CRISPR and other tools aren’t science fiction anymore. If the wealthy get there first, what happens to everyone else?
No, your assumption is that there is an ideal DNA code when there isn’t. They will still just be people like everyone else.
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.
Style and fashion will narrow down the field.
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.
We’re getting the movie Gattaca IRL before Half-Life 3 and GTA 6 smdh
Libertarians not even building Rapture yet and they’re going full Gattaca? How gauche.
everytime i see “smdh” i think “shake my dick hard” for some reason.
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.
We’re still overdue for a eugenics war and WW3 before Star Trek timeline.
Clicked the link to see how many references to Gattaca there would be. Was not disappointed
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
Nothing lasts forever. Homo sapiens was bound to be replaced by another hominid at some point.
“homo techno” according to grymes, lmao.
I still need to read Red Rising.
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.
Yes, we will end up with Eloi and Morlocs
For those not yet genetically engineered to have awareness of literature…
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.
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.
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.
Just keep editing until you beat nature.
We cannot keep depending on that chaos bitch.
Er… Not possible.
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.
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” 😂
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 😂
