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Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

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Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#171

Post by canucker2016 »

snozolli wrote: post #87
voytec wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

You don't know how good you have it until you see really bad stuff.

Take the animated TV series Space Angel ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Angel ), which evidently used the patented-at-the-time Syncro-Vox ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchro-Vox ) to display moving lips on the animated characters.

It makes Hanna-Barbera cartoons look like Disney-quality works in comparison. The lips made me cringe back when I was a kid watching reruns of the show.

YouTube has episodes of the show.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#172

Post by wonderwonder »

Gattaca is one of my favorite movies, mainly because of how believable the concept is. Lets say tomorrow they create a commercially available means of ensuring a child is physically and intellectually superior. Once people start availing themselves of this service anyone with the means almost has to do it as well simply as a kindness to their unborn child to ensure they don't end up as a subspecies to the new genetic ubermensch. Society would quickly split into a genetic upper and lower class exactly as displayed in the movie. It would be very hard to consciously condemn your child to the lower class for the entirety of their life if you had the means to do otherwise.

I'm not advocating for this, just describing what I see as the most likely scenario.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#173

Post by wonderwonder »

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 were also salesmen. There is a scene where they are pitching the various options and pushing for the more expensive. I would assume that a majority of what they say is just dishonest attempts to make the parents feel bad about not optimizing their child. They are presenting the worst case scenario as fact.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#174

Post by flavius29663 »

cm2187 wrote: post #168
flavius29663 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep thinking about eugenics, how can we have eugenics without resorting to genocide or ending up with a dystopia, like in Gattaca? Should we even strive to get eugenics, why bother? Where does diversity become detrimental to success for an individual? The clone of a perfect individual will always perform better than the peers, except when we need adaptation and flexibility. Will we get to a society where just some…

I am not sure why you would associate eugenics with genocide. As the article mentions, today you can promote or suppress a gene by simply patching the genome. And frankly I am not sure which is more dystopian: a future where none of the kids are born with genetic diseases, predisposition to be obese, or simply stupid or ugly, vs the present where a kid has to live with those things he can do nothing about.

> a future where none of the kids are born with genetic diseases, predisposition to be obese, or simply stupid or ugly

But we're all defective today, one way or another. It's incredibly rare for someone to be "perfect" genetically speaking, and a lot of those people will have a bad upbringing or something else to hold them back. It's true that being beautiful and above average smart will get you through life so much easier though.

Anyway, have you seem Gattaca? It shows how this can become dystopian very quickly.

Also, if we weed out "bad genes", we might get a surprise down the line, where those gene were actually essential for out survival as a species, and we might be wiped out by a pandemic or something similar.

Yeah, I dunno, eugenics is hard, ethically speaking. Yes, I would have liked to be beautiful...who wouldn't ?

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#175

Post by giantg2 »

cm2187 wrote: post #168
flavius29663 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep thinking about eugenics, how can we have eugenics without resorting to genocide or ending up with a dystopia, like in Gattaca? Should we even strive to get eugenics, why bother? Where does diversity become detrimental to success for an individual? The clone of a perfect individual will always perform better than the peers, except when we need adaptation and flexibility. Will we get to a society where just some…

I am not sure why you would associate eugenics with genocide. As the article mentions, today you can promote or suppress a gene by simply patching the genome. And frankly I am not sure which is more dystopian: a future where none of the kids are born with genetic diseases, predisposition to be obese, or simply stupid or ugly, vs the present where a kid has to live with those things he can do nothing about.

"I am not sure why you would associate eugenics with genocide."

Historically eugenics has included some mistreatment of those with undesired traits, upto and including genocide.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#176

Post by canucker2016 »

reducesuffering wrote: post #159
jart wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iceland just has a high abortion rate. Selectively terminating births isn't quite the same thing as the genetic engineering and embryo manipulation that was going on in the Gattaca movie. There's even a quote from the movie that specifically addresses this, where that guy says, "you could conceive a million times naturally and never get such a result."

I don't mean Gattaca's full tech involving choosing traits for a child are here, but that the age of embryo and trait selection is here. Aren't some parents doing embryo selection filtering out undesirable traits?

Yes. In India and China, selecting embryos based on sex (preferring males) has supposedly led to a lower number of baby girls.

see https://www.newscientist.com/article/2199874-sex-selective-a...

But South Korea has been able to reverse the trend, from https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-38362474

====

In an effort to reduce the incidence of selective abortions, South Korea enacted a law in 1988 making it illegal for a doctor to reveal the gender of a foetus to expectant parents.

At the same time women were also becoming more educated, with many more starting to join the workforce, challenging the convention that it was the job of a man to provide for his family.

It worked, but it was not for one reason alone. Rather, a combination of these factors led to the eventual gender rebalancing.

South Korea was acknowledged as the "first Asian country to reverse the trend in rising sex ratios at birth", in a report by the World Bank.

====

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#177

Post by sangnoir »

ericmcer wrote: post #149
speed_spread wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah I like this. It also showed a future where capitalism had driven us all the way to dumbed down and instantly gratifying everything.

..and if you have been away from America for a while, the absurdity of greeters will be apparent. Reality is not too far off from "Welcome to Costco, I love you"

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#178

Post by wonderwonder »

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?

He is willing to die to succeed. If that meant in that moment to outswim his brother he had to drown then he was willing to do it. His brother was limited by his fear of death and his subconscious need to still turn around and swim back. He had no concern so was willing to go as long as it took. It just so happened that he was physically fit enough to be able to make the return swim as his brother quit in time.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#179

Post by cm2187 »

flavius29663 wrote: post #174
cm2187 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure why you would associate eugenics with genocide. As the article mentions, today you can promote or suppress a gene by simply patching the genome. And frankly I am not sure which is more dystopian: a future where none of the kids are born with genetic diseases, predisposition to be obese, or simply stupid or ugly, vs the present where a kid has to live with those things he can do nothing about.

> a future where none of the kids are born with genetic diseases, predisposition to be obese, or simply stupid or ugly But we're all defective today, one way or another. It's incredibly rare for someone to be "perfect" genetically speaking, and a lot of those people will have a bad upbringing or something else to hold them back. It's true that being beautiful and above average smart will get you through life so much…

I have seen Gattaca (a while ago). But if anything it illustrates the point of view of the guy who has to live with a flawed genome (though in the movie a minor imperfection). Isn't it the point of view of the kid who has to live with his below average genome today?

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#180

Post by giantg2 »

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"

"You want to know how I did it? I never saved anything for the swim back"

Sure, it hits deep. But even as a kid, I remember thinking "That's how people drown in real life".

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