Comment Re:Reality follows fiction (Score 1) 61
I wanted to like GATTACA; but it really ended up being almost the opposite of what it professed to be about(admittedly, in a way that seems very much like something we would do): the premise is supposedly that genetic engineering has allowed all men to not be created equal, and there are some lightweight examples of that being true(none of the engineered characters require corrective lenses; some of the naturals are identifiable by being contact lens users); but in important areas it just never actually seems to matter; the main character is supposed to have a serious cardiac condition that, um, never actually stops him from out-swimming his modified brother through the power of the human spirit or conducting astronaut training as long as he plays back the cardiac data from the suicidal athlete whose identity he assumed(apparently genetic optimization doesn't extend to psych coverage?)
And the society itself seems to realize that at some level: theoretically the premise is deeply troubling because what of a society where people are profoundly unequal by birth; but in implementation there's precious little sign of 'meritocratic' squeeze-out (there's the one woman in the astronaut training program who isn't going to make the cut because she uses glasses; but is still in the training program for some reason?): just people getting hired based on a genetic test and the ongoing battle by the protagonist to carefully cover all traces of his DNA with replacements from the guy he is impersonating because his job performance won't actually matter if the geneticops enforcing the haves/have-nots distinctions aren't doing performance based evaluations.
As noted; using relatively weak scientific evidence to justify treating people with wealthy parents as though they are better than the rest is absolutely something we would do; we'd love a blood test for legacy admits; but as a movie about genetic engineering making people unequal, rather than a movie about people running a caste system loosely justified by genetic engineering, it really doesn't go much of anywhere.
And the society itself seems to realize that at some level: theoretically the premise is deeply troubling because what of a society where people are profoundly unequal by birth; but in implementation there's precious little sign of 'meritocratic' squeeze-out (there's the one woman in the astronaut training program who isn't going to make the cut because she uses glasses; but is still in the training program for some reason?): just people getting hired based on a genetic test and the ongoing battle by the protagonist to carefully cover all traces of his DNA with replacements from the guy he is impersonating because his job performance won't actually matter if the geneticops enforcing the haves/have-nots distinctions aren't doing performance based evaluations.
As noted; using relatively weak scientific evidence to justify treating people with wealthy parents as though they are better than the rest is absolutely something we would do; we'd love a blood test for legacy admits; but as a movie about genetic engineering making people unequal, rather than a movie about people running a caste system loosely justified by genetic engineering, it really doesn't go much of anywhere.