Joined: Nov 07, 2006 Age: 24 Posts: 1557 Location: Orange County, CA
Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 11:21 pm Post subject:
Gattaca is a great movie. I hope the future portrayed in it doesn't become true, but it certainly seems more and more likely. _________________ Currently Reading: Survival by Juliet E. Czerneda
http://dazed-girl.livejournal.com/
Vote Kalister 2008
Joined: Jun 18, 2005 Age: 48 Posts: 4684 Location: Townsville
Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 5:42 am Post subject:
The thing people need to realise is none of us are perfect. If they went for true perfection, they would kill everybody off. _________________ Break out you Western girls,
Someday soon you're gonna rule the world.
Break out you Western girls,
Hold your heads up high.
"Western Girls" - Dragon
The thing people need to realise is none of us are perfect. If they went for true perfection, they would kill everybody off.
Ahh.. too true. True perfection itself can't be applied to human beings anyway. _________________ The improbable goal: Fear nothing, hate nothing, and let nothing anger you.
Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 10:59 pm Post subject: Evo-what?
All species are constantly self-perfecting for the quantum of selection. We are all more perfect than the species that first wielded tools, even the relatively primitive ones. This is life over time, this is evolution. So we are doing it IFF we pass on our genes to another specimen. This is the biological level, of course; ideas can perfect our species more easily than can breeding.
The rational perfection of offspring is mirrored by irrational perfection -- while science may soon allow us a dizzying array of genetic modifications, it is more likely emotion that will lead parents to embark upon such procedures. Genetic disorders come in many flavors, and some of them deserve treatment, possibly in utero or even in vitro as the medical science allows. That is not an endorsement of willy nilly attempts to Create-A-Child(R), but a recognition that human suffering should be alleviated whenever possible. _________________ q/p
that's not exactly right; we are, as a species, continually approaching perfection only with regard to the environment we currently exist in. 'Perfection' for the environment of the original stone-workers (small family groups, food obtained by hunting and gathering, etc) is not the same thing as 'perfection' for the modern environment (enormous groups of people compared to the original groups, even in a small town; skill in driving a car more important than skill in killing animals, food mostly obtained at markets and in great excess in the first world).
I downloaded the movie. They never showed it in theaters in my countries.. too bad, because it was a good movie to begin with.
Altough the issues in the movie might be exaggerated, they are IMO good issues to think about.
Not only the problem of social class an eugenetics, but there is also the problem of lack of diversity.
Take sickle cell anemia for example. It might be considered a genetic disorder people would be best without, but at the same time it gives you a much higher resistance against malaria.
Mutts are overall also much much healthier then purebreds.
Take away genetic, personal and cultural diversity, and the only thing you are left with is a gray world without any kind of growth.
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