> We discriminate like that based on genetics now. It's just that it comes from random chance at birth rather than human modification, but really what's the difference?
What are you alluding to here?
What are you alluding to here?
And we implicitly discriminate by height, which shows a strong correlation with income. That one doesn't even have utility like discrimination based on intelligence does.
We discriminate on intelligence when it's important for the job at hand. The bad kind of discrimination is the kind that considers irrelevant factors.
I agree implicit discrimination based on height and attractiveness exists in our culture. This movie is a searing criticism of exactly that kind of discrimination.
In the movie, if the genetic enhancements work, then it's basically meritocracy, and not that different than what we have today. If they don't work, like you seem to imply in your comment, then it's arbitrary discrimination, which isn't a particularly interesting or unique concept for a movie.
You have literally no way of rigourously making that claim given our incomplete understanding of genetics and intelligence. In any case, it's immaterial to my point as I already acknowledged that our culture discriminates for irrelevant reasons, and this movie is a harsh critique of that practice.
> In the movie, if the genetic enhancements work, then it's basically meritocracy
No, it's the complete opposite. The people who were rewarded didn't actually do anything to earn those rewards, so it's the exact opposite of a meritocracy, it's genetic cronyism, no different than awarding a promotion based on someone's skin colour.
> If they don't work, like you seem to imply in your comment, then it's arbitrary discrimination, which isn't a particularly interesting or unique concept for a movie.
The whole point of the movie is to elevate the notion of meritocracy based on actual achievements, and to criticize discrimination and generalizations based on some nebulous notion of statistical "potential".
I think the big take-away is that it's not a foregone conclussion that they "always work, always better". The question is should we remove the possibility from those without perfect genetic markers because the odds say so, or give them a chance and evaluate in some other way? Or are the markers both less conclusive than believed and/or less causal? We could find lots of trivial markers that have nothing to do with meaningful outcomes; does the world explored in Gattaca take this to the extreme?
In reality it can be impossible for some people, but there are many examples of people accomplishing this, some with lots of effort.
I believe the absolute determinism of that society is what makes it a nightmare. Saying that it is the same as reality is, IMO, an exaggeration.