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Gattaca and the quiet Doomsday of genetic determinism - C C - Jul 26, 2026
https://thebulletin.org/premium/2026-07/gattaca-and-the-quiet-doomsday-of-genetic-determinism/#post-heading
INTRO: One of Gattaca’s most famous lines of dialogue is delivered by a geneticist to prospective parents. He is explaining to them why he has chosen a specific embryo for their future child: “I’ve taken the liberty of eradicating any potentially prejudicial conditions: premature baldness, myopia, alcoholism and addictive susceptibility, obesity, and so on.” That line was meant to feel ominous in 1997. It was supposed to show how easily a society’s definition of “harm” could expand from genuine illness to traits that were just socially inconvenient.
Today, however, that line sounds more like ad copy for a real-life fertility company than dystopian dialogue. Nucleus Embryo, for example, advertises embryo screening as a tool for managing disease risk (Nucleus Embryo homepage 2026). But it also promises predictions about traits such as intelligence, height, eye color, male-pattern baldness, alcohol dependence, and even left-handedness. The website does not describe these as “prejudicial conditions.” It calls them information which is presented as empowerment and parental choice.
They even have a whole ad campaign designed around the phrase “Have your best baby.” The moral language of “prejudice” has been replaced with the technical vocabulary of “risk” and “optimization.” And it is far from the only company marketing the genetic testing of embryos created through in-vitro fertilization (IVF) in terms that extend beyond disease prevention (Moe, Pampoulov, Franco, Han, Ha, Fife and Stone 2026).
The blurring of that line was anticipated by the film’s own marketing. When Gattaca was released in 1997, the movie’s print advertising campaign included newspaper ads deliberately designed to look like real fertility clinic advertisements. They offered genetic enhancement services as though they were routine medical options. What used to be speculative fiction now resembles a plausible element of market-driven genomics. (See Gattaca fictional ad below, from 1997.)
That is why Gattaca belongs in any conversation about existential risk and cinema. The film depicts a near-future world in which a person’s genetic makeup determines everything in their life including employment, insurance, education, and social mobility. Individuals conceived without genetic enhancement, so-called “in-valids,” face systemic discrimination, while those engineered for optimal traits enjoy institutional privilege. The film’s protagonist, Vincent Freeman, circumvents this system by passing off the genetically superior “borrowed” DNA of Eugene Morrow as his own.
Gattaca’s story is not about runaway biotechnology. What it portrays is a society that has been reorganized around the (mistaken) belief that DNA alone determines destiny (Kirby 2000). The film remains relevant because it shows how easily genetic information can become a measure of human worth—and how readily that standard can harden into a discriminatory hierarchy... (MORE - details)
RE: Gattaca and the quiet Doomsday of genetic determinism - Syne - Jul 26, 2026
Just a newer take on eugenics, which has always had an ugly motive, throughout history.
RE: Gattaca and the quiet Doomsday of genetic determinism - Yazata - Jul 27, 2026
(Jul 26, 2026 11:18 PM)C C Wrote: INTRO: One of Gattaca’s most famous lines of dialogue is delivered by a geneticist to prospective parents. He is explaining to them why he has chosen a specific embryo for their future child: “I’ve taken the liberty of eradicating any potentially prejudicial conditions: premature baldness, myopia, alcoholism and addictive susceptibility, obesity, and so on.” That line was meant to feel ominous in 1997.
The only objection that I have to any of that is "He is explaining to them why he has chosen a specific enbryo for their future child". Shouldn't that be the prospective parents' choice? The geneticist can lay out their options, then leave the choice to the parents.
Other than that, aren't propensity to addiction, obesity and so on serious problems that medicine is trying to combat and reduce? While less problematic, wouldn't premature baldness and myopia be good things to avoid? I have absolutely zero problem with geneticists giving parents the opportunity for their children to be free of hereditary burdens.
Quote:Gattaca’s story is not about runaway biotechnology. What it portrays is a society that has been reorganized around the (mistaken) belief that DNA alone determines destiny (Kirby 2000).
How do we get from offering the choice to avoid passing on hereditary diseases, or even avoidance of passing on conditions that might be burdensome to one's children, to the idea "that DNA alone determines destiny"? There seems to be a logical leap taking place there. It's a non-sequitur.
Quote:The film remains relevant because it shows how easily genetic information can become a measure of human worth—and how readily that standard can harden into a discriminatory hierarchy...
Gattica is a science-fiction movie. Eliminating Tay-Sachs disease or even male-pattern baldness isn't bigotry against some weird constructed oppressed DEI class, any more than eliminating smallpox was.
I think that the error of the writer of this little essay is that he is thinking in terms of 21'st century ethics in which the civil-rights movement becomes the paradigm of all good and evil. It isn't.
RE: Gattaca and the quiet Doomsday of genetic determinism - Syne - Jul 27, 2026
(Jul 27, 2026 06:03 AM)Yazata Wrote: How do we get from offering the choice to avoid passing on hereditary diseases, or even avoidance of passing on conditions that might be burdensome to one's children, to the idea "that DNA alone determines destiny"? There seems to be a logical leap taking place there. It's a non-sequitur.
Classism, where instead of an Ivy League degree or family name you have "better" genetics from birth. The propensity of people to find reasons to think themselves better than others is always looking for a justification. And when you're chosen for intelligence, health, etc., why wouldn't companies favor those candidates over greater, at least perceived, liabilities?
RE: Gattaca and the quiet Doomsday of genetic determinism - C C - Jul 28, 2026
(Jul 27, 2026 06:03 AM)Yazata Wrote:(Jul 26, 2026 11:18 PM)C C Wrote: INTRO: One of Gattaca’s most famous lines of dialogue is delivered by a geneticist to prospective parents. He is explaining to them why he has chosen a specific embryo for their future child: “I’ve taken the liberty of eradicating any potentially prejudicial conditions: premature baldness, myopia, alcoholism and addictive susceptibility, obesity, and so on.” That line was meant to feel ominous in 1997.
The only objection that I have to any of that is "He is explaining to them why he has chosen a specific enbryo for their future child". Shouldn't that be the prospective parents' choice? The geneticist can lay out their options, then leave the choice to the parents.
Other than that, aren't propensity to addiction, obesity and so on serious problems that medicine is trying to combat and reduce? While less problematic, wouldn't premature baldness and myopia be good things to avoid? I have absolutely zero problem with geneticists giving parents the opportunity for their children to be free of hereditary burdens.
There's a thin line between "perfect" via eliminating aberrations and "perfect" via enhanced abilities and new physical characteristics. The former would eventually snowball into the latter. I suppose sheltering sanctuaries could be set up for traditional but now "challenged people" so they wouldn't have to compete with the augmented humans.
And it would be quite a contrast going on in the social justice crowd: Those who wanted to preserve all hereditary flaws (no matter how debilitating); and the furries who wanted to become human-animal hybrids, along with those who desired to make real all the alien identities along the imaginary biological sex spectrum. I don't know, though. I guess the whole lot could be considered deliberate mutations. The new ones might involve possible impairment at times just like the old ones that refused to be fixed.