• Hoodoo [love/loves]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Four Murasame was not only a good idea, Cyber Newtypes like her are the only way to defeat China.

      • blobjim [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        3 years ago

        Well I think the movie shows he can basically do all the things that the 'genetically superior' people can do, he just gets more tired from it or something. But maybe that's because of his heart I dunno. Part of it was just that 'genetically superior' people were preferred in a nepotistic way I guess, because they don't actually factor in anyone's motivation.

      • Leon_Grotsky [comrade/them]
        ·
        3 years ago

        why not, genetically engineer every kid, supe up our fuckin’ species, cast off the yoke of natural selection driven evolution once and for all

        That's not what they were doing in the film though if I'm remembering it correctly; they were doing what they are talking about in the article which is special-selecting embryos with the good genes, not exorcising the bad genes from every embryo.

        also didn’t the main character have like a genetic heart defect? Like yeah I don’t wanna tell people “oh your genes are garbage so you’re a trash person” but I do think having a heart that could explode while piloting a rocket ship is a good reason to bar people from doing that

        The thing was though, his heart condition really didn't have an affect on his abilities as an astronaut. He was labeled as an invalid simply because of genetic makeup, and prevented from being an astronaut because the people-sorting-mechanism of the film determined he would die before 30 (which was wrong) and that his heart would explode under liftoff-conditions (which was wrong.) This begs the question, was it ever really about his physical capabilities or was it purely genetic gatekeeping? (the answer may surprise you.)

      • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
        ·
        3 years ago

        aside from that though like literally why not, genetically engineer every kid, supe up our fuckin’ species, cast off the yoke of natural selection driven evolution once and for all

        Massive amount of legwork for nebulous and poorly understood gains. We have a very limited understanding of our genetic make-up and an even more limited understanding of the consequences of direct manipulation. Yes, there's some low-hanging fruit you could aim for (Down's Syndrome is comparatively easy to spot, for instance). But for heart defects, at the stage of an embryo? Nevermind something we can't even properly quantify, like cognitive capacity. We'd just be doing guess-and-test, and producing a generation of people with shit like Progeria and weird new cancers while we ironed out our technique.

        And all for... what exactly? We don't even really know what we're aiming for or how much genetic manipulation will impact lifetime outcomes.