On November 26, 2018, the world's first gene-edited baby immune to AIDS was born in China.
No one expected that from the amazement and praise of everyone to the joint opposition of 122 scientists, this so-called "breakthrough achievement of Chinese biotechnology" would change in the evaluation of one heaven and one earth in just one day.
Some admirers liken gene editing to God's scalpel, arguing that it takes effort to try before humans can progress;
Opponents are worried, after all, the security controversy behind it and the suspected fraud of ethical censorship have made this gorgeous-looking gene editing research hide too many "untrustworthy" seeds.
Watching the professional discussion is scorched, as an ordinary person, it is difficult to understand the scientific mystery, and what haunts everyone's heart is more than two words:
fear.
So, what exactly are we afraid of? Perhaps the following movie, which now seems to be extremely frightening, can give you the answer -
"A Thousand Guns" / "Mutant Alien Fire"
gattaca
"A Thousand Guns" is a science fiction film filmed 20 years ago, although the box office fiasco has become a classic of science fiction films, and has been included in the must-see movie series of life by film critics websites around the world.
The production team is destined to be a god as an attribute.
It is the self-written and self-directed debut of science fiction giant Andrew Nicole ("Truman's World"), starring the well-to-do Ethan Hawke (Death Poetry Society), Uma Thurman (Killing Bill, Pulp Fiction) and the not yet bald Jude Low (Cold Mountain).
What is more "divine" is the background setting of the story.
Just as the original English name "gattaca" was not an English word, but a human reordering of the four bases of DNA AGCT -
A few letters paint a picture of a world that adheres to the law of "solipsism" discrimination.
This is a few years into the future, and humans have mastered the ability to customize genes.
As a result, eugenics has become a popularity, and families with strong financial strength can go to clinics to breed fortified genetically fertilized eggs.
The best eggs and sperm are combined, and the skin color and height are at your disposal. Children born will have a strong body and excellent intelligence, no possibility of disease, and even various small shortcomings such as obesity, baldness, and alcoholism can be avoided ↓↓↓
This is the perfect gene that "a thousand natural pregnancies can not reach".
The poor, who cannot afford to pay, can only choose inferior natural birth and give birth to "flawed" children.
Although everyone can't understand it now, the male protagonist Vincent with a face like Ethan Hawke would be considered genetically poor.
But because nothing from conception to delivery has been machine-optimized, Vincent was born with a series of health risk assessment data:
60% likelihood of neurological disorders
42% probability of mania
89% chance of inability to concentrate
99% probability of heart disease
Possibility of premature death, life expectancy: 30.2 years
As a result, Vincent was declared a "defective product" since birth.
In a society where dna is only around, parents no longer respect "winning at the starting line", but "winning in genes".
So Vincent's parents decided to have another child and spend money to pick out a better child through the machine ↓↓↓
The perfect gene and the defective gene are different from the cloud and mud, just like the gap between vincent and his brother. Since birth, the male protagonist has been looked down upon by his parents——
Anton, who was supposed to belong to him, represented family honor and meant "honored", was taken away by his brother;
Every time he measures his height, his younger brother, who is obviously two years younger, always grows faster than himself;
The two brothers often played a game of "courage competition", and the two swam into the sea at the same time to see who turned back first because of lack of physical strength, and Vincent never won.
Who made his opponents, both intellectually and physically, destined to be perfect from birth?
But even more frightening is not the gap.
Instead, people like vincent who are not genetically optimized are stamped with the "inferior" label.
They are called god children, flawed people.
This seemingly elegant title, absurd and ironic, became the shackles of their lives.
When young people fall in love, the first thing is not to look at the working family, but to directly take each other's hair to do DNA testing, and people with high scores are the sought-after goods in the blind date market.
In the case of murder, the first suspect is also the flawed person, and the police will only pull the flawed person to do genetic testing one by one.
Flawed people don't deserve love, they don't deserve the right to be treated equally, let alone dreams.
Just like Vincent, who has had a dream of spaceflight since childhood, he has been desperately studying and wants to work at gattaka, the world's most prestigious aerospace company.
But in gattaka, which has always recruited only genetically optimized people, each interviewee has to test whether it has been improved through blood and urine. They don't waste time and money training a flawed person, making astronauts an unattainable dream of the male protagonist.
Even if he lies in the paper resume, the real resume still exists in the cell, stamping him with a "failed" stamp.
In this place dedicated to genetic improvement, discrimination is not about skin color, but about technology.
Everything is decided at the moment of birth, and it has nothing to do with whether you work hard or not, whether you are diligent or not, and the path of flawed people to promotion in the workplace is also difficult.
So Vincent, who dreamed of being an astronaut, found a job that suited flawed people best— a cleaner at Gattaca.
A glass wall is used to distinguish between "superior" and "inferior", and only perfect people who pass the blood test can enter the area where astronauts are trained.
Perfect people spontaneously crowd out the flawed people of "natural crystallization", and the mobility between the upper class and the lower class is close to zero.
Of course, a "progressive" world will not openly pursue backward deeds, but will always cloak it in the guise of civilization.
Here, genetic discrimination is also prohibited by law.
People who cannot stand the flaws caused by poverty are powerless and capital to resist, and the social order ruled by geneticism is becoming more and more indestructible.
Just when Vincent was desperate, a black market agent who had forged his genetic identity appeared and told him—
If you want to survive in an unfair society, you must learn unfair means.
He helps Vincent find a Jerome (Jude Lowe) who once had excellent genes but was partially paralyzed in an accident, and swapped identities with him.
And completed a series of transformations with contact lenses, practicing signatures, straightening teeth, and practicing left-handed people to become right-handed ↓↓↓
Because Jerome was much taller than himself before the car accident, Vincent also had to undergo a bone augmentation surgery.
More important than the transformation of appearance is the gene.
In order to exchange identities, the perfect man Jerome collects his own blood and urine every day for the defective person Vincent to pass the security check of the aerospace company ↓↓↓
In order not to expose any clues, Vincent removes nail clippings, hair drops, etc. from his body every day, and tries his best to hide his flawed genetic information.
Sure enough, as the black market agent guaranteed: with the DNA of the optimizer, you will be unimpeded wherever you go.
With jerome status, Vincent quickly became an elite astronaut candidate in the company, and was appreciated by his superiors.
No one cared how much sweat Vincent privately put in to workouts in order to become an astronaut.
To be precise, in a solipsistic society, people care about every gene value, although your success may really depend on effort.
Later, although the film also arranges many dangers for the male protagonist, it still arranges a happy ending, allowing him to complete his astronaut dream (the specific plot is not a spoiler), so as to tell the audience that "the immortal dream is the only reason to live as a flawed person".
Therefore, for a long time, "A Thousand Guns" was also used as an inspirational movie, and it was only now that I suddenly realized the metaphor behind god's work.
It was once thought that this solipsistic discriminatory society only existed in science fiction films, but in fact, human beings have never stopped the pursuit of "genetic optimization".
Just like at the premiere of the film, as part of the promotional campaign, they had published a "genetic engineering advertisement". As a result, thousands of people believed it to be true and called to ask for the help of DNA to transform their descendants.
It's funny and chilling.
To this end, Hawking has repeatedly made a warning to the "super human prophecy" ↓↓↓
Until 20 years later, this old film was revisited at the current "gene-edited baby" hotspot, combined with the absurdity of many years later.
It's more like a horror movie than inspirational.
The pursuit of "optimized people", the discrimination against "flawed people", and the rush to classifier social structure are all eternal topics in the past, present and future.
Back to the question at the beginning, what are you afraid of about this gene editing baby news?
At the Japanese release of "A Thousand Guns and a Shot", the passage that appeared at the end may give the answer -
"If we could have acquired these genetic modification techniques earlier, the following people might never have appeared:
Abraham Lincoln (Mars syndrome), Vincent Van Gogh (epilepsy), Albert Einstein (dyslexia), John F. Kennedy (Addison's), Rita Hayworth (Alzmer's), Ray Charles (primary glaucoma), Stephen Hawking (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), Jackie Joyna Kersey (asthma)..."
"Of course, another person who won't be born could be yourself."
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