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251 lines
18 KiB
Markdown
251 lines
18 KiB
Markdown
## [DC][DST] Deconstructing "Gattaca" with lots of casual sex
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* Author: u/None *
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* URL:
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* Score: 24
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* Created: 2015-08-11T13:12:22
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### Post:
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[deleted]
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### Comments:
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> **u/buckykat** [+26] (9 hours later)
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>
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> The real problem with gattaca is that the 'evil' megacorp is actually right and the real villains are the main character's parents.
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>
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> They're recruiting for a one man mission to Jupiter, and they don't want an astronaut with a heart condition. Fuckin' NASA wouldn't let that guy fly today.
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>> **u/None** [+5] (a day later)
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>>
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>> It's even worse, it *wasn't* a one man mission, it was a multi-year mission with a crew of at least half a dozen. The main character was the *navigator*. If he dropped dead halfway through, the rest of the crew might have become stranded in space.
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>>> **u/buckykat** [+1] (a day later)
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>>>
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>>> Wow, I didn't remember that. That's pretty silly.
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>>>
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>>> Wasn't the ending him dying of his heart exploding during the initial launch? Or did they just imply that? Or am I misremembering that?
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>>>> **u/None** [+3] (a day later)
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>>>>
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>>>> Nah, the ending was him launching, and the designed guy he was imitating (Jude Law) committing suicide.
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> **u/noggin-scratcher** [+20] *I am a happy tree* (31 minutes later)
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>
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> >The upper classes will somehow abolish casual sex so thoroughly that enhanced alleles can't spread out of narrow, advantaged social classes into the broad population in the ordinary way.
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>
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> Am I misremembering Gattaca? I thought the advantage was less about having "special" alleles, and more in being able to select a whole matching basket of alleles, excluding all the dodgy ones that would otherwise appear with a frequency dictated by chance. Children born of random promiscuity wouldn't be able to inherit all of the parents' advantages without going through the selective screening test-tube process.
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>
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> Although I suppose eventually you'd have an elite class who were all homozygous for a converging set of "preferred" alleles, and their offspring would be certain to receive at least one copy.
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>> **u/davidmanheim** [+15] (an hour later)
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>>
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>> Came here to make this point.
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>>
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>> Sex between a genetic musical genius and a genetic basketball player could result in a genetic loser; it's almost certain not to result in an incredible basketball playing musical prodigy. This is even more true of the general spread of such genes; each may not even be positive if not combined in a specific fashion.
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>>> **u/None** [+0] (2 hours later)
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>>>
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>>> [deleted]
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>>>> **u/capsless** [+9] *despiser of hpmor* (2 hours later)
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>>>>
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>>>> that... is not how genetics works. at all.
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>>>>> **u/None** [+0] (2 hours later)
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>>>>>
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>>>>> On mobile. Can't actual genetics right now. Sorry.
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>>>> **u/VorpalAuroch** [+3] *Life before Death* (9 hours later)
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>>>>
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>>>> The [Algernon argument](http://www.gwern.net/Drug%20heuristics#algernon-argument) strongly suggests that if you move to an optimum for some valuable combination of traits, you're going to move away from those for others. We're never going to be hyper-specialized, but that doesn't mean that you'll get equal proportions of the benefits and no extra drawbacks in a cross.
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>>>>> **u/None** [+2] (11 hours later)
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>>>>>
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>>>>> Yes, but I still find it very hard to believe that *most* crosses will be *so much worse* than the baseline genetic code, before any engineered alleles were added, that people would rather breed only with other baselines than try to pick up some advantaged alleles.
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>>>> **u/davidmanheim** [+1] (9 hours later)
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>>>>
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>>>> I'm sorry, but I'm calling BS.
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>>>>
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>>>> Given our lack of full understanding of genetic coding for many clearly genetic factors, and the relative statistical complexity of finding complex interactions between genes, it's not credible to claim we know it doesn't occur.
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>>>> **u/castleborg** [+1] (11 hours later)
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>>>>
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>>>> The reason you're (generally) wrong is that assuming smartness is adaptive, smartness alleles with no drawbacks are under strong positive selection and will reach fixation (as in, spread to the entire population) almost immediately.
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>>>>
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>>>> Most genetic variation between individuals can be conceptualized as the diversity that is left over *after* this process of obviously-adaptive-alleles-take-over-the-entire-gene-pool occurs.
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>>>>> **u/None** [+1] (11 hours later)
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>>>>>
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>>>>> > The reason you're (generally) wrong is that assuming smartness is adaptive, smartness alleles with no drawbacks are under strong positive selection and will reach fixation (as in, spread to the entire population) almost immediately.
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>>>>>
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>>>>> But that was my actual point! You can't get these weird scifi dystopias, because the *trivially* adaptive, desirable alleles with no drawbacks that everyone imagines will reach fixation within one or two generations.
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>>>>>> **u/castleborg** [+4] (12 hours later)
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>>>>>>
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>>>>>> So recap:
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>>>>>>
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>>>>>> In Gattaca there's **no designer alleles**. instead, they ensure the *best possible combination* of alleles for a given egg and sperm partner.
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>>>>>>
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>>>>>> While this does presumably screen out purely deleterious mutations, the bulk of the advantage presumably come from 1) enforcing heterozygosity at key regions and 2) keeping at the peak of ∩ shaped fitness curve for a bazillion tiny polygenic parameters (trivial examples: selecting against "too tall" *and* "too short").
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>>>>>>
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>>>>>> In theory, *most* of this fine-tuned advantage would be lost within only a single generation of uncontrolled breeding. So, two designer parents *will* have a perfectly normal baby if they don't artificially design it (and that is, in fact, the plot, right? Two designer parents have one designer baby and one regular?)
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>>>>>>
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>>>>>> I don't know if it would actually work out exactly this way, but this is the way the show posits that it works (and it's not outrageous for a reasonably informed person to speculate that it *could* work that way).
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>>>>>>> **u/None** [+2] (a day later)
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>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>> I don't think the main character's parents were engineered. I think I remember the father wearing glasses. It was during their generation that designer babies became widespread.
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>>>>>>> **u/ArgentStonecutter** [+1] *Emergency Mustelid Hologram* (a day later)
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>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>> That makes a lot more sense.
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> **u/duffmancd** [+6] (28 minutes later)
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>
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> Why wouldn't human GMO's be protected by the very same thing that protects food crops? Any modified human is rendered sterile (it's a feature not a bug, have as much sex as you like!). If you wanted children you were going to go to the genetic councellor anyway...
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>> **u/ArgentStonecutter** [+4] *Emergency Mustelid Hologram* (44 minutes later)
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>>
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>> I think trying to make that a selling point would run afoul of some pretty basic human drives.
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>>> **u/alexanderwales** [+16] *Time flies like an arrow* (an hour later)
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>>>
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>>> It's not about sterility, it's about contraception. If there currently existed a product which would stop my child from becoming (or causing someone else to become) pregnant until they *explicitly chose* for that to happen ... well, it would depend on the price point and who would ultimately hold the keys (preferably not a corporation) but if the price point were "free" and my child didn't have to risk corporate blackmail to get reproduction turned back on, I think that would be a no-brainer.
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>>>> **u/None** [+2] (2 hours later)
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>>>>
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>>>> Yes, true. That is a no-brainer. It's just not going to stop deliberate allele thieves, call them the Bene Gesserit, from not taking the drug/surgery/whatever.
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>>>>> **u/derefr** [+3] (11 hours later)
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>>>>>
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>>>>> Why would you assume a drug/surgery/whatever? Why not just have the same gengineering responsible for the great individual traits also completely foul up the reproductive process? Make the males produce no sperm, make the females produce no eggs, make the uterus unable to support implantation, and on and on. In such a world, when you want children, the parents' diploid DNA gets sampled from their regular tissue, feature-mixed manually on a computer, and a viable zygote protein-printed.
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>>>>>
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>>>>> Effectively, the genetically-engineered are speciated from humans, and have a reproductive process with three parents: a mother and father who contribute DNA, and a computer in which the contributions conceive life.
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>>>>>> **u/ArgentStonecutter** [+2] *Emergency Mustelid Hologram* (a day later)
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>>>>>>
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>>>>>> > Why not just have the same gengineering responsible for the great individual traits also completely foul up the reproductive process? Make the males produce no sperm, make the females produce no eggs, make the uterus unable to support implantation, and on and on.
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>>>>>>
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>>>>>> That was the kind of scope I was thinking of, yes.
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>>>>>> **u/None** [+2] (11 hours later)
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>>>>>>
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>>>>>> > In such a world, when you want children, the parents' diploid DNA gets sampled from their regular tissue, feature-mixed manually on a computer, and a viable zygote protein-printed.
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>>>>>>
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>>>>>> Ok, and now the revolutionary or activist groups among the poor just yank out the desirable alleles and splice them into someone who isn't sterilized.
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>>>>>>> **u/ArgentStonecutter** [+2] *Emergency Mustelid Hologram* (a day later)
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>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>> And *then* we get lots of casual sex?
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>>>>>>>> **u/None** [+2] (a day later)
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>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>> Basically. And then advantageous alleles spread to fixation the ordinary way, yeah.
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>>>> **u/ArgentStonecutter** [+1] *Emergency Mustelid Hologram* (2 hours later)
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>>>>
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>>>> If it's about intellectual property protection, then it's about the corporation holding the keys. From /u/duffmancd's post:
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>>>>
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>>>> > Why wouldn't human GMO's be protected by the very same thing that _protects food crops?_ Any modified human is _rendered sterile_ [...]
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>>>>
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>>>> It's about sterility. Any company pushing this as "contraception" would be laughed out of the marketplace. The same stockholders who are happy to have farmers dependent on Monsanto for seed corn wouldn't dream of putting their own progeny into the same predicament.
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>>>>> **u/alexanderwales** [+5] *Time flies like an arrow* (4 hours later)
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>>>>>
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>>>>> The target market for genetic enhancement are parents who believe that genetic engineering can produce a better baby than random chance. (Actually, the initial target market is the population of wealthy infertile couples, but let's assume we've moved beyond that.) So your target market is already against randomly made babies, even those that comes from "good stock", because *science can do better*.
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>>>>>
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>>>>> There are a lot of ways to do DRM. I don't think a "strict lockout" makes the most sense from a business perspective, especially because the time to maturity is *at least* twenty years, probably quite a bit more (in comparison to corn, which has one harvest a year). So there's not actually that much sense in strict protection unless you think that the state of the art isn't going to advance much given an entire human generation.
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>>>>>
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>>>>> Personally, I would implement "soft" DRM. We offer a contraceptive enhancement so that no one gets stuck with a "random" baby on accident, and if you want to reverse that feature, we can do that. You're worried about the company going insolvent and not being around to reverse the process? Not a problem; we've got a separate company prepaid through the contraceptive enhancement fee, which is already funded for the next sixty years, so even if *this* company goes insolvent (which it won't), your children won't be left without the option to have children of their own. All they'll need to do is come in for a free genetic consult to let them know the risks associated with their genome, the troubles inherent in "random" babies, and the pricing options in case they change their minds and want to have an engineered baby after all (with a discount for legacies!). If you really want to roll the dice, we can't stop you, at least not until our lobbyists get some laws passed.
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>>>>>
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>>>>> Edit: And hey, that genetic consult is for the benefit of your future child. Obviously my company makes its children backwards compatible with baseline "random" children, but we're not the only company in the game, and we're talking about compatibility with technologies that have yet to be invented. If your child is thirty-five years old trying to procreate with a twenty-five year old, we're talking about two technologies ten years apart, potentially from different companies. We can be confident in the modifications that we're making, but we can't be confident in the modifications that *other* people will be making using technologies we can't predict under laws that might change. Contraception and a consult is just basic *safety*.
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>>>>>
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>>>>> (And of course, you move the goal posts from there.)
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>>>>>> **u/ArgentStonecutter** [+3] *Emergency Mustelid Hologram* (5 hours later)
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>>>>>>
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>>>>>> Again, I think you're underestimating the psychological impact. Any scheme that's strong enough to prevent piracy is going to get massive pushback. Again, as I noted in other subthreads, consider how popular vasectomy isn't.
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>>>>>>
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>>>>>> Any scheme that's not strong enough to prevent piracy is, well, look at the net today.
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>>> **u/MugaSofer** [+4] (4 hours later)
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>>>
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>>> ... they said, while living in a society that sells birth control over-the-counter.
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>>>> **u/ArgentStonecutter** [+4] *Emergency Mustelid Hologram* (4 hours later)
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>>>>
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>>>> A society where reversible sterilization is reasonably cheap and safe, and yet few take advantage of it.
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>>>>> **u/MugaSofer** [+2] (a day later)
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>>>>>
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>>>>> Fair point.
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>>> **u/Rhamni** [+2] *Aspiring author* (an hour later)
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>>>
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>>> Yes, but if the technology is accepted as "How you make children if you want them to be successful", then a lot of people would overcome that drive. I find the idea of impregnation extremely sexy, that doesn't mean I have sex with strangers without a condom.
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>>>> **u/ArgentStonecutter** [+3] *Emergency Mustelid Hologram* (an hour later)
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>>>>
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>>>> > Yes, but if the technology is accepted as "How you make children if you want them to be successful", then a lot of people would overcome that drive.
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>>>>
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>>>> One word. Grandchildren.
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>>>>> **u/Rhamni** [+1] *Aspiring author* (an hour later)
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>>>>>
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>>>>> Eh. Two problems: One, you make this decision for your kid when you haven't had kids yet, so the need for grandkiddies has not made itself known. Two, you presume that your kids like you will want to have masterfully engineered superkids.
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>>>>>> **u/ArgentStonecutter** [+4] *Emergency Mustelid Hologram* (an hour later)
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>>>>>>
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>>>>>> My point is that getting your kids engineered using patented genes enforced by sterility means you're choosing that none of your children, or their children if they have any, or THEIR children, will be able to reproduce without the aid of the generic engineering company.
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>>>>>>
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>>>>>> You're putting the future of your family into the hands of a company that might not exist in twenty years, let alone generations beyond that.
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>>>>>>
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>>>>>> This is not something many rich and successful people are going to be willing to do.
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>>>>>>> **u/MugaSofer** [+3] (4 hours later)
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>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>> Even if the specific company did not exist, I assume that technology would not have regressed to the point where Gattaca Babies were impossible. Or, if it had, you would have bigger problems to worry about.
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>>>>>>>> **u/ArgentStonecutter** [+5] *Emergency Mustelid Hologram* (4 hours later)
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>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>> You'd need other companies to exist, and to have legal rights to the proprietary genomes and procedures compatible with the enhancements your descendants are carrying. It seems riskier than a vasectomy to me... and how many people are willing to even do that?
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> **u/DCarrier** [+2] (6 hours later)
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>
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> I got the impression that the invalids were that way because their parents didn't want to play with their children's genes, not because they couldn't afford to.
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>
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> Also, it was still really early in eugenics becoming popular again after that crazy Austrian dude made it stop being cool. Next generation there will probably be less of a difference, although the valids will still have genes that go well with each other.
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> **u/puesyomero** [+2] *The Culture* (8 hours later)
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>
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> while methods like extra artificial chromosomes and germline cell modding would indeed be inheritable, there are various ways where enhancement and treatment could be achieved without it being inheritable. Such as tissue-specific virus vectors who would only target where needed, or chimerization via implantation of modified stem cells (muscle, denser bone, better neurons, etc). these both offer a company the control over its intellectual property and parents are free to reproduce naturally without the worry that their sight enhancement on their eyes result in a baby who has photoreceptors instead of skin nerves. Non inheritable methods are also attractive to parents who want their kids to have the *latest* in gene fashion and not only inherit their crummy Übermensch V.1.2 that was in vogue when they were born! of course tech tends to trickle down and if governments today pay for vaccines I don't see why they wouldn't pay at least for some gene therapy in the future.
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> **u/Nepene** [+2] (13 hours later)
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>
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> http://passel.unl.edu/pages/informationmodule.php?idinformationmodule=1075412493&topicorder=9&maxto=12
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>
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> They may have something like hybrid vigor, superior genetics based off a crossing of genes that is lost if they breed.
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>
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> They could even have malformed offspring if they breed with poor people. They could have genetics that don't match well with standard humans.
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>
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> There are varied possibilities.
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> **u/None** [+4] (3 minutes later)
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>
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> >Or at least, it could be the first great rational dystopian-scifi erotic novel.
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>
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> For the "Shit /r/rational Says" files. Deliberately.
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> **u/protagnostic** [+1] (a day later)
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>
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> >> "Casual sex at nightclubs has become a sociopolitically subversive activity via the illicit, secretive conception of lower-class babies carrying upper-class engineered alleles"
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>
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> I would watch this. Or at least the porn parody of it.
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---
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