learntoquestion ltq discussions

The main issue I’d like to highlight before discussing Gattaca and eugenics is the deceptive language surrounding such things. I want to make it clear that humans have essentially been doing the same thing eugenics proposes to engage in with humans with plants and animals for thousands of years. This process is referred to as domestication: breed out the traits which don’t benefit humans, and strengthen those which do. Now, is eugenics a very different moral question? Different people may have different opinions, but for the sake of this argument, yes, it is. However, in the last few decades, a different set of terms has emerged with the advent of gene editing and CRISPR, a tool which is basically used for replacing specific nucleotides. This can literally be used to change a person’s genome, and could practically be utilized to shape a child’s genes before birth as well. Let me reiterate here- this is typically not referred to as eugenics in public discourse. CRISPR could literally be exactly the sort of tool eugenicists always wanted- and it’s here. It’s usable. In 2019, He Jiankui and two others misled doctors into implanting gene-edited embryos into two women, and the babies were born successfully. While little is known about the children now, this case demonstrates that, essentially, the society of Gattaca could develop at any point if a country were to implement the technology and allow it by law (the only thing that kept He from continuing his research). He has argued that gene-editing tools could be used to positive effect to eliminate harmful genetic diseases, as have many other scientists. Whether they are correct or not is up for debate, but I’d argue that yes, gene-editing has many positive applications, but arguably just as many negative ones. The world of Gattaca is not a utopia, that much is clear, and genetic discrimination is terrible, but the most worrying thing is that there are situations worse than Gattaca. Imagine a world in which gene-editing is so expensive that only the very rich can afford it, allowing themselves to alter their bodies until they have unlimited life spans or superhuman physical or mental capabilities, leaving the 99% of society to be slaves. The key issue with gene editing is that there needs to be a limit to its use- medical usage is fine, but eugenics is not- and who’s going to establish and maintain that line? The government? My bet is on probably no one. So there is a very, very good argument for simply not touching gene-editing at all.

Gattaca is, in my opinion, more of what I just described than traditional eugenics, which is essentially the idea that preventing certain people from having children will lead to a better and more ‘pure’ world. That’s scary, since, as I just explained, a gene-editing-determined world is closer than many expect. If we were to live in such a world, I would 100% want to be a ‘valid’ as they put it in Gattaca, because, as FlyingCelestialDragon iterated in their post, who wants to be discriminated against? Life would be leagues easier in such a world if I could simply choose a career path and then go down it with no resistance.

My final point, however, to tie up my rambling, has got to be that we’re already basically Gattaca. No, designer babies aren’t a thing yet, but discrimination is. Whether it’s by biological sex, melanin levels, orientation, or blood type, societies around the world have always discriminated, and (in my view) Gattaca makes the argument that if one were possibly eliminated, we as humans would find another way, or maybe just implement both into institutions. People already draw a lottery ticket when they’re born, so why provide another way to do so?

Sources:

https://www.science.org/content/article/chinese-sc...

I agree that people would be healthier in a world controlled by genetic engineering, but in my opinion there are things that you can’t control with science. A person's personality and their likelihood to do certain things with their life could be guessed by looking at the genes of their parents, but humans have free will. Someone who is told at birth that they are genetically more likely to become a doctor could easily decide to become a cook, likewise someone who is told they won't ever be as strong as someone else might just work harder than the other person and achieve it, like Vincent. In the Gattaca world I would definitely not want to be a “faith baby”. In our world, yes, but in that one I would have so many less opportunities. If there could be a combo world where health is modified but people are not designed to have certain tendencies, then I would be ok with being a science baby.

For me, this film raises the questions of: Does eliminating “weaker” genes remove whole groups of people or target a group? What can be considered inferior? What happens to the people who aren’t “perfect”? If some people are given perfect genes or not based on if their parents can afford it, are they getting better opportunities in life?

Vincent will do anything, including risking drowning, to prove that he is better than his brother. He scrubs himself raw to get rid of DNA evidence, wears fake blood and urine pouches, and gets his legs painfully stretched to take on a new identity. This reminds me of the stories we watched in the Dawnland film where the Native American children would scrub themselves or sit in bleach to try to make their skin seem more American. However, being genetically perfect doesn’t stop Jerome from becoming paralyzed and being shunned by his world. Everyone has to live in fear that they aren’t perfect enough, it doesn't matter whether they were made or manufactured. Vincent is always afraid that they will find his eyelash or if he can kiss Irene without risk of her getting his DNA sampled. Though all of the genetically manufactured people are in great health, everyone seems the same at Gattaca, they all have bland appearances and personalities. If we were all the same skin color with the same history, same strengths, and same weaknesses, we would all be the same person. Sure health can be passed down based on genes but personality and creativity are developed on your own. The whole movie lacks color and is mainly gray or a hazy orange, giving it a very dull and sad feeling and highlighting that the world is not a utopia. The movie also shows how Vincent and Jerome are polar opposites yet they get along and have the same goals. People only recognize Vincent’s genius after he takes on the identity of Jerome. Eugenics is built off of the same ideas as Gattaca, but with some racism mixed in. If eugenics became widely accepted and our society started to look like the one in Gattaca, I feel like it would be less about health and more about race and wealth. Those who owned the genetic technology would get to choose what was seen as a perfect baby, it would always be political.

I believe that manipulating genetics to some extent could be beneficial to the human species but once a hierarchy can take shape within who gets to be genetically modified and to what extremity, then a big problem arises. Additionally, being able to genetically modify humans so that they will be less likely to die from disease, increasing the average life span, may have much more detrimental effects in the future. Stronger and healthier humans will in turn add much more to the population, and the Earth is only resourceful for so many of us.

Whether I’d want to be a “faith baby” or a baby whose genes have been modified is a challenging question to answer with many factors that would alter my response. Firstly, it would depend on whether I believed the process was ethical. In the movie it is not very clear how accessible gene altering is to everyone and whether certain people are discriminated against to alter their genes in the first place. I think that if the process was exclusive to a small elite group of people in the world but was not equally given to all people, I would feel some moral obligation to go against it. If I believed it was ethical, I think that I would prefer to have genetic modifications that would reduce risk of certain diseases that I could develop in the future, or modifications that made me healthier in general, but I would be opposed to alterations of my appearance to fit a societal standard. I do not think that I would be willing to go the lengths that Vincent went. I respect why he chose to use another person’s identity, but I think that I would be too overwhelmed and the risks would not be worth it for me.

A big question that came up for me while I was watching the movie was whether genetic modification really leads to a better life. Can we truly make that judgment? If there were two identical people and their only difference was that one was more likely to die of a genetic disease, could we say who has the higher chance of a more desirable life? I would argue that we could not do that. I think that the movie makes it clear by juxtaposing Jerome’s expectation of perfection and him coming in 2nd place with when Vincent said that he was able to keep swimming longer because he did not save energy for the swim back. In some ways, the genes that were seen as inferior to society that Vincent had, were the very genes that fueled his determination to prove that he was just as capable. I therefore think that eugenics is more of a normalization of discrimination that just has more “concrete” science as a justification. It is discrimination that is just masked in a different way, but we already have these same practices all around us, they just have different labels.

No, there would be no positive result for society if we were able to filter out the bad nuts of society. In the movie we saw that with the right skills, technology and luck those who were seen as “in-valid” became the elite of the elite in the filtered society. No, this also doesn't make people more equipped to handle the issues in life because regardless if a person has a better life expectancy or better build, that doesn’t make someone better at dealing with real world problems. Additionally, being trained to be a certain way can cause people to not be able to think outside of the box which can not help to fix some of those problems in life that are inevitable.

I think that if I were a parent in that society I would have peace in knowing that my baby is “perfect” and has nothing “wrong” with them but I also think knowing exactly what is going to happen with the child and everything that goes right and wrong in their life takes away from the fun and chance in life. I think that being able to know that I would have a healthy child would be the priority, not knowing that they would be someone who was changed to be like everyone else. Personally I would take the risk of being “valid” or “in-valid” because as I previously stated, I think that having your life predetermined from the moment it started ruins the fun and chance that comes with life. I also think that going to the lengths that Vincent did to become Egunene makes a person lose themselves and in this case we saw both men lose themselves in this lie and only one person made it out while hurting others. Not only did they run the risk of breaking the very thing that was keeping their society together but they did at such a caliber that there was no individuality.

This film really highlights discrimination by showing that with just a drop of blood a person can be denied out of a life and by a urine sample they can be given one. It also touches on how the people at the bottom will always and only be viewed as lower. In addition to being seen as only the bottom but people also don’t think they are smart. This can be seen when they say that there is no way that an in-valid, Vincent, would be smart enough to pull off being another person when in actuality, he was. Similarly to discrimination, this film raises questions about eugenics because it was “planned breading”, which is was the gene altered children really were. Additionally, it shows how people were both scientifically bred and separated. The two things, eugenics and discrimination, together in a way that is tangible and subtle enough to be somewhat believable to those who arn’t necessarily looking for the eugenics in this film.

If I’m to be completely honest, I would rather be a genetically modified baby. In Gattaca, no matter how smart you are or how hard you work, if you’re an “Invalid”, then no one will hire you. On the contrary, if you’re a “Valid”, you’re basically set for life. In the movie, Vincent went in for a job interview after getting Jerome’s genes and the interview was just them seeing if he’s a Valid or Invalid, and how “perfect” of a Valid he is. No other questions were asked. The lives of Invalids are significantly harder than Valids, and I don’t think I’m half as hardworking or half as smart as Vincent is, so I’ll just rather be a genetically modified baby. #SetForLife. Just kidding, when we’re talking about being the perfect Valid, we also have to look at Jerome. He was, what everyone called, “perfect”. He was tall, smart, handsome, athletic, strong, need I say more? Yet, he still wasn’t happy with his success. He was depressed and suicidal because if he was so perfect as everyone says, then why did he get second place? Jerome felt as if he wasn’t good enough even though he was a Valid. Him and Vincent are two ends of the extremes, yet somehow they are so similar to each other.

Of course, it doesn’t just boil down to being “perfect”. Every parent wants their child to be healthy, but how does one define “healthy” in the first place? For some people it means no disabilities, for others it means being athletically fit, and some don’t care about the appearance of their child as long as all their organs work normally. That’s why “Eugenics” becomes such a big problem. If every child is perfect, then the children who are “imperfect” will essentially be ostracized. People will only look at the “Perfects” and disregard the “Imperfections”. They will try to prevent those “imperfect people” from having kids to erase them completely. Eugenics still exist today, albeit a little more obscure. I mean go ask Iceland why they have almost no cases of Down Syndrome (hint, they abort all fetuses that test 100% positive). I’ve even heard some people (online) say that ugly people shouldn’t have kids because their kids will come out ugly and they’ll suffer for the rest of their lives for being ugly (which is crazy).

But science is never 100% correct. Vincent’s parents were convinced that they had outlived him, his brother was convinced that he could never go to the sky, and even Vincent himself at one point was convinced he’ll never be able to make it. But look at him. He had a 99% chance of having heart problems, yet he was a part of that 1%. He also beat his genetically perfect brother twice during their game of Chicken. Real life is not the same as a movie, but miracles do happen. A 75% chance of getting a disability doesn’t mean there’s no 25% chance of not getting a disability. Sometimes you just have to take a gamble.

I think that the ability to cultivate “good” genes would be a terrible thing. In the movie GATTACA, they portray how this would be terrible. Vincent Freeman is barred from pursuing his dreams because he is considered “genetically inferior”, as he was a “faith baby” and underwent a natural birth with no genetic modification. It’s not enough that discrimination based on genetics has become illegal, because the “good” jobs use genotype testing to ensure they only employ “good” people, whereas the rest are left to the menial labor and low income occupations. On top of this, genetic modification is portrayed as a bad thing as opposed to natural birth; Jerome Morrow explains that he threw himself in front of a car because he was expected to be perfect as a result of his genetics. He won second place in the Olympics, causing him to have an existential crisis: if he is scientifically made to be perfect, how could he possibly not be?. Overall, it would be a terrible reality to live in, and not a net positive for society.

People would not necessarily be healthier or stronger. One of the reasons that Vincent is discriminated against is the fact that his heart condition predicted a shorter lifespan. However, young and healthy people die all the time. Accidents, disease, murder, and much more are always threats, even to the most able people on the planet. On that note, non-lethal but debilitating accidents happen all the time. Jerome is handicapped, but genetically perfect, because he was in a motor accident. On the other hand, some people are portrayed to be genetically Valid but still have a capacity for disability, such as Irene with her heart condition. Even aside from accidents or surprise conditions, there are two scenes where Vincent saves Anton from drowning— despite the fact that Anton is “genetically superior”. Beyond the fact that genetic modification of human beings would not be effective in terms of ability or strength, there is no evidence that it would help people be less criminal or more capable of dealing with the challenges of modern life. First of all, criminality is not determined biologically. There is no correlation between genetics and criminality. Nobody is inherently criminal due to their genetics. Criminality is a moral failure, or an act of desperation, and therefore access to “good genes” would not eradicate or even slow it. Second of all, the challenges of modern life are things that can be faced by anyone regardless of genetics. In the movie, Vincent makes it to space. He exceeds society’s expectation of him, he gets a dream job and achieves his greatest desire. He does all of this as someone who is “genetically inferior”. The only things that hold him back in this process are genetic discrimination. In summary, genetic modification would not improve the human experience. It would only drive us apart.

If I were alive in the world of GATTACA, I would rather be a “faith baby”. I know that my life would be harder, that I would face discrimination, and that I would suffer for it. However, I also can recognize that in the world we live in, I also am subject to discrimination and struggle. I am disabled, and the world is difficult to access. As a wheelchair user, I have been left on the top floor of a burning building. I have had to crawl my way up and down stairs in crutches or in a boot. I have had to forsake surgery in consideration of my family’s financial situation. If I were to be born again, I would hope to be an “invalid” just as I exist today, in this world. I would not want to give up or erase any part of myself just to be accepted in a world that refuses to accept me, or people like me, or people who have it worse. However, I don’t think that I would go to the lengths Vincent did in the film. The primary reason is that I have never been as ambitious as him, and I am content living on enough money to sustain myself and help out my family. I don’t think that I would ever go to space, or work for Google, or work some office job pulling in 6 figures a year. I will be glad if I end up in a situation like that, but I am also realistic enough to acknowledge that it's something I don’t want too badly, and that it is very unlikely I will find myself in that situation. On top of that, in the world of GATTACA, it would be very risky. I don’t think I would risk prison and the consequences of breaking the law for any job, but that’s just me.

I think that the film has a very clear cut connection to the topics of eugenics and discrimination. The film is about discrimination based on who is considered “genetically superior” versus “genetically inferior”. Eugenics is the belief that some people are genetically superior, or more evolved, and therefore are better than everyone else. This has been largely applied through white supremacy, where the Aryan race of blonde blue-eyed people are more evolved than people of color and Jewish people, and therefore racial and ethnic minorities are closer in proximity to animals than human beings. It has also been applied through ableism, where disabled people are forced into sterilization, so that they may never reproduce and bring more disabled people into the world, or have been historically “euthanized” so that they would be “put out of their misery”. Regardless of how it is applied, eugenics has always meant violence and even death against different minority groups. On that note, discrimination is the unjust treatment founded on someone’s identity. This exists in the film through genetic discrimination, but I think genetic discrimination goes hand in hand with racial and disabled discrimination. After all, whose genes are “good”? Whose genes are “bad”? In GATTACA, they take more of a disabled route, with those that have chronic illnesses, disabilities, or disorders all being treated as genetically inferior, impure, and invalid. In the real world, the “genetically inferior” have been Black people, Asian people, Latine people, Indigenous people, disabled people, Jewish people, Romani people, etc. Every single one of these groups has had violence against them justified with “They are inferior.” The Nazis considered these groups less than human, and less than animals. Under white supremacist and ableist institutions, all of these groups face discrimination based in genetics. This is why the film raises questions echoing justification for discrimination and eugenics. It is because one must debate whether or not GATTACA is a dystopia or a utopia, and the conversations surrounding that fundamental question are really answering how they feel about discrimination rooted in eugenics.