Huxley touched the pensive George Orwell with his shoulder, and said with a smile: I was right, a beautiful new world is their future.
——Chris
A pregnant woman gave birth to a cute baby after suffering the severe pain of childbirth. The nurse put the baby in her mother's arms and collected a drop of blood on the baby's pink feet with a utensil. While the mother was still looking at the little guy who had just arrived in the world with loving eyes, the nurse skillfully put the collected blood into an analysis instrument. After a few seconds, an analysis report was presented to the nurse. The dry voice of the nurse extinguished the joy of the mother like ice water:
60% possibility of neurological disease
42% chance of mania
Inability to concentrate 89%
99% probability of heart disease
Possibility of premature death, life expectancy: 30.2 years
The father of the child felt that the child with a genetic defect was not worthy of inheriting his own name, and named him Wensheng.
A few years later, the couple walked into the doctor’s office. The doctor has screened out 4 best products from the couple’s many fertilized eggs. These four fertilized eggs not only have no genetic tendency to dangerous diseases, but also eliminate obesity. Early-age baldness, violent tendencies and other unhealthy genes will develop children who will be very healthy. The doctor said with a smile:
"Now only the best candidate is left. This child is inherited from your genes. It is just the best gene. Even if you conceive 1,000 times naturally, you will not get such perfect results. First of all, the gender issue, you think Want a boy or a girl?"
Then Vincent had an excellent younger brother, and his father gave him his name, named Anton.
Where are the remaining 3 high-quality fertilized eggs? Maybe it was destroyed, maybe it was thrown into the trash can, maybe it was washed into the sewer, who knows.
The above scenes are a few plots from the 1997 science fiction film "Gattaca". This film constructs a future world where biotechnology is advancing by leaps and bounds, and humans can skillfully use gene editing technology. There are only two kinds of people in this world: perfect people and flaws. people.
No more difference between human beings
No more geographical distinction
No more nationality
Only perfection and flaws remain.
The description of genetic determinism in "Gattaca" is easy to think of "Brave New World": people are divided into "Alpha (α)", "Beta (β)", and "Gamma (γ) before they are born. )", "Delta (δ)", "Epsilon (ε)" five kinds of "castes". Different castes, different destinies, noble Alpha, and lowly Epsilon, people are created like products on an assembly line.
Do you want an epsilon?
Then reduce the rotation speed, slow down the speed of artificial blood circulation, and extend the interval between flowing through the lungs, allowing the embryo to grow in an oxygen-deficient environment. Such Epsilon has low intelligence and is very suitable for manual labor.
Are you afraid that Epsilon will rebel because his caste feels unfair?
New Pavlovian conditioning and sleep teaching methods can perfectly solve your problems. Such Epsilon will love their identity very much, and a mere reward will allow them to work efficiently all day.
Crafts, a high-tech crafts, a customizable crafts.
Of course, the setting of Gattaca is not as extreme as Brave New World. Here, gene editing is a technology of choice rather than a forced task. In the world created by director Andrew Nicole, genetic control has nothing to do with politics, but only with economics. As long as you have money, you can use gene editing technology to create your own next generation. The richer people, the more they can afford the cost of gene editing, and the better the next generation.
This is also a key message hidden in the movie: gene editing technology is not free . Only the rich have the ability to change the destiny of the next generation. Perhaps there is an icy screen in the hospital lobby to tell people about the charges for gene editing projects, how much to charge for reducing violent tendencies, how much to charge for lowering the hereditary probability of dangerous diseases, how much to charge for higher intelligence, the number of projects, dazzling, and the charges. The price is staggering.
Andrew's intentions are also obvious. He has no intention of turning "Gattaca" into a dystopian and anti-totalitarian science fiction film. What he wanted to explore was a topic that few people cared about at the time: genetic discrimination .
The world where Vincent lives is such a world full of genetic discrimination.
When the kindergarten enrolls students, they will analyze your genes, and they will never enroll as long as the insurance company does not cover it.
During the interview, they will check your genes. As long as you are not a perfect person, you can only do low-level jobs.
When dating, girls will secretly collect boys’ hair or saliva. In less than ten seconds, the testing center can give out a detailed genetic analysis report.
The 99% probability of heart disease is destined that Vincent cannot realize his aerospace dream in this genetically discriminatory world. No matter how much he sleeps and eats, no matter how carefully he prepares his resume, he cannot change his destiny. Opening the door, the interviewer didn’t say a word, and directly handed him a urine test cup, and asked Vincent to do a genetic test without a smile. This is the content of the interview. This is the scarierness of genetic discrimination. Discrimination makes the back chill.
A drop of blood, a hair, and a little saliva can strip you off, but what can you do in the face of this discrimination? No one cares about your acquired effort and effort, no one cares about the impact of the environment on a person, no one cares about the effect of education on a person, the interviewer just wants to hurry up and use a damn instrument to test your genes and figure out that you are perfect People are flawed, and your genes are your resume. Moreover, in the absence of the power to change this status quo, genetic discrimination is destined to allow more people to do gene editing for their next generations, which intensifies discrimination and forms a vicious circle.
Slowly genetic determinism is imprinted in people’s minds
Slowly knowledge changes destiny became a joke
Slowly there are only qualified and unqualified people in the world
Only then did you discover that gene editing has deconstructed everything while making humans perfect. Hard work has become the motto of flawed people, and success and excellence have become the identity card of perfect people. What's more worrying is that genetic discrimination is based on The scientific form appeared, and all the defense words were pale in front of the genetic report. How should we refute and defend ourselves?
And the director’s worries have gradually become reality with the advent of the millennium.
In 2002, 36 employees of the American BNSF Railway Company submitted work-related injury compensation for suffering from "carpal tunnel syndrome." Evidence of illness avoids claims. After the employees knew this fact, they sued the railway company for "genetic discrimination". In the end, the employees won the lawsuit and received $2.2 million in compensation.
In 2009, the small Wednesday person ranked among the top in the Foshan civil service examination. However, in the subsequent physical examination, he was found to carry the "Thalassaemia gene" and was rejected. The three sued Foshan City for "gene discrimination". The Human Resources and Social Security Bureau, as a result, Xiao Zhou and others lost the first instance, and the original verdict was upheld in the final instance.
The three medical examination reports announced that Xiao Zhou and others’ civil servants’ dreams had been disillusioned, and Vincent’s aerospace dream could still be realized, because the emergence of genetic discrimination gave birth to the black trading market of buying genetic identities.
For his dream, Vincent decided to take the risk and buy the genetic identity of the perfect person. The merchant in the black market found a perfect person who looked similar to Vincent-Jeron. As a perfect person, Jielong is superior to Vincent in terms of IQ and physical fitness. He is a masterpiece of genetic engineering. However, an accident paralyzed his lower body and became an embarrassing existence who was neither a perfect person nor a flawed person. In order to live, he sells his genetic identity on the black market, and the condition is that the buyer has to bear his daily expenses, allowing him to live a luxurious life that he has long been accustomed to.
In order to pretend to be Jielong, Vincent changed his hairstyle, put on contact lenses, and performed heightening surgery to reach Jielong's height.
After all this was completed, relying on Jielong's urine, he successfully passed the test of the aerospace company and became a full-time employee. However this is only the beginning. Jielong had to clean up peeling, nail chips and hair on his body every day to avoid revealing his identity.
At the same time, Jielong also had to prepare his own genetic samples for Vincent. Different samples have different uses: for example, special urine can help Vincent pass regular substance tests, and fingertip blood sacs can allow Vincent to pass security checks.
When Vincent successfully became an employee of an aerospace company, the director's mockery of genetic determinism and genetic discrimination also followed:
For example, Vincent actually became the best employee of the aerospace company. There was not a single mistake in a million keystrokes. He was appreciated by the director, and he will become the leader to lead other astronauts to Titan. Before purchasing the identity, Vincent couldn't even pass the interview with the aerospace company and could only be a cleaning employee.
For example, for the smooth progress of the space mission, the director used the keyboard to smash the head of the mission supervisor, just because he did not support the "Titan Project", and in the previous conversation, the director told the police that he is a perfect person with zero violence tendency.
At the same time, Andro also expressed his concern about perfect people. Although gene editing can make people more perfect, being a "super human" is not without cost: compared with ordinary people, perfect people have no motivation to move forward. , Is more self-destructive, just like Jielong who committed suicide twice.
Jielong is a masterpiece of gene editing, and he scored 9.3 for a genetic test with a perfect score of 10. With a handsome appearance, excellent physical abilities and superior intelligence, he is perfect, and he has an infinite life span. Jeron should have been dazzlingly alive like a star, until as a swimmer he only won the second place in a competition. That silver medal became a lingering nightmare for Jielong, like an indelible scar that reminded him of his failures, and finally made him choose to go to the oncoming vehicle to end his life. The ridiculous thing is that Jielong survived. The car accident only locked him in the wheelchair forever, and did not take his life.
There is no doubt that gene editing technology has given Jielong better than ordinary people's intelligence, physical strength and even longevity, but it also deconstructs everything. He was shrouded in endless emptiness. He didn't know why he lived and why he struggled. He had no motivation, no hope, and no dream. As the producer Stacy Cher said: "There is no success in this society, because everything after birth is doomed, and success becomes vain." What else can a perfect person fight for? And this is also the biggest difference between Jielong and Vincent. Although Vincent is a flawed person, he knows what he wants, can turn his shortcomings and deficiencies into motivation to move forward, and burns himself toward the ideal, just like he and An Dong said in the last swimming competition: "I never save my energy just to swim back." This kind of momentum that knows that there are tigers in the mountains and leans toward the tiger mountains, this kind of spirit can be destroyed, but cannot be defeated, is the spirit. The fire that creates miracles is the driving force that drives the continuous advancement of human civilization. And gene editing is like the eighth pawnshop, with endless curses behind the joy.
Jielong has also shown self-destructive tendencies more than once. For example, on the night when he was celebrating Vincent’s determination to go to Titan Planet, Vincent asked him many times how he planned to live alone in the future. Jielong always thought about him. His expression gradually changed from cynicism to a look of loss. Back at home, Jielong lying on the bed finally told Vincent his judgment: If it fails the first time, he must keep trying.
At the end of the film, Jielong prepared enough genetic samples and a letter for Vinson to use his entire life, and said calmly: " I just lent you my body, and you let me share your dreams ." After leaving, wearing the silver medal, he climbed into the incinerator where Vincent cleaned his hair and dander, and ended his life in the flames.
And Jeron’s ending also corresponds to the quote from Chapter 7, Section 13 of Ecclesiastes at the beginning of the movie:
You want to look at God's behavior, God makes it twisted, who can make it straight?
Before the film was released, Sony had organized a trial screening. The audience was a group of biologists. At the end of the movie, pictures of Einstein, Lincoln, and others, as well as subtitles carefully prepared by Sony, appeared, and won unanimous praise from the audience. Unfortunately, Sony eventually deleted the last part because of the fear that these pictures and subtitles would offend the viewer's feelings. Please let me use these subtitles as the end of this article:
"If genetic engineering and genetic experiments become a reality early, then none of these celebrities will be born-they will suffer from dyslexia, Marfan syndrome, and asthma. Of course, there is another person who will never be born. It's you."
Postscript: This article was written on 2018/12/09. 14 days ago, Associate Professor He Jiankui of Southern University of Science and Technology announced that a pair of gene-edited babies named Lulu and Nana were born in China and can naturally resist HIV. This news quickly caused an uproar and shook the whole world. A joint statement by 122 Chinese scientists strongly condemned "gene-edited babies."
Note 1: There are many Chinese translations of "Gattaca", such as "Qianjun Yifa", "Variants of Different Sha", "Gene Code", etc. However, I insist on using English for the movie names in the article, because the letter GATTACA happens to be G, A , T, and C, which respectively represent guanine (G), adenine (A), thymine (T), and cytosine (C), These four bases determine biological diversity and are an important part of deoxyribonucleotide, which is the basic unit of DNA. For a film that discusses genes, I personally think that the film name "Gattaca" is the most suitable. In addition, the stairs in Vincent and Jielong’s house are also DNA double helix structures:
Note 2: This film is Andrew Nicole’s debut, a year later, he shot another majestic movie "Trumen's World".
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