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Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

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Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#81

Post by Vecr »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #58
Vecr wrote: post #44

One thing I don't understand about the movie, even after reading the screenplay etc. is why does Vincent claim the doctors knew the exact time of his death just seconds after he was born? They clearly don't and can't, given the entire rest of the movie. Are the doctors just reading out the exact middle of the probability distribution (or the time with the absolute highest probability), to way more precision than actu…

>> The doctors/his parents should have explained the nature of the probability distribution in much more detail. It may be a movie based in science and still relevant, but it is still first and primarily a movie for entertainment. Add in the fact that "doctors knew the exact time of his death just seconds after he was born" can be interpreted as how long his body will last, not predicting the future, and I'm not sure…

>> an be interpreted as how long his body will last

How would you know that either, even with perfect interpretation of a full DNA sequence and NMRI scans? Let's say to simplify you knew the exact total number of heartbeats his heart could handle before instantly conking out (obviously not a real thing). There would still be a probability distribution, and possibly not a simple one at that, based on how much physical activity he does, when and how often he gets sick from viral infections, etc. Really anything that impacts his heart rate at the time.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#82

Post by speed_spread »

ericmcer wrote: post #16
DoctorDabadedoo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mike Judge with his Idiocracy and Office Space is almost like someone had a crystal ball for early 21st century.

How did he get away with Idiocracy? I thought it was a good movie and somewhat prescient, but if you peel back the layers it is basically advocating some kind of population control or eugenics policy. Or it is just a comedy, but I hear it frequently cited as a dramatized version of a plausible future.

I see it more like advocating for quality public education, easy access to contraception, and accountability of the elites in guiding our civilization. And as an observation that we're still just monkeys with transistors.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#83

Post by NoZebra120vClip »

kanzure wrote: post #22
brmgb wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or as I like to put it Gattaca put the spotlight on research which had been treading the line of ethics for a decade with a dangerous lack of supervision and helped convince people that putting the brakes on it was welcome. That’s fiction playing its role.

yeah let's hope parents don't get to choose a better life for their kids, watch out?

Well, the problem we deal with today is that parents--actually medical professionals--choose death for children rather than allow them to live out their lives.

Zero children with Down Syndrome are born in Iceland. Why? Because physicians would rather end their lives as soon as they find out that they "suffer" from the condition. I placed "suffer" in quotes, because many of us are quite aware that people with Down Syndrome don't suffer any more or less than the rest of us with a medical condition, and many of them lead happy and productive lives for a relatively long time.

But if the physicians, or the parents, can just head off that predicted suffering within a 9-month time frame, nobody has to suffer at all (beyond one little procedure.)

Sometimes I wonder who would suffer more, a child born with Down, or overly-entitled parents who will always wish their baby wasn't so... imperfect.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#84

Post by college_physics »

There is a bit of survivorship bias. Sci-fi has imagined every possible universe, some of the predictions feel very close to what is transpiring. And if we focus entirely on the human stories behind technological facades or other cultural variability, some people claim that all possible stories have been written already.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#85

Post by skeeter2020 »

losvedir wrote: post #77
snissn wrote: post #28

this line lives so deep in my brain: "You want to know how I did it? I never saved anything for the swim back"

I never understood that. I don't think the movie is clear exactly what happens, but he... does swim back, right? Or does he just flounder and rely on his brother bringing him back?

The movie leaves it a little vague, but his brother disappearing would wrap up the plot nicely, as would his brother finally seeing the Vincent's perspective and keeping his mouth shut. On a broader level it's the "burn the ships" strategy; nothing motivates like having no alternative.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#87

Post by snozolli »

voytec wrote: post #23
anonporridge wrote: post #8

The great thing about Gattaca is that the cinematography ages incredibly well on top of the amazing plot. A lot of great sci-fi is marred by cheap effects that look incredibly dated only a decade later. Gattaca chose to focus on the story and create a minimalist future environment that still looks beautiful 25 years later.

> A lot of great sci-fi is marred by cheap effects that look incredibly dated only a decade later. I, for one, enjoy low-budget scifi very much. Crappy CGI has it's charm but CGI aside, I have the feeling that actors in lower-budget shows were more involved than those in shows written to be ratings winners. It's kind of like with websites created with passion and websites created for SEO.

A lower-budget production, particularly by an independent studio, will also have far less interference from "producers" who try to justify their salary by giving notes.

Gattaca is from '97, which was right in the middle of a golden era for movies. Independent films took off and even big studios were affected by the shift.

With regards to GP's comment about bad effects, look at the cult classic Event Horizon from the same year. It still holds up in a lot of ways, but there's one laughably bad element: horrible CGI water droplet effects. It was a hot new effect and they shoved it into way too many shots.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#88

Post by naasking »

fallingknife wrote: post #68
naasking wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We explicitly discriminate by intelligence, which is mostly genetic. How is that different than Gattaca? We discriminate on intelligence when it's important for the job at hand . The bad kind of discrimination is the kind that considers irrelevant factors. I agree implicit discrimination based on height and attractiveness exists in our culture. This movie is a searing criticism of exactly that kind of discriminatio…

We do our college admissions by SAT score. If we did them by genetic test for intelligence (Gattaca style), the classes would be mostly the same minus some dumb rich kids. And since social class and income is heavily determined by where you go to school, it's a similar situation to Gattaca. In the movie, if the genetic enhancements work, then it's basically meritocracy, and not that different than what we have today.…

> We do our college admissions by SAT score. If we did them by genetic test for intelligence (Gattaca style), the classes would be mostly the same minus some dumb rich kids.

You have literally no way of rigourously making that claim given our incomplete understanding of genetics and intelligence. In any case, it's immaterial to my point as I already acknowledged that our culture discriminates for irrelevant reasons, and this movie is a harsh critique of that practice.

> In the movie, if the genetic enhancements work, then it's basically meritocracy

No, it's the complete opposite. The people who were rewarded didn't actually do anything to earn those rewards, so it's the exact opposite of a meritocracy, it's genetic cronyism, no different than awarding a promotion based on someone's skin colour.

> If they don't work, like you seem to imply in your comment, then it's arbitrary discrimination, which isn't a particularly interesting or unique concept for a movie.

The whole point of the movie is to elevate the notion of meritocracy based on actual achievements, and to criticize discrimination and generalizations based on some nebulous notion of statistical "potential".

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#89

Post by Vecr »

landryraccoon wrote: post #70
Vecr wrote: post #44

One thing I don't understand about the movie, even after reading the screenplay etc. is why does Vincent claim the doctors knew the exact time of his death just seconds after he was born? They clearly don't and can't, given the entire rest of the movie. Are the doctors just reading out the exact middle of the probability distribution (or the time with the absolute highest probability), to way more precision than actu…

That part of the movie actually makes perfect sense to me. In the real world, the vast majority of people are quick to misinterpret scientific findings to reinforce their own biases. Gattaca is the story of a world where the "Others" in that society are those who are not genetically engineered to culturally acceptable standards. IMHO it is a very human and believable part of the story that most of society will simply…

I suspect this is probably correct, thank you.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#90

Post by mb7733 »

whatshisface wrote: post #76
mb7733 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I remember the film didn't focus on intelligence. The main character suffers from genetic disorders that affect his health and lifespan, plus discrimination based on his 'invalid' status. All of that is still very relevant regardless of any progress with AGI.

IQ was mentioned a couple times in the film, and the main character was shown studying very hard to keep up with his job. The fact that it wasn't the sole focus of the selection program was a consequence of the whole society wanting to do it. It wasn't a bunch of super-nerds doing something weird, the idea was that every part of our society's conception of achievement and "human quality" had been folded in to the nig…

Fair enough, but health and fitness are not just for sport and culture. It's practical; you don't want your astronauts to have medical emergencies in space. Similarly, if you put resources into training them you'd rather they didn't die at 30 due to poor genetics.

If any new tech threatens to render the premise obsolete, it's robotics. Not sending humans to space in the first place avoids the issue of selecting astronauts at all.

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