CRISPR and other tools aren’t science fiction anymore. If the wealthy get there first, what happens to everyone else?
We’re getting the movie Gattaca IRL before Half-Life 3 and GTA 6 smdh
Don’t worry. The poor will just become extinct like the other hominids that are no longer with us.
It shouldn’t be anything too bad.
Nothing of value was lost /s
But seriously, what a fucking bleak endgame
We’re still overdue for a eugenics war and WW3 before Star Trek timeline.
I still need to read Red Rising.
Yes, we will end up with Eloi and Morlocs
What change would a person who thinks they’re already perfect make?
Can never have too big of a dick. 🤷♂️
When the kid grows up “my dick is too big, I’m transitioning to get rid of it” 😂
Nature takes its course.
Remember the rich tried to keep their genes separate from the masses by inbreeding. Look at where that got them.
Ah the Habsburgs… Not so much a family tree as a family broom handle.
That won’t work anymore if they can just edit their genes
Despite being nearly 100 years old, Brave New World (1931), written by Aldous Huxley, covers the idea of class-based genetic engineering and genetics based class definition, as one of its core themes.
As others have said, go see Gattaca. It’s completely about this topic and very interesting.
spoiler
An incredibly powerful scene. I still think about it regularly when thinking about human limitations.
Awesome movie.
This is the theme of the Divergent series.
Huh. I guess I didn’t really never thought of it that way
Ooor they’ll turn their kids into “pugs” that are ultra-cute and good at passing certain tests but otherwise useless and unhealthy.
I’d definitely prefer we didn’t go down that path, but do consider the endpoint might be more The Time Traveler than Gattaca, because rich people aren’t exempt from being dumb.
If the ‘rich’ are anything about choosing genes as they have been about choosing plastic surgery, we know that most of them will make a complete hack of it and their offspring will suffer for it.
Exactly what I mean! Every time we’ve gotten real, subjective choices about the design of an organism we’ve ended up with something that’s paradoxically kinda bad by anyone’s judgement.
I do wish the ultra wealthy would just become morlocks and go underground forever.
The wealthy became the Eloi in that story, haha. You’re supposed to want to eat them.
You’re right, huge brain fart… I still wish they would all leave us alone forever, analogy or not
Hate to tell you but the morlocks weren’t the rich in that story.
It’s been a while since I read it, and now I’m ashamed because it’s one of my favorite books 😂
Yeah it will be new class of morons that will buy out all the water and energy to feed their shiny computers so you can live in dark and starve to death.
Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress. A scifi that deals with the creation of classes based on whether you can afford to buy your children good genes. Politicians are charismatic, ruthless and good looking, because they are bred for politics. In this world people without genemods are sorta out of luck, without any of the tools or enhancements rich genemod people have.
Or, check out GATTACA, good movie.
I’m compelled to mention every time GATTACA is mentioned, that the title is made up of the amino acids* that comprise our DNA: A,T,C,G
*nucleic acids
Nucleic acids
Damn, u right.
I’ve never studied anything about genetics or DNA, but I didn’t know that until the first time I showed my then girlfriend (now wife). Once the general premise became clear, she said something like “I should have guessed, since the title is made with A,T,C,G.”
You know I never noticed that but that’s a nice subtle reference.
Wish they had a blooper reel called TATTACA.
(That was all five of you biochemists out there)
They don’t need genetic engineering to have advantage over everyone else tbf.
Yah they already have inherited wealth and privilege, will it make ANY difference for the rest of us if their kids don’t get the diseases that they can afford to treat anyway?
Lets say they do make ubermensch super-babies and create peak physical perfection… it will take generations before that creates enough of a class-divide that it will be noticable and by then, enough of them will have fucked around and bred with the common-folk that the edges of that divide are also going to get fuzzier and fuzzier. The world is full of rich people who mingle everywhere and are allowed to impregnate who they want and nobody cares.
The only way you get the science-fiction dystopia with beautiful rich monsters with super powers versus the plucky gang of resistance fighters who are rough around the edges but have hearts of gold, is if you separate the wealthy elite out and make them live on Mars or something.
They might not need financial advantage, but they could surely do things to their physicality (birthing tall children), or to their anatomy (no more lactose intolerance).
I did mean as in physical advantage.
Eat nutritious food and go to the schools with best learning conditions and never stress about anything from birth and you too can be an athletic engineer with 90+ years life-expectancy.
Tho yeah allergies and all would still depend.
