Quote:
Originally Posted by Caruso
For a great example of this one, see Paolo Bacigalupi's novel "The Windup Girl." They use huge genemod elephants for power. The aging Japanese make bioroid servants -- and generally respect them. But when an executive leaves one of these "windups" in Thailand where they have no qualms about about abusing bioroids, her life becomes hell.
|
Thanks for the advice - after all these months, I did pick up the story, and recently finished reading it.
Though I don't think the Thai are the proper example, because instead of being indifferent to all the possible uses for a bioroid (or parahuman, for that matter!), they have an outright hatred - sadism and other forms of malice seem to be their prime motivators, not utility. It is not so much 'no qualms against (ab)use' as 'lots and lots of qualms against treating them even remotely neutrally'.
Combatmedic, I think the hypothetical situation I described is much lighter than the one in Bacigalupi's work.
The Japanese aren't a proper example either - while they're superficially pragmatic/utilitarian* in their approach to parahumans, they seem to be bound by lots and lots of rules (whether written or not is another matter). Or at least this is what I got from the few short descriptions of Japan throughout the book.
As for when such a situation would arise, I think that there is one thing missing from the Windup stories: nuclear power. Bioroid/paracritter use for high-energy work only makes sense if there is no electricity. Even in case oil runs out, terrans will just switch to electric motors. Energy will be more expensive, but not catastrophically so.
* == not the philosophical utilitarianism, the other one.