Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

nature.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 388 posts

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#331

Post by rasz »

lancesells wrote: post #154
the_af wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally, 100% agree. Gattaca is amazing, and my all time favorite Blade Runner also has outstanding practical effects (flawed, sure, but you stop noticing soon enough). One of my favorites that, while very cool in general, suffers from some dodgy effects is Aliens. In general I wouldn't change a bit from it, but some of the dropship scenes are terrible and were pretty bad even back then. Then again, be careful what…

I noticed those dropship scenes on a rewatch a couple of years ago. I think when I watched it as a kid it was on a CRT on cable television and you couldn't see the details as much. Plus, I was a kid. On that note, I just rewatched the original Alien and there's really only one or two shots that looks kind of bad or goofy. Holds up so well for a film from 1979 with what would be a lower range budget in today's money (…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVLBLJOCBg8 dropship descent and crash are really bad green/blue screen jobs. Writing could also use some work

"Ripley, you've blown the transaxle! You're just grinding metal!"

what transaxle? M577 APC would have to have 4 independent hub motors, or else be a Tardis :) Besides who cares if you blew a motor if the thing still moves, and why abandon mobile safe house other than to segue into terrible dropship scene ;-)

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#332

Post by conscion »

chii wrote: post #324
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #304

I don't share the prevailing opinion of Gattaca. I recall the main character as lying and cheating to to hide their genetic predisposition to heart failure. So they can take a place on a space mission, endangering a billion-dollar craft and the lives of the other crewman, all for hubris.

> endangering a billion-dollar craft and the lives of the other crewman which is the an outcome that was produced by the societal bias towards imperfect people. For example, instead of denying the role to him purely based on genetics tests, they could measure the actual performance against a standard (a standard which you'd need to perform at to do the job). Then, if he is predisposed to heart failure, there could be…

Except he then cheats on the cardio test, thus reinforcing that the genetic test was valid and he shouldn't be allowed on the trip.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#333

Post by wonderwonder »

goatlover wrote: post #326
wonderwonder wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I don't disagree with you based on today's genetic mastery I think things could look very different in 25 years. Also all of human history is essentially different castes deciding they are better and society adapting to it.

And what if in 25 years we're able to show that environmental factors are more important than genetic for a majority of things?

Lol, then I guess it doesn't come to pass

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#334

Post by jasmer »

chii wrote: post #327
jasmer wrote: post #318

It's odd that everyone talks about 'genetic enhancements' as a measure of success or opportunity because I never even thought about the film as being about that. I thought the film was far more about eugenic fascism, and that kind of thing being wrong in the first place? It's not a story about a kid who 'beat the system in which he wasn't supposed to belong'. It's a story about a system of 'stupid requirements'. It w…

> have it about students meeting 'genetic criteria' for Ivy League admissions the film's premise was that space exploration is still relatively new frontier, and selection into the program is both a prestige affair, as well as expensive (with potential failures costly). Pre-screening candidates with high statistical rates of success makes sense for such a program imho. Not everyone in society has to have the opportun…

Yea I'm pretty sure 'space' is a metaphor in the story and that it's not even specifically relevant.

He's living in a 'genetically selective orthodoxy' where 'diversity is abhorrent' kind of thing.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#335

Post by D-Coder »

naasking wrote: post #100
college_physics wrote: post #84

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.

I doubt that very much. People can always be wilder than fiction. I'm not aware of any sci-fi that predated gender fluidity, for instance.

I vaguely remembered a short story where a person at a cocktail party had been a different gender the week before, although some people never changed. It might be:

> Robert Silverberg's Son of Man (1971), whose protagonist is transposed into the Far Future and there experiences a wide range of ways of being human, including being female...

See https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/transgender_sf for many entries before 1990, or even 1900.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#336

Post by lmm »

chii wrote: post #320
lmm wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Eugenics, as a term, to have meaning, is an extreme of breeding behavior. It isn't just regular assortative mating among local populations. That's circular logic. The whole point of the argument is that eugenics (as it is normally understood) is of a piece with regular assortive mating; people look for good aspects in a partner all the time, and there's no clear sharp line between that and what we normally call eug…

i think eugenics has to have an external influence on the mating choice, rather than just pure self-selection (this external influence might be inorganic, like propaganda, or an actual director choosing the mates). It's a spectrum as well - not a binary choice. Some cultures prefer their children to marry within culture, and this expectation is set by the parents/grandparents etc; i consider this a form of eugenics,…

> It's a spectrum as well - not a binary choice. Some cultures prefer their children to marry within culture, and this expectation is set by the parents/grandparents etc; i consider this a form of eugenics, albeit mild and likely not harmful.

That's more a case of dysgenics; it reduces genetic diversity which tends to make it easier for hereditary diseases etc. to appear (particularly if it results in a small dating pool e.g. immigrant communities in second countries). My back-of-the-envelope guess is that that tendency is probably doing more direct harm than anything else we might worry about (e.g. class segregation).

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#337

Post by harha »

implements wrote: post #212
nickstinemates wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never watched the directors cut of any movie. This will be my first.

Director’s cuts and Director’s (and actor’s) commentaries are a good reason to still buy physical media.

it's too bad so much goes missing from the original DVD / Blu-ray - not even sure if the streaming releases are cut further or not.

Probably there's also less effort in collecting and making this content available.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#339

Post by imtringued »

cm2187 wrote: post #182
giantg2 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

Historically chemistry has been used to produce Zyklon B. Doesn't mean chemistry is bad.

Chemistry isn't about discrimination.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#340

Post by qualudeheart »

Is it really? Changes to biological intelligence are irrelevant in a world with one decade timelines until human level artificial general intelligence.

If you genetically engineer your kids they still need to slowly grow up. By the time they turn 18 years old the world may already be dominated by machines.

Post reply on HN