> In Brave New World, it's only a meritocracy because they've engineered human embryos to produce the different castes. In the novel, they deliberately induce f

> In Brave New World, it's only a meritocracy because they've engineered human embryos to produce the different castes. In the novel, they deliberately induce fetal alcohol syndrome to stunt the intelligence of the lower classes. They also forgoed a lot of automation and engineered society to make use of the stunted lower classes. I recall a scene where they had elevator operators, even though automatic elevators had been invented when the book was written. > The modern reformulation would be genetic engineering or at least genetic screening. I'm sure we're not that far away from the wealthy classes testing their embryos and only implanting the ones that have the highest intelligence, least propensity for disease, etc. That's literally the backstory of the movie Gattica. Though I think the genetic engineering in that movie controlled recombination, so engineered children got all the best genes of their parents. IIRC, people who weren't engineered (like us) lived in slums and were only given menial jobs regardless of talent.