Customized humans created through genetic modification can greatly improve the quality of life, but they can also cause social discrimination and ethical issues. If legal and social measures are put in place to address these issues, customized humans could bring positive changes to humanity.
‘ Gattaca is a story of an era when genetic technology has become extremely advanced and a little bit of genetic information can tell us everything about a person. In this era, genetic information is an important factor in determining an individual’s destiny, and social status and opportunities are determined by genetic excellence. As a result, most people choose artificial insemination, which is the process of improving genetic information, over natural fertilization. Children born through natural insemination are genetically disadvantaged in terms of health and intelligence, such as longevity and the likelihood of getting sick, and are therefore disadvantaged in many cases, including employment. This is similar to the way in which education and physical appearance have a significant impact on a person’s social success in modern society.
In other words, in this era, we have a society that favors people born through artificial insemination, with the majority of people being custom-built human beings born through artificial insemination and only a small percentage born through natural insemination. People born through artificial insemination are called customized humans, and people born through natural insemination are called natural humans, and the discrimination between these two groups has become a serious social problem. Custom humans are born with superior genes, resulting in higher intelligence, greater physical abilities, and longer lifespans. Because of these traits, most companies prefer to hire genetically superior custom humans, and natural humans can only hold a limited number of jobs, such as janitors. In the movie, it is frequently shown that natural humans are increasingly marginalized and discriminated against as the number of customized humans increases. This is similar to how certain classes or groups are discriminated against in our current society due to technological advancements or social changes.
But are customizable humans a bad thing? Not really. On the contrary, they have advantages that can benefit humanity. For starters, they have a lot to contribute to increasing life expectancy and improving quality of life. Currently, many people die of illness at an early age, rather than from old age. However, since personalized humans are modified by removing the factors that make humans sick from their genes, they will live longer, suffer less from natural illnesses, and have a significantly improved quality of life. This is one of the ultimate goals of modern medicine.
One argument against this is that, by eliminating recessive traits and selecting for dominant traits when fertilizing a personalized human, genetic diversity is reduced, making us more susceptible to infectious diseases. This concern is often raised, especially among scholars who emphasize that genetic diversity is an important factor in biological evolution and survival. However, the customized humans in ‘ Gattaca ‘ are not modified by using genes from celebrities in a one-size-fits-all fashion, but rather by removing disease-causing or life-shortening factors from their parents’ genes and then modifying them. This doesn’t result in an extreme reduction in genetic diversity, and is within the scope of genetic selection that occurs naturally in each family. This can be linked to the fact that modern science is also developing techniques to remove or modify certain genes to prevent genetic diseases.
One of the arguments against customized humans is that ‘in a society where customized humans are rampant, discrimination between customized humans and natural humans will become a serious problem, just like the situation in the movie. ‘ However, the world of ‘ Gattaca ‘ is only the director’s imagination of a society where customized humans are rampant and discrimination is severe. It’s similar to how dystopian novels often serve as warnings about current social problems that are magnified to the extreme. In reality, there are many ways to reduce discrimination.
Discrimination can be reduced through strong legislation. In ‘ Gattaca, genetic information can be used to know everything about a person, so it is possible to distinguish between customized humans and natural humans. This distinction allows for discrimination in employment, for example. However, this is only possible because it is not prohibited by law to obtain and analyze genetic information. If the law prohibited the public from obtaining and analyzing genetic information, discrimination based on genetic differences would be significantly reduced, as companies would not be able to distinguish whether an applicant is a custom human or a natural human. This can be understood in the same way that strong privacy laws are enacted to protect the privacy of individuals in the modern world.
In addition, there should be strong penalties to deter companies from using fingerprints, hair, etc. to obtain genetic information from applicants. These legal measures would encourage companies to practice merit-based hiring without discrimination. Of course, there will always be people who will break the law, even with legal sanctions. However, this does not negate the need for laws, but rather makes them part of the process of reducing discrimination and addressing social inequality.
The value of a company is to make a profit. It is reasonable for companies to use a variety of tests to assess applicants’ abilities in order to hire the best talent. Typically, companies test to see if a candidate has the right skills for the job. For example, a researcher might be evaluated for their research skills, or a salesperson for how well they deal with people. These abilities aren’t just determined by genetics, but are heavily influenced by a person’s effort and experience. For example, using a 3-kilometer run test to determine whether a person is a custom human or a natural human is not really assessing their actual abilities, but rather ancillary factors. This is a far cry from the actual talent that companies need.
Finally, there is the ethical argument. Parents arbitrarily changing the genes of their children is ethically problematic because it is only the will of the parents, not the will of the child. The customized human in ‘ Gattaca ‘ is a human whose body has been made healthier and the factors that make it sick have been removed. You could argue that it’s not ethical because it’s not the child’s will, but no child would want to be born under such favorable conditions. It’s similar to how parents choose private schools to give their children a better education. Of course, it may be ethically problematic for parents to specifically enhance genes in certain areas in order to shape their child’s career path according to their wishes. However, modifying genes to improve health is not ethically problematic because it allows children to have more career options.
As mentioned earlier, in Gattaca, discrimination against natural humans is portrayed as deeply ingrained because of the long time that has passed since the creation of customized humans and the lack of appropriate measures against discrimination. Watching ‘Gattaca’, you may think that customized humans cause discrimination. However, in the current reality, if customized humans are developed and more and more customized humans appear, discrimination can be prevented from the beginning by enacting strong laws.
Therefore, it is unlikely that the world of ‘ Gattaca ‘ will be recreated in reality, and it is possible to create a society without discrimination due to genetic differences. If such a society were to arrive, there would be no reason to oppose personalized humans that improve life expectancy and quality of life. Such a society would be a great example of the positive changes that advances in science and technology can bring to humanity.
