Gattaca

The science fiction movie Gattaca portrayed a world I so do not want.  It failed dismally at the box office, but has been popular as a dvd..  It portrayed a world where children were manipulated to have the best hereditary traits of their parents.  The hero wanted to travel in space.  But he was deemed unfit to do so.  His parents had chosen to take their chances and he was born naturally, and was not perfect.
What gets me about that is the playing God.  We are not perfect and to demand it of people is being unreasonable.  It seems to me that these days so much is built on algorithms.  They would be great for perfect people, but people are not perfect.
What I loved about Gattaca was he fulfilled his dream, but it was only because of others, including someone who was a gatekeeper to the space craft, who recognised his imperfection but let him through.  Bad stuff happened, but I do not want to go there.
What really inspires me is people who overcome despite adversarial circumstances.  Whether they win or lose I can relate to that person.  I am attracted to autobiographies and stories of people who have come out the other side of difficulties.  Despite them being way better than I could ever be, that could be me.  It is their overcoming despite their imperfections that I can relate to.
It seems to me that trying to build a perfect race of people is to try and get an advantage.  It also creates two classes of people.  The perfect and the others.  I think we saw that sort of thing in Nazi Germany.  The Arian race was superior.  Another race was inferior.  They decided that the race they saw as inferior, had to be eliminated.
It is understandable why people would want to get rid of negative genetic hereditary pre-dispositions.  If cancer runs in the family that could go.  So too blindness and hearing problems.  I do wonder where it all ends though.  Perhaps not being good at maths is seen as a problem currently.  Besides I can’t help but think it is creating someone in my image.  Perhaps they were never going to be good at maths, but they were incredibly athletic and could make a gazillion dollars paying basketball.
I don’t want to mess with something that is beyond me.  Maybe people with more brains than me could deal with it, but personally I doubt it.  I don’t see it as an intelligence issue but a moral one.
Gattaca was a win for the little guy.  The normal guy.  The one like me, warts and all.