Tuesday, March 03, 2009

21st Century Dystopia awaits

Utterly without moral compass:

The Fertility Institutes' clinic service gives the chance to select physical traits through "cosmetic medicine". Prospective parents can request a son with brown eyes, black hair and a dark complexion, or a pale, blonde, green-eyed daughter.

Jeff Steinberg, who was in the team involved in the birth in Britain in 1978 of Louise Brown, the world's first test tube baby, is undeterred. "I live in LA and everyone here wants to have a straight nose and high cheekbones and are perfectly happy to pay for cosmetic surgery," he said.

"I understand the trepidation and concerns, but we cannot escape the fact that science is moving forward. If I have to get smacked around by people who think it is inappropriate, then I'm willing to live with that."

Shorter: I don't care. I am omnipotent and can do what I want. I am above the human race.

I despair for the world that awaits my children. I despair for our absurd postethical society and the sociopathic players who stroll through it waving their technological determinism around as they gleefully tear apart everything that makes us human.

I despair for us and the pointlessness of political activism when the most overt shifts in our egalitarian base slip through with barely a murmer.

I guess Obama's too busy brushing up on his rhetoric and polishing his bloody certificates from Harvard to take some leadership on an issue less obvious.

(Note: extreme ranting trimmed on edit, I'm doing my best to contain the verbage, sometimes it's hard!)

2 comments:

marc said...

eww, gross. I've certainly heard about the "now you can choose" technology/potential. that doesn't change how disturbing this is!

on a lighter note, i hear you with the editing. that took me a long time at great risk of sounding simplistic. good job though.

Splatters said...

Truly revolting. Sooner or later it will be possible for people to change their characteristics in real time, so the individual can deal with serious disease or trivial cosmetics after they are born, assuming anyone that is less than perfect would be able to slip through the system and be allowed to be born.