When rich people can edit their kids DNA won't that just lock everyone else out and create a new class?
CRISPR and other tools aren’t science fiction anymore. If the wealthy get there first, what happens to everyone else?
The plot of the film Gattaca explores this, the idea of what society looks like when there's a class of genetically engineered, "superior" people, vs. the naturally born, "inferior" class.
Tbh, I think GATTACA barely touched the topic. It focussed so much on the brothers' rivalry that you could strip out the genetic engineering part and it'd barely change the movie
Okay, but the moral of the story was that "superior" people weren't actually superior. They were just racist.
The protagonist outwits and outperforms them all.
Seems like a pretty bad execution of the concept, then.
In some cases there were absolute superior though. Like the pianist with 12 fingers.
The actual moral of the story was that it's not worth it. Being a bit better at some random shit like swimming, playing piano or piloting a rocket is not good enough to sacrifice the rest.
Not seen Gattaca, but a multi-tier, genetically structured society is the basis of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, which is well worth a read.
Worth noting, it's a pretty short book so don't sleep on it.
Same for H. G. Wells- The Time Machine book in the part where the traveler meets the Morlocks and the Eloi.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine
EDIT: Got my authors mixed up, it wasn't Jules Verne.
The Beggars Trilogy by Nancy Kress touches on this as well, but is more focused on the issues with superintelligence rather than just gene alteration, although, because people are vain, the preference for things like hair, skin and symmetry also exist in the story's world. Oh yeah, and the coolest concept from this trilogy is a thing called "sleeplessness", where people can alter there genes to remove the biological need to sleep, allowing people to be able to be productive for as many hours as they desire.
came to say this is basically the premise of gattaca.
Great movie, excellent performances
Yes.
But it’s already here. Education is already doing what you’re fearing. Rich people tend to have access to better education and thus having access to better salaries, positions, etc.
Yep. Learned behavior is where human evolution actually happens; it's our specialization, our niche as big brained, highly social, linguistic apes. Don't gotta wait for random genetic changes that happen to encode useful new instincts. We just learn them from one another. Significantly speedier.
If rich people go mucking about with their genomes, it's much more likely to backfire in unforeseen ways than to actually instill any sort of advantage. Genes are a messy, messy, messy means of encoding things.
If rich people go mucking about with their genomes, it's much more likely to backfire in unforeseen ways
This really resonates with me. No person is that smart or has the level of foresight required to make those kinds of changes effectively (at very least in the long term).
From time to time i think of an author i had enjoyed years ago named Robert Anton Wilson. He was a warped sonofabitch, a Yund i can't really claim to fully understand his philosophy, but even just as recently as this past week i found myself thinking about a concept he'd discussed at length: the idea that when one is very young, there are "imprints" impressed on your brain that really determine how you think/act/are. He had written a series about attempting to erase ones imprints and replace them with more advantageous ones.
He had spent just as much time warning about the dangers of attempting to do such a thing though. As much as anybody may like to think they know what's best for themselves or anyone else, it's astounding now frequently we can be wrong due to lack of information, bad judgement, bias, etc.
The genetic decisions one may choose to make for their offspring may have little/no relevance by the time those offspring arrive. I feel like it could be so much worse though. I imagine this is more like tweaking assembly code, but on an even more complex system that we don't even fully understand yet. The most hubristic will convince themselves they know best, but i have to imagine reality will prove them wrong every time.
Not just education, but what really matters- social connections. The wealthy only want to socialize with other wealthy people, so when their kids begin entering adulthood they’ll give them a leg up. Wealthy people control access to many high-paying jobs; the classic example is wall st, where unless you’re a rocket scientist your daddy has to know someone to get an internship.
True but this will accelerate it i guess.
That's been SOP since... checks human history
Oh. Forever? Hunh.
ha, dude this already exists. you can almost reliably determine success by zip code, because poor people dont deserve healthcare or education or to do anything but work their fingers to the bone to stay alive.
the whole genetic piece is just the final chapter
makes you wonder
As someone suffering from a terrible genetic disease that will kill me soon, any amount of preventing these diseases under any circumstances gets a thumbs up from me.
Sadly, the most probable cloning related future would be Gattaca
^(edit typo)
Yeah, I think we should probably allow the technology that will prevent people being born with these diseases first, and then worry about how we're going to deal with the other stuff. This technology isn't going to be possible to hold back indefinitely anyway.
As others have said, go see Gattaca. It's completely about this topic and very interesting.
Awesome movie.
An incredibly powerful scene. I still think about it regularly when thinking about human limitations.
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.
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.
Here’s a scarier thought, if they can fine tune this shit enough they’ll probably just clone themselves and pull a ship of Theseus on themselves. Removing the only remaining equalizer between them and the rest of humanity.
The rich fucks at the top want to become gods. They won’t call it that but that’s the end game for the ones with the most hand on the wheel.
That is just having heirs with more steps.
and an even greater dependency on industrial processes
The House of the Scorpion explores this further.
I'll be dead, humanity is fucked as i see it but things could change i guess.
Humanity has been fucked many times before. Humans migrated out of Africa TWICE. We have been nearly wiped out several times. Maybe this will be the last time. Maybe Humans will migrate out of Africa a third time....
Reference provided, but not read.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_human_migrations
This happens in a smaller way with access to prenatal testing and abortions. Parents with access to those things are at least able to detect and avoid the more debilitating birth defect, while parents without access are more likely to have a child with a severe birth defect. If they're already struggling materially, that can sometimes guarantee that both the parents and child will have no upward mobility.
gattaca, and the cloning show with arnold in
"Your child will still be yours. Simply the best of you."
the 6th day
This has been a thing for at least a few years. Luckily last I checked (pre pandemic) it hasn't taken off bc
So probably too dangerous to actually take off any time soon. Iirc a Chinese scientist tried it and got sent to jail, seems to be a pretty universal thing
I wonder how that kid is doing. I would love to hear an update. It was bad and all but I am still curious.
It's twins actually, Lulu and Nana. The gene editing might have increased their cognitive function.
I don't know why, but I cannot bring myself to condemn the editing.
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.
Can’t wait for them to make their kids super smart and then their kids call them idiots.
I'm thinking there are dominant and latent effects to any development, natural or engineered. This tech could have latent effects similar to uhh pedigreeing.
Because they will be smarter haha
This already happens with social factors that affect physical development like access to nutrition and a permanent place to live.
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.
a family wreath
That won't work anymore if they can just edit their genes
But let's look at anything that's had their genes edited, bananas for example. They can't breed and need to be cloned. One single disease will wipe out that genetically modified banana into extinction.
Same goes for humans. You edit something that's not tried and tested against the very environment that you live in, you're instantly vulnerable. Viruses and bacterium evolve much more quickly than we do and you just can't edit genes fast enough to account for that.
So, on the bright side, the rich who will edit their genes to favour human traits will ultimately suffer the consequences of nature. Was brilliantly covered in War of the Worlds, the novel.
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
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.
Nucleic acids
Editing a gene is not like editing code. But I'll let the rich folks experience the wonders of body-horror.
Who am I to deny them this nightmare😏
Planet of the Rich, where the apes are billionaires and everyone else is... pretty much the same.
Technology is (at least for now) not exclusive to the rich. There can be billionaires' secret labs and underground diy labs. Since few science fictions pop up in the topic and CRISPER is mentioned, I am going to leave CRISPER cookbook and Chapter 2 which was written in response to Roe vs Wade.
We're getting the movie Gattaca IRL before Half-Life 3 and GTA 6 smdh
everytime i see "smdh" i think "shake my dick hard" for some reason.
Can't unsee now, thanks
Libertarians not even building Rapture yet and they're going full Gattaca? How gauche.
We're still overdue for a eugenics war and WW3 before Star Trek timeline.
In Echopraxia, the transhuman pilot repeatedly calls the old guy a "roach".
“I’ve told you before, Daniel: roach isn’t an insult. We’re the ones still standing after the mammals build their nukes, we’re the ones with the stripped-down OS’s so damned simple they work under almost any circumstances. We’re the goddamned Kalashnikovs of thinking meat.”
― Peter Watts, Echopraxia
And one of my favorite Heinlein quotes:
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
― Robert A. Heinlein
Ah once again i wish i read books.. I think if I was to pick up a book it would be the novels behind the show The Expanse. I feel like they left a lot out of the show that was in the books.
Don't worry, they're absolutely stupid enough to practice CRISPR to the point where their kids are inbreeding within a generation because their CRISPR fixed genetics made them all too biologically similar to create effectively genetically diverse offspring.
Techno fuedalism is still fuedalism. So that means idiots all at the top.
Wonder what the new Hapsburg chin will be.
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" 😂
I think we all end up like the Asgards from SG-1 without the ability to transfer our consciousness to a new body.
Extinct via hubris. Obviously this assumes we do something about runaway global heating.
We need to make CRISPR as easy as 3D printing. Open source genetic modification.
Sure, we'll get lunatics making doomsday viruses in their basement, but also other lunatics designing vaccines for them you can make with your own desktop bioreactor.
More importantly, we'll also get people turning themselves into catgirls.
Screw cyberpunk; biopunk's where it's at.
Naw I think its wetware.
This is the theme of the Divergent series.
Huh. I guess I didn't really never thought of it that way
Excerpt from the book Accelerando
Free Chromosome Foundation has already published a manifesto calling for the creation of an intellectual-property-free genome with improved replacements for all commonly defective exons.
If you would like to read more...
Accelerando is a great sci-fi novel from Charles Stross, touching upon the theme of technological singularity. It is available as a free ebook, under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License!
Thus, I can legally reproduce parts of it here. This is the collected chronology of the future, found throughout the book (minus spoilers):
I wish I could read books. Only read like 5 books as an adult.
The only way to develop a new habit is to start doing the thing!
Yes, we will end up with Eloi and Morlocs
For those not yet genetically engineered to have awareness of literature...
I do wonder what traits the wealthy would tend to select for.
I don't think rich people want their kids bashing their brains in playing football. They want to watch the lower classes play in their gladiator battles for the wealthy's entertainment. So if selecting for physical attributes, I see it being more around aesthetics than athletics.
And they can select for intelligence, but they'd have to figure out how to not increase mental issues that correlate with intelligence. It's a pretty complicated relationship. And intelligence + education opportunities only gets so far without personality and random chance. Heck, I could point to some rich people who don't seem to value intelligence at all.
If I could select for one thing, I would select for a strong immune system. Make a solid physical foundation for a person to build on and make their life of their own decisions.
Clicked the link to see how many references to Gattaca there would be. Was not disappointed
That's already happened. It happened a long time ago.
That's a worry, but also there's still a lot of stuff we don't understand about genetics, and a bunch of grifters who'll fleece the super wealthy
That’s what I think will maybe even the playing field; while it’s expensive it’s not well understood; a few mistakes and they’ll be more cautious. By the time it becomes more popular again it’ll be cheap. Optimistic thought at least.
It’ll be even worse when they gene edit other people to be their slaves and/or personal armies.
That will apply in certain countries.
The questions reminds me of Brave New World.
Once rich people gain any power or advantage they use it for themselves, often at the expense of others. Survival of the fittest. Another question is if they can effectively clone and gene edit themselves, will they have children with others at all or just make variants of themselves trying for perfection? If life extension technologies become viable, will they bother ,having kids or cloning themselves? These people are completely devoted to the satisfaction of their own egos, which controls them and they will redirect all resources toward their own interests. They are the absolute manifestation of selfishness and are the cautionary tale for why narcissism and egotism are a mental health disorder and not things we should let people run around with. Put them all in a psych ward.
If I'm thinking like them with a huge ego I think they will go and make variants of themselves trying for perfection. Just a guess.
If they live forever, they would likely prefer to reshape the world to fit the parts of themselves they can't change, rather than passing the opportunity to gratify themselves forever, to someone else, even their own children. Rich and powerful people are absolutely terrible parents. I think their egos are big enough that children are just the best solution when they can't live forever.
Yes
The will find a way to be even more inbred than they already are
We still don't know what all the Dna and RNA does. So the rich would just be testing with their own kids.
Well exactly they are going to take the first risks.
It's a new class of DARWIN humans, since such manipulated beings usually have shorter life expectation.
Shhh!
You're not supposed to say the quiet part out loud!
Just keep pretending our societies are equitable.
You already mentioned science fiction, and therein lies your answer. Many of the super rich already think of themselves as better than human or more deserving than others. This new tech will only reinforce the idea because, obviously, only the wealthy will have broad access to it.
What you've brought up is a willful choice in future design. And that's "design" as in both the genetic build of their future children, as well as the redesigned social structure that will be laid out before them.
The idea is, or very soon will be, to make a clear and undeniable ruling class. The wanna-be god kings are already shoring-up forces and hedging their bets as we live and breath. Pharonic rule 2.0 might be just around the corner, folks.
Who was it that said "fear not of man, for all men must die"? Eh. It doesn't really matter who said it, so much as what it means. Anyone wanting to see to it that these fucks dont get their way, I hope will make sure to remember the meaning of these words. A time may come in which that meaning becomes the most vital of tools in undoing some of the greater evils of this world. No gods. No kings.
None of this is advice. I am not a lawyer. I am not an expert in any field. Etc
Pharonic rule 2.0? Are you talking like Egypt?
The way Egypt was ruled in the distant past, yeah. Not to say it's a 1:1 comparison ofc, but the similarities, I hope, are evident.
I don't think it's the eugenic stuff that's gonna take off, but fixing future developmental problems.
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.
No, your assumption is that there is an ideal DNA code when there isn't. They will still just be people like everyone else.
Want to alsonadd (because for some reason I can no longer edit my own comments on any instance) that the wealthy have been stealing the poor's DNA for millenia and they still look like, well, Mark Davis.
That's why they love gold diggers, love strippers, athletes (see Serena Williams who is married to a billionare), actresses, etc - they've BEEN trying to do this the whole time.
Style and fashion will narrow down the field.
If anything eventually it'll be like gardening seeds. Where yeah, there's a lot of hybrid seeds that might be good for certain traits, but what a bunch of gardeners really want are heirloom varieties that are more naturally-selected and therefore more reliable over multiple generations.
No, not really that either. That is also advocating for eugenics.
We know there are diseases like cystic fibrosis that would benefit from gene editing. That is not an issue to treat.
It's just that humans need genetic variety or we will go the route of the Gros Michel banana when a disease hits. There are people immune to HIV for instance - that is good for them for some things, but it is likely that means they have other trade offs for this trait. Gene editing everyone to have it could theoretically mean a different disease like giardia or cholera or whatever could be easier to contract and more deadly.
The advantage of humans is adaptability. We need genetic variety to be adaptable. We cannot all be the same. There is no perfect genetic code or perfect "Adam DNA," (conservatives believe there is an original DNA code that God gave Adam and if they can access it, they will live hundreds of years like the Bible said people did). They think this because they don't believe in evolution.
Recommend the book "Half Earth" by E.O. Wilson to better understand why genetic diversity is important. It isn't long at all.
I still need to read Red Rising.
There already is that class but they’ll just look more like designer dogs and social media filters. Then middle class will be able to afford it and we’ll all be the same.
At least we will have better rich people to look at. The current oligarchy in the US looks like deep fried dog shit. Imbred looking ass...
My answer is this: sooner than I'd like, it will be possible to create custom nano 'devices'. They won't call it what it is, but the gist will be that we can manufacture cellular level machines that target incredibly specific genes as well as strands and sequences of very specific variations and mutations of the human genome.
yes, always expect the 'wealthy' to continue to use the power of their birthright to further elevate themselves above the people 'below' them.
At the same time, they'll probably end up leaving tell tale changes in their genetic code that can/will be targeted.
The ultimate irony is that without genetic changes, there is no evolution.
The rich and powerful will homogenize themselves into obsolescence
Nano devices will be called medication. explain the tale tale changes in thier genetic code that will be targeted.
They have bigger problems
I wouldn't worry about it .... evolution is all about the survival of the luckiest and most fortunate
Sure it is survival of the fittest, strongest and most capable ... but often through earth's history .. survival is more often left to the survivors, the lucky few who were just fortunate to survive.
"Fittest" never meant "best", just "most capable of effective adaptation", FWIW.
Its the ones that adapt the fastest
I read that as "It's the ones that adapt the fascist" :(
Gattaca offered the hopeful promise of profit maximization through mass production of genetic engineering, though it's unclear if government subsidies helped with the profit maximization.
Time will certainly create political pressure to make the bestest babies for the races who deserve the bestest babies. Maybe that does mean no medicaid coverage.
The strongest case for only ultra rich having access, is that it's just a status symbol. AI and robotics will do all the work, so why be smart or fit? How smart do you need to be to just support fascist genocide? Being smart is only a path to considering human needs above fascist supremacist needs as a path to sustainability, with sustainability considered of value. Stupidity far more useful to near term "theft profitability with no consequences" of fascism.
Let them pick their own damned cotton.
Eh. Climate Change is gonna ruin those plans anyways.
Or nuclear war or the ozone layer.
Human caused Ozone depletion has been recovering again from what I've read, unless you mean the Sun getting more active than predicted.
Nukes yeah :(
Unless genetic engineering has always been accessible to the ruling class and we cant comprehend the true mechanisms that keep us oppressed.
Imagine, its completely feasible to use a space craft or time dilation to travel forward in time. People could exsist on an entire plane of existence within our plane of existence.
Global warming?
No big deal, jump forward a few millennia and see how things developed. Still unliveable? Jump forward again.
Sure its risky and hard to imagine but its not impossible.
Oh don't worry, we'll all die to global warming within one, maybe two, generations of that starting