Last night I watched the movie Gattaca. I had never heard of it until Scott Alexander wrote about it on his blog Slate Star Codex. I really enjoyed the movie although I think the message the filmmakers were going for was a bit hollow.
The premise: In a society where parents can control the genetics of their offspring, a non-genetically engineered man poses as a man with “high genes” to become an astronaut and fly to Titan.
Apparently, at its 1997 release it dramatically raised the visibility of a genetic engineering future. Today, I hear about trans-humanism fairly often (that’s also partially a result of running in weirdo-libertarian circles)
My attitude towards genetic engineering is that of my attitude towards pretty much all technology: sounds great, I’m sure there will be some downsides, but with enough time and trial & error individuals will put it to good use. While I think a society as depicted in Gattaca, where you can’t get a high-status job without high-status genes, is far-fetched, I could see the general thrust being true.
But I don’t think you’ll see employers taking peoples’ blood samples and running them through a computer (beep boop beep) to make decisions. You’ll still still be looking for who gets the job done best and, yes, genetics will help put people ahead in a lot of situations. But if genetics isn’t everything even in professional sports, I sure don’t see it being everything in astronautics. Or any other field.
You should read Scott’s blog post. If you’re terrified by the future presented in Gattaca, look around you for the similarities we hold today.