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this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2023
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Star Trek
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I think this episode was really good...if the issue of discrimination was over literally anything other than a social practice of genetic modification. Star Trek's hardline stance on linking social genetic modification to eugenics is one of the things that I've really appreciated, especially as corrosive "thought experiments" about it have sort of entered back into the discourse. I don't think you can practice genetic manipulation on a society wide level without it going very bad very fast. At least I don't think humans can, and the episode doesn't really make a case for why the Illyrians are better at it.
The core message of this episode is so important, especially at this current moment, and the right of people to self determination and to safety and security in their identities and differences is right at the heart of Star Trek, so I'm glad to see SNW continue to affirm it. But...just...there are reasons, real reasons, with lots of horrific history behind them, for why normalizing genetic manipulation in the name of improving or "fixing" populations of people is still a real third rail for me, and I wish the episode had figured out how to engage with that specifically a bit more. This episode does not actually convince me that in the far future utopia of the Federation the dangers of genetic modification as a practice have been addressed, and in absence of that "It used to happen and its bad, but stuff is better now and can't we relax a little" is a bit...hollow
I think you could fix this for me if you made it so that Illyrian genetic modification was something that members of their species voluntarily entered into in adolescence or early adulthood. Make it more of a practice that people voluntarily keep up and less of a program that their society runs and the whole thing works way better for me. That also makes the loose analogy to transgender people in our current time, and really just the right of bodily autonomy and self determination, way more coherent.
Thank you! Came on here because the episode left such a bad taste in my mouth. I'm a queer person with multiple disabilties, one of which is known to be genetic. Using genetic engineering as the metaphor for marginalized groups felt like a trojan horse to garner public sympathy for genetic engineering.
And through making genetic engineering acceptable then we're opening up the world to letting parents engineer the gay out of their children and to engineer the neurodivergence out of their children.
Instead of being a story about accepting marginalized groups to me it feels like they're actively pushing for a technology that can be used to wipe out marginalized groups. Why did the writers do this? They literally did not have to set this up or write it this way.
Also the references to the Eugenics Wars as though they are somehow irrelevant today just did not at all sit well with me as somebody who is high risk for covid. This whole pandemic the drumbeat has been "only those with pre-existing conditions will die" and we have been fighting for our lives to get the most minimal public health measures and the ableds just keep putting their conviences over our lives. Eugenics is still here, it's still going strong, but we're just not calling it eugenics anymore.
I think it's really hard to philosophically (which I think is needed as a base to write a law coherently, though I may be the only one) draw a line between medicine and "eugenics" at least as Sci-Fi explores the concepts. And I have real difficulty seeing why it's not just a naturalistic fallacy to say evolution is good but genetic engineering for adaptation or reducing disease or even enhancing abilities is bad.
I see all sorts of problems with government forcing some sort of improvements or discrimination a la Gattaca. I have more trouble saying parents can't make an informed choice however - the alternative seems similar to the Texas shooting where the police prevented parents from trying to save their kids. If there's a treatment or prevention from a disease that causes horrible deaths at young ages - it feels a lot like swinging in the other direction way to far to say - well, we don't want to "wipe out" the minority that dies horribly at 5 from this genetic disease that we otherwise could cure.
I suppose the other point of contention I'd have is I don't have a belief system that says anyone is meant to be in some cosmic sense. So I don't feel a sense of community around being fat let's say. If I had a magic wand to genetically ensure my potential kids could never get fat - I'd think I was doing them a favor, kind of like the teeth sealing that came out too late to prevent cavities for me. I think it's horrible to treat currently fat people poorly, but to let parents decide to stop that from happening to currently not existing people? I struggle to see who we're harming.
Historically, Star Trek has been rather on the side of no cosmic plan, though the newer shows are muddier on that. I don't know if the episode was claiming that the main reason the Federation was against genetic engineering was because it was seen as an "afront against God", but they did call that out in one line. But even if the show was making a religious argument, that's very weak to those of a different or no religion, and the new shows also make it clear the Federation is good with lots of different faiths and atheists too.