211–220 of 388 posts
Eugenism is inevitable. You can't stop parents trying to get the best life for their children, that's pretty much their top priority. We don't like to frame it that way but we are already there with pre-natal tests. Even the selection of mating partner is a form of eugenics. College graduates only marrying college graduates, repeat that for many generations and it is bound to have an effect.
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And for the love of god, watch the directors cut of `Dark City`, not the cinema version.
I have never watched the directors cut of any movie. This will be my first.
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…
I don’t think the movie’s caste system is realistic, because the role of genes isn’t that deterministic. There would be too many exceptions like Ethan Hawke and Jude Law’s characters.
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The part that I could never get over is that the discrimination against the main character actually made sense. He's trying to hide his heart condition to go in an important space mission. edit: HN is rate limiting me so I can't reply, but to davesque's comment below: > no one wants to live in a world where their life and capabilities are pre-determined But we do live in that world. It was determined that I would nev…
> The part that I could never get over is that the discrimination against the main character actually made sense. He's trying to hide his heart condition to go in an important space mission. That's the part I also couldn't ever get over. He's shown to have a serious heart condition, and then cheats his way onto a space mission? Yes sure, discrimination bad and all that but— that's a human judgement. In actual fact, h…
But he survived. He survived far longer than calculated. Isn't this direct evidence that his genetically determined heart condition was successfully counteracted by a non-genetically identified trait?
And his perfection and determination when designing the mission plan was flawless. Presumably far more flawless than the "valids" he was working with, despite having an inferior genome, or the director would never have commented on it. His attitude dramatically improved the odds of mission success.
You seem to be arguing that if a metric says "don't do it", that this metric should be obeyed, even in light of evidence that it is wrong. Had the metric about his heart condition been correct, he never would have made it onto the flight.
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 minimalist future environment that still looks beautiful 25 years later. Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright a few decades ago, building started in 1960, so "~60 years later" /g https://franklloydwright.org/site/marin-county-civic-center/ https://secretsanfrancisco.com/marin-county-civic-center-san... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marin_County_Civic_Center
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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…
its actually impossible because the only objective measure of gene quality is the performance of the organism and the performance of the organism depends on the environment.
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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 one I didn't really understand was "It's too late for that. We're closer to the other side."
With IVF, the doctor harvests as many eggs from the woman as possible. Then after taking the make sample and cleaning, selecting the semen with best modality , fertilize each embryo. Then let the embryo grow for a couple of days then freeze the embryo until it’s ready to be implanted (likely during the woman’s next cycle). If you choose, and generally for a fee, you can have each embryo tested for chromosome mutations.
After the process your doctor will call you and let you know how many eggs were harvested and how many were fertilized. They can then give you a report card for the embryos that represent likelihood of live birth, chromosome evaluation, male/female etc.
You then make a selection of which embryo (s) to insert.
Obviously, given the expense of IVF it’s hard to imagine a scenario of not telling the doctor to pick the highest rated (male or female) embryo just for best chance of success.
Felt very reminiscent of gattaca. And that was just selecting the best that we produced. I can easily see myself saying yes to “The best embryo you have had a chromosome defect that will likely result in condition X, but we can fix the defect with a small gene modification, and give the child the best chance for a healthy life, should we modify the embryo?”
And then the slippery slope, “we can also improve the odds of higher intellect, being taller , thinner, etc”.
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 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.
Despite Gattaca being one of my favorite movies for years I only recently learned, right here on HN, that the cinematographer is Sławomir Idziak, frequent collaborator of Krzysztof Kieślowski, which explains why Gattaca looks so much like one of my other favorites, The Double Life of Veronique . > create a minimalist future environment that still looks beautiful 25 years later. See also: Dark City