyone wants to be free from reality. For instance, the inflated sense of self worth one would feel with a BlyssPluss pill isn't truly real., it is a side effect. Beside that, taking pill just seems to be such a simple and short solution. There does not seem to be a pressing reason to NOT take it. The pill is a cure all.

 Consumerism in our society has grown ever present as technology has grown. For example, as the television and radio became more regular in middle class households, advertisements have weaseled their way in as well. These consumerist ideas have led our society to almost a complacency, as in we don't particularly feel the need to question commercials. Therefore, it would easy to dupe most of our modern world into taking the pill. ]]> 2018-05-15 14:35:52 UTC https://padlet.com/c_kessler4431/qirkeeo6dtif/wish/260873736 15100830 https://padlet.com/c_kessler4431/qirkeeo6dtif/wish/260873984 "The pleebland inhabitants didn't look like the mental deficients the Compounders were fond of depicting, or most of them didn't... Neon slogans, billboards, ads everywhere. And there were real tramps, real beggar women, just as in old DVD musicals: Jimmy kept expecting them to kick up their battered bootsoles, break into song. Real musicians on the street corners, real bands of sea urchins. Asymmetries, deformities: the aces here were far cry from the regularity of the Compounds. There were even bad teeth. He was gawking." (p. 288)
The theme is the contrast between life in the Compounds and life in the pleeblands. The pleeblands are very different from the Compunds because life in the Compunds is more sheltered, and has more luxuries such as extremely clean and filtered air, fresh/real food, vaccinations for everything, and "legitimate" sexual services available. Life in the pleeblands is more chaotic and crowded, and the people don't have the same goals of perfection, as it is demonstrated with the bad teeth. The two worlds are so separate and isolated from each other that each has their own idea of what the other group looks like. Social class differences are seen with the set "life" you are to have depending on where you live. Many people in the Compounds become sucssesful while the pleeblands are highly likely to become "nobodies" in society.]]> 2018-05-15 14:36:31 UTC https://padlet.com/c_kessler4431/qirkeeo6dtif/wish/260873984