goatAlmighty t1_j8qpwtx wrote
Reply to comment by Josvan135 in Americans are ready to test embryos for future college chances, survey shows by ChickenTeriyakiBoy1
In movies like this, those that are "perfect" in the eyes of society often don't have such a terrible life. But all the others suffer. In the case of Gattaca particularly the most abhorrent thing to me is the eugenics (something that is banned for a good reason, not only because the Nazis implemented something along these lines, according to their state of technology back then). In my opinion, the whole scenario leads to a kind of slavery where one isn't granted any personal freedom, not better than what happens in an ant-state, devoid of any humanity.
sexy_starfish t1_j8qrow1 wrote
Eugenics was huge in the US as well from the late 19th century all the way into the mid 20th century. There have been horrible atrocities committed in the name of eugenics including thousands upon thousands of forced serializations. Here is an excellent podcast called Criminal that did an episode on it.
goatAlmighty t1_j8qsg1r wrote
Thank you, I will definitely give that a listen. I'm from Germany, so I'm not that familiar with US-history. But given the stance of several of their secret services and what kind of "experiments" they did with their own citizens, I'm not surprised that they went into eugenics as well.
EbonBehelit t1_j8rbz2v wrote
It's easy to forget that the political left of the time was just as enthusiastic about eugenics as the right -- though their reasoning in supporting it was vastly different, as you can probably imagine.
Test19s t1_j8s021g wrote
Voluntary, consensual eugenics with the goal of closing gaps and creating a less tribal species would be really good if we could figure out how to implement it. Many if not most ideologies converge on something resembling fascism if taken to their extreme, though, with a loyalist inner circle and an oppressed “other.” Leftist ideologies aren’t immune.
goatAlmighty t1_j8y8wmk wrote
Unfortunately, we're living in an age where this is proven day in, day out. Every ideology tends to turn into extremism when given too much power.
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