We sat comfortably on the couch in our house. It was around 8pm. The faint sound of the fish tank filter can be heard in the background. My mother (Nhan Phan) was the interviewee. She is 56 years old, and the fatigue of the day is apparent as she kicked her feet up and waited for me to begin.

To provide some context, Nhan immigrated from Vietnam to Australia when she was 18 years old, to escape the Vietnam war. She was raised in a traditional Chinese household, and thus still holds some conservative Chinese values (especially when it comes to health and the body).

On Attitudes Towards Enhancement and Genetic Modification

Q: Where do we draw the line in genetically modifying babies? What is your attitude toward plastic surgery?

A: This is a very tough question– I still think that if you discover that something isn’t right, and you correct it, that’s okay. Gene-modifying technology… in a way it’s good. But only to reduce suffering and cure disease. But plastic surgery I think is unnecessary… it’s too invasive –it harms the body. It’s more of a mental thing. If you want to look nice… it should come from your inner thoughts, your inner beauty.

(Designer DNA 2018)

To explain what Nhan is saying in terms of this graph from Designer DNA (2018):  she is comfortable with somatic (cells that die with the individual) and germline (cells that are passed onto the next generation) editing for purposes of therapy (curing disease and reducing suffering), but not with enhancement. This is a mindset shared by most people (Designer DNA 2018). This further enforces that to get to our scenario in 2040 (where germline enhancement is prolific), public attitudes towards somatic enhancement (plastic surgery) must change to be favourable.

On the topic of plastic surgery, and its rise in popularity (especially in Asia), Nhan adds, “I think it’s the parents, or society and the environment they were born in… all influencing a child. It all depends on how we raise our next generation. It begins with now.”  This suggests that Nhan believes that the increase in plastic surgery is a result of societal values changing in Asia.

These two insights were used to inform our back-casting process in the development of our scenario.

Technological Development

Q: “What is a technology you have seen transform in your lifetime?”

A: “I would have to say… blood testing. I didn’t have any since I came to Australia… since I had my first child, really. Early discovery of disease and prevention really became the focus of medicine.”

When asked about how she would predict this technology to develop in the future, Nhan didn’t have a clear answer. However, it was interesting to gain the insight that something as ubiquitous today as blood testing was only relatively recent.

References:

Designer DNA 2018, Explained, television program, Netlifx, viewed 6 Oct 2018.

1d. Prototype

Set in the year 2040 in China, our scenario is a dystopic future where perfection is the ultimate goal. Genetic modification and CRISPR technology has advanced and we are now able to genetically engineer our future children. This has allowed parents to provide genetic perfection as they are able to pick and choose the characteristics of their child. Even now in the  21^stcentury athletes have already been abusing science to boost their performance with “performance-enhancing drugs that were originally meant to treat people with disease”(Simmons 2008). As science progresses, more and more people will be interested in enhancing their physical appearance and abilities as it will be made accessible to those who can afford it.

This is a superficial future of excess and self-obsession and everyone strives for physical perfection. Following on from the group scenario and our concept of the perfect baby corporation – I wanted to create a product that would help people who weren’t genetically blessed at birth to also reach these high standards of beauty.

click here for design process:   initial designs and brainstorms

My prototype is a play on the television infomercials we are already exposed to for questionable health and beauty products. Having recently bought a back brace, I wanted to push this idea of a product used for correction not just of physical incapacities but that can correct physical appearances. In this future, with such a prominence on the way people look, this product will be successful as it is an alternative to plastic surgery, as China already has the third-largest market for cosmetic surgery. This dystopic conception creates major social inequality between those who can afford and those who can’t which further divides the classes. This product will be attractive to those in the latter category who want to compete with the elite class but do not have the means to have surgery.

presenting Perfect Face in class

My prototype – The perfect face – is essentially a face stretching brace that people can wear at home to lift and tighten their face. It has a double chin reducing strap, a cheek lifting strap and a frown line reducing strap to tighten all the right places and leave the customers with radiant and youthful. Customers can choose to wear all the straps or just target their ‘problem area’ with one strap. Coated with 24k gold – because we are in a future of excess – it also has anti-bacterial properties that helps reduce wrinkles, stimulates the skin cells and can even lighten your complexion. I also designed an advertisement for the Perfect Face as well as its packaging making it a realistic and commercial product for our dystopic, superficial future scenario.

Click here for advertising:  Perfect Face – A commercial product

 Reference:

 Simmons, D. 2008, ‘Genetic inequality: human genetic engineering’,Nature Education,vol. 1, no. 1

I created the advertising camapin as well as the packaging to go along with my prototype to make it more commercial to fit within our superficial future scenario.

Marketing advertisement that could be used in magazines or on public transport.

Box net I designed for the Perfect face packaging 

The year is 2035, where Chinese society has begun embracing genetic modification of humans, for cosmetic purposes – however only the wealthy elite can afford this. Beauty standards have risen, people have become more materialistic, equating beauty to success. In the years before, plastic surgery has become extremely common place (as attitudes towards enhancement through surgery must first become favourable before genetic modification for cosmetic purposes). What object would exist in the scenario? How could the design of said object express the world it exists in?

Initial Brainstorming:

The brainstorming of the Beautification Mask first began in class. I was considering the practical uses of the object, as any speculative object must have a practical/social ‘use’ to be able to critique the scenario it exists in (Dunne & Raby 2013).

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Initial sketches seen above.

I envisioned the mask to be able to shield your identity (to hide your face when you don’t have any makeup on, or are recovering from plastic surgery), and have some beautification features. Such features included climate control around the face (for the optimal environment for recovery from surgery), blocking UV and filtering out air pollutants.

Design Inspiration:

When developing my final design, I considered a few design precedents to be able to ground my prototype in reality and develop its aesthetic.

1. The Sheet Mask

(Hou 2018)

Sheet masks have become a ubiquitous beauty product in the modern day. They are face-shaped sheet fabrics soaked in serum, designed to stay on one’s face for around 10-20 minutes as a conditioning treatment for the skin. In recent years, the sheet mask has been seen around social media, with famous stars such as Gigi Hadid and Lady Gaga posting self-portraits in them (Hou 2018). The ridiculous look of a sheet mask on, and luxurious nature of these masks was the foundation of my prototype.

2. Cocoon

(Hiskey 2011)

The prototype, used for cosmetic surgery recovery, had to be a source of pride for the one wearing it. This was because in the scenario we developed, beauty is equated to success, therefore achieving beauty (i.e through plastic surgery), should be a celebrated/boasted about. Thus, the metaphor of a cocoon becomes appropriate in this context– the butterfly (human), hibernates and develops in the cocoon (the rehabilitation mask for the human). This is what inspired the aesthetic of the mask.

Making the Mask:

(shakefororigami 2017)

I followed a YouTube tutorial on how to make a Low Poly Mask. It had the structured aesthetic of a technologically developed face-mask. I used pink cardboard for the inside of the mask, to suggest softness, and pasted elastics on the inside (to represent absorbent mesh material as a carrier for the serum). Green and blue photo paper was used for the outside of the mask to suggest a shiny plastic-like material, and connote the aesthetic of a cocoon.

References:

Dunne, A. & Raby, F. 2013, Speculative everything : design, fiction, and social dreaming, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Hiskey D. 2011, CATERPILLARS “MELT” ALMOST COMPLETELY BEFORE GROWING INTO BUTTERFLIES IN THE CHRYSALIS, Today I Found Out, viewed 7 Oct 2018, <http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2011/10/caterpillars-melt-almost-completely-before-growing-into-butterflies-in-the-chrysalis >.

Hou K. 2018, What’s in your sheet mask?, The Cut, viewed 7 Oct 2018, <https://www.thecut.com/2018/03/the-ultimate-guide-to-sheet-masks.html >.

shakefororigami 2017, How to build a low poly mask, videorecording, Youtube, viewed 7 Oct 2018, < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ixWAO7ANGE >.

 

1c. Primary Research

Interview with Sandra Le

Today I sit down with Sandra Le a skin specialist at Mecca to discuss the rising beauty standards and the extremes lengths women (in particular) are willing to go for “ultimate beauty and perfection”. Sandra has been working at Mecca for two years and has been interested in makeup and beauty trends from a young age.

There has been a drastic change in beauty standards due to the saturation of social media imagery. The role social media plays is crucial in this industry as we are constantly exposed to images of beautiful people (natural or unnatural) leading to issues with body positivity and insecurity. Psychological research into plastic surgery has exposed that social media users now prefer photos of themselves (and ‘selfies’) rather than their “true image”(Gohritz et al. 2016). Beauty ideals have become more obvious as Sandra explains, “social media influencers and beauty gurus really impact on what today’s beauty standards are. They follow or make trends and influence their subscribers and followers” which ultimately impacts what society believes the beauty standard is.

At the frontier of this Instagram beauty sensation is the Kardashian family. Speculations surrounding their transformations as unnatural have not stopped people trying to achieve their naturally unattainable features. Sandra believes they’ve had a revolutionary impact on the world’s idea of beauty especially in regards to makeup and face and body modifications – even to the extreme of plastic surgery. The Kardashians travel the world giving makeup tutorials with their personal makeup artists, which has influenced others as Sandra points out, “a lot of the beauty gurus now get asked to recreate the Kardashians makeup looks, because so many people want to look like them”. Now, both Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner have their own multi-million dollar makeup brands so that others too can ‘achieve’ their look.

Kylie Lip Kit Fails

Image source: http://www.splinternews.com

In 2015, the Kylie Jennerlip kit challenge came out as a YouTube sensation where people would suck on a glass cup to try emulate the starlets plump pout resulting only in swollen lips. Kylie has led a change in the beauty industry and Sandra agrees “I think Kyle Jenner really changed both men and women’s views on lips, more people now want larger and plumped lips even going to extreme lengths like the lip kit challenge”The lengths people will go to these days to attain their ‘ideal’ beauty is dangerous and concerning as doctors warned against the body modification dare as it could lead to severe pain, swelling and bruising. Furthermore, doctors suggest using lipliner as an alternative to surgery which young people are far too quick to rush into these days with  twenty one year old Kylie Jenner as their role model. According to Sandra, there are new beauty products available now like the “Too Faced lip injection – which is a lip-gloss that you apply and it actually helps lips to look plump and full”.

Not only have makeup trends become more extreme, cosmetic surgery has now become a societal norm. Asia has the fastest-growing market for cosmetic surgery performing 23.6 million face and body cosmetic surgeries in 2016 with the most popular modifications being nose jobs, chin implants, facelifts and eyelid lifts (The Times of India, 2015). Beauty trends reach new extremes in Asia, with products and surgeries for eyelid lifting, face stretching and skin whitening, people are going to severe lengths to be “beautiful”. Sandra has told me of many strange customer experiences, even having customers asking for foundation 2-5 shades lighter than their natural skin tone. She says, “these customers are from different backgrounds mainly from Asia, who are between 35-65 years old, I think the reason why they prefer to look lighter because in their culture it’s a sign of royalty, money and beauty”. These measures have become so extreme and people now feel peer-pressured to conform to the beauty standards. There is nothing too dangerous for a face of ultimate perfection.

further research: Looking at cosmetic surgery in Asia

References:

Gohtritz, A., Haug, M., Oranges, C.M., Schaefer D.J. & Schaefer K.M. 2016, ‘The mirror effect on social media self-perceived beauty and its implications for cosmetic surgery’, International Open Access Journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, vol. 4, no. 11

The Times of India 2015, ‘Rise in cosmetic surgeries linked to social media’, The Times of India,29 December, accessed 12 October 2018, <http://go.galegroup.com.ezproxy.lib.uts.edu.au/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA438589116&v=2.1&u=uts&it=r&p=ITOF&sw=w>

UWIRE 2017, ‘Ideals of self-image and celebrities’ toxic influences’, UWIRE, 14 March, accessed 12 October 2018, <http://uwire.com/?s=UWIRE+Text&x=26&y=14&=Go&gt;

Throughout the weeks of coming up and the development of a future scenario, the act of prototyping has really allowed me to weigh out the likelihood of ideas to be implemented and the various choices in determining the plausibility of an outcome.

By looking beyond the year 2040, I have decided to delve into the potential creation of an artificial womb. The choice of coming to this decision was mainly fabricated by the two interviews that I conducted previously.

The outcome of my prototype after sketching possible ideas and manifesting various prototypes resulted to the ‘Incubabytor’.

Other ideas that I came up with included a chameleon cloak or suit that reveals a desired appearance of a person, wowza glasses that creates an ideal look for the world, a gene or substance injector that enables the improvement of gene selection and a face beautifier which sculpts the face to appear more beautiful.

By looking at the positive and negative factors of the various prototype ideas, I was able to cut down the ideas to one.

This ‘Do it yourself baby oven’, which is also known as an ‘Incubabetor’ or ‘Incubaetor’, explores the idea of ectogenesis.

By looking at a traditional incubator, ‘baby boxes’ and exisiting artificial wombs for animals, I considered the various constructions and shape of the ‘Incubabytor’. As the sole purpose of the ‘Incubabytor’ is to act as an artificial womb,

The initial prototypes that I had made were in the form of a rectangle and bag. This is where the rectangular box would imitate an incubator and the bag imitating artificial wombs for animals and the idea of the stork delivering a baby to your doorstep. Continuing the research within ectogenesis, I decided to make the final ‘Incubabytor’ in the shape of a cylindrical egg shape. The reason for this is formulised from the effective purpose of the prototype.

To allow a thorough representation of the prototype, I decided to make the model deconstructable. This allowed the multiple layers of the prototype to be removed and the user to have a better understanding of the device through the senses of sight and touch.

The final purpose of ‘Incubabytor’ prototype is to allow the successful course of carrying a baby through the early stages of growth to birth. It provides a solution to women who can’t carry children, the elimination of miscarriages, equality between men and women and LGBT community. Women would also not be put under the risk of any life threatening during labour, it eliminates the pain factor during birth and they would be able to continue to work.

 

In order to make sure that the mother and child bond is existent throughout pregnancy and not eliminated, the dome of the prototype adopts a technology that allows a person to register their touch, voice and smell. From here, once activated through your phone, the person will be able to communicate to the growing foetus with a touch of a button. Within the device, there is a gel like agent which contracts or expands around the foetus to mimic your touch. The person will also get notifications and regular updates of the foetus, whether it’d be growth or movement.

Becker, R. 2017, An artificial womb successfully grew baby sheep — and humans could be next, The Verge, viewed 03 October 2018, <https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/25/15421734/artificial-womb-fetus-biobag-uterus-lamb-sheep-birth-premie-preterm-infant&gt;

Interview with mothers

By looking into the relationship of mother and child through different stages of development and lifecycle, meeting both Linda and Diana at the comfort of their own homes, they allowed me to gain insight on their thoughts of the impacts of technology towards pregnancy and natural birth.

Linda is a mother who has two beautiful children (aged 3 and 5) and has undergone the impacts of postpartum depression (depression that occurs after giving birth).

J:Did you have any differences between your pregnancies? Between Lienna and Logan?

L:With Lienna, I tend to eat more junk food, sweeter food and just pigging out more. With Logan, I was craving salads and healthy food.

J:In terms of the whole process of getting pregnant and giving birth, is there any of it that you would change?

L:Not really, I guess. They were both really different. With Lienna, I gave birth naturally and with Logan, I had a C-section. I feel like I sort of preferred a C-section even though it was an emergency C-section because I didn’t feel any pain. It was a bit scary, because there was blood but there was no pain at all, because they gave me a lot of drugs. With Lienna, the contractions were the most painful bit. It’s like getting cramps and someone pulling your tummy together like this. *scrunches hands together* It was also harder with Lienna since she was my first child and as a result harder to loose weight as well. Especially with eating all that junk food and whatever you’re craving. With Logan, I was craving healthy food so it was okay.

J:In terms of in the future, there were technology advances, which would enable you not to carry the baby but still have the baby at the same time…

L:YES! I will accept! Because I wouldn’t have to gain weight and buy more clothes. I could just stick to the same size without worrying about new clothes and new everything.

—

Linda explained the differences between her two pregnancies. The main focus were the discomfort she had to endured with the pain of giving birth, change in body through weight gain and the need to spend money through the purchase of clothes, on top of the other necessary things that she needed to purchase due to pregnancy.

J:Would you feel as if there is a difference though with carrying the baby and experiencing the bond you create with your baby?

L:No, I don’t think so because the baby will still know your voice and they would know it’s you. They will feel you and smell you to know.

—

This was an interesting point, as Linda believes the connection between mother and child is affiliated with all senses, not only touch; and the natural instinct of a child and their mother is a connection not easily sabotaged and substituted.

 

Diana is seven months pregnant at the time of this interview. She shared her thought on pregnancy and the connection her and her husband Sevan shares with their baby.

J: In terms of your pregnancy so far, how would you describe the experience? Is there anything you would change?

D: It’s been a journey especially since this is my first child. It is amazing to be able to feel your baby move and kick inside of you. At first, she was quite shy in terms of kicking but eventually I was able to completely recognise when she was kicking. Same goes with my partner. When I felt her kick, I would tell him to put his palm on my belly to feel her kick. But she would stop as soon as he did. But eventually I think she is recognising his voice because she kicks for quite a while when he puts his hand on my belly.

I am stopping work soon and I wish my belly isn’t the reason for it. It would be nice to work longer and not have to worry about safety, would allow me to earn more money before she comes. Apart from that, I am quite nervous about when she decides to come out. I am planning to have her naturally, however, as I have heart problems, the doctors may decide to do an emergency C-section. I am just dreading the recovery time if that happens.

—

In Diana’s case, there is the yearn of not having to worry about miscarriage and the ability to continue work throughout her pregnancy. Perhaps, the idea of having an artificial womb would be a solution to her work and unique medical situation.

Living in a developed country, technology plays a vital part in our everyday life. This may be simply seen through the preferred method of documentation shifting from pen and paper to the use of mobile phones, laptops and tablets. Among the en route of two destinations, it is rare to find two individuals engaged in conversation. Instead, rows and rows of individuals prefer the company of music played through listening devices or finding out any updates of the day through social media. Drawing back to Ides’ (1993), the responses that we as humans make are on the basis of technology and the natural progression we seek. With our natural instinct of survival in mind and the process of natural selection, we have evolved to develop desired traits that are superior to others. Putting this in the context of love and yearn to correct the inequalities we are forced to deal with, technology is the chosen means to certain solutions. This under the guidelines that it will be provided safe and ethical to humans.

In a day and age where gender equality is increasingly advocated, some women are found to be ‘breaking the glass ceiling’ rather than choosing to enter motherhood. With this said, there need not be the loss of desire to bear offspring, but rather this just comes with the fear that it would not be made possible when the suitable time comes. Women and girls find themselves looking into other methods to fall pregnant in the hopes to overcome this unfortunate situation. This is where technology comes into play with the process of in vitro fertilisation.

According to IVF Australia (2018), in vitro fertilisation, or more widely known as IVF, is “a procedure, used to overcome a range of fertility issues, by which an egg and sperm are joined together outside the body, in a specialised laboratory”. Furthermore, “the fertilised egg (embryo) is allowed to grow in a protected environment for some days before being transferred into the woman’s uterus increasing the chance that a pregnancy will occur”. The success of IVF, though increasing, is still quite low and dependent on various factors such as age, risk and personal situation. This can be depicted in the movie Baby Mama. It explores the struggles of a single woman in her late thirties in the attempt to have a baby and the question of ethics.

This gamble to bypass biological inequality – early loss of fertility for women, is able to help some strive forward without needing to constantly worry about time constraints and societal expectations of delaying motherhood.

Similarly, in My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult, the book explores the options within genetic modification, as a technique to create a sibling with chosen potential desired genetic characteristics to safe a girl suffering from leukemia.

As a result, it is evident that we live in a world that is yet to accept the entirety of genetic modification, in terms of ethical and safety reasons. This is further explored in our scenario and shifts in the impacts it has on society. At the same time, we have not completely rejected the likelihood of genetic modification becoming a reliable source to existing or upcoming issues in society.

Only time will tell.

 

Ihde, Don 1993, ‘Technology,’ Philosophy of Technology: An introduction, New York: Paragon House, pp.47-64.

Youtube 2016, Designer Babies My Sisters Keeper, viewed 16 September 2018, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bLHzf0fl1Y&gt;.

 IVF Treatment & Procedures, viewed 16 August 2018, <https://www.ivf.com.au/fertility-treatment/ivf-treatment>.

BBC World Service – The Documentary 2018, The Great Egg Freeze, viewed 16 August 2018, <https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csxfj0>.

Youtube 2018, Baby Mama, viewed 22 August 2018, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUsTb5TWymY>.

Throughout the course of time, the use of technology has been proven to influence the manifestation of the process of love and the way we love. Don Ides (1993) notes that the ‘transformative power of humans enhanced by technology’, which alludes the relationship between humans and our surroundings is affected by technology. This progressing trajectory, whether it establishes positive or negative effects on society, is based on the blurred line between what is human and nature, and what is technology and mechanical. As we are trying to meet the foundations and basis of human relationships and fundamental needs of human beings, at the same time as advancing from them, there is a contingency of the dependence of technology. This is where futuring plays a role in providing multi faceted sides of change and an abundance of different scenarios. Inayatullah (2008 p6), states “that, while we cannot predict a particular future always accurately, by focusing on a range of alternatives, we can better prepare for uncertainty, indeed, to some extent embrace uncertainty.” Thus, humans ourselves are the fundamental creators and deciders to the future and satisfactory standards of communication.

By raising our interests and concerns about the future, our group decided to look into the development of genetic modification for a scenario in the year 2040. As new techniques are introduced within genetic modification, there is a range of potential applications discovered and as a result, the emergence of ethical, lawful and technological challenges. According to Simmons (2008), the use of genomics can be explored through “testing for traits unrelated to disease”, “building better athletes with gene doping” and the application of eugenics through “creating designer babies”. Although these methods are all hypothetical, the development of potential ideas is a direct depiction of Inayatullah’s (2008 p6) theory of a mutual endeavor to continue to move forward, even at times where we are unaware of it occurring.

With the idea of genetic modification on animals initially introduced by the creation of Dolly the Sheep, just two decades later, the creation of two primates cloned from a non-embryonic cell raises the question of whether it will be possible to clone our own human species in the future.  Looking at our scenario under the circumstances of having variables set in place as controllers, it would seem entirely feasible. However, due to misperception and lack of understanding towards the science behind genetic modification, a greater benefit towards this technology is in need to be harbored. Perhaps, with continued development and the demonstration of precision in results, widespread acceptance and the strive to survival; there will be the alleviation of fear of speculated consequences.

Ihde, Don 1993, ‘Technology,’ Philosophy of Technology: An introduction, New York: Paragon House, pp.47-64.

Inayatullah, S., 2008. Six pillars: futures thinking for transforming. Foresight, 10 (1), 4-21.

Simmons, Daniella 2008, ‘Genetic inequality: Human Genetic Engineering, Nature Education, viewed 10 October 2018, <https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/genetic-inequality-human-genetic-engineering-768&gt;

Youtube 2018, Meet the First Monkey Clones Of Their Kind | National Geographic, viewed 22 August 2018, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjcMXkwPf-0&gt;

Before undertaking this subject, I didn’t consider the future as critically as now. My view of the future was very optimistic. I believed technological advances would contribute to higher standards of living globally, through improvements in transport and safety (such as self-driving cars), medicine (using gene technology) and optimised care and education systems. This vision was quite vague as well. This began to change as I progressed through this subject and researched more into gene-editing technology and attitudes for our scenario.

Potential Misuse/Negative Impacts of Technology

As mentioned before, I thought of technological advancement in an extremely positive light. I didn’t consider the other side of this – how more advanced technology has a greater potential to be used unethically and to perpetuate unhappiness. This changed after being introduced to a speculative design example in class:

Keiichi Matsuda’s prototype HYPER-REALITY (2016) broadened my perspective on how technology can be abused. He warns of the dangers of merging virtual and physical reality, especially in a media-saturated capitalist society. HYPER-REALITY inspired speculation in me on how screen-based media would evolve in the future and if our interactions with others and the world would suffer as a result.

Another prime example of this is found in the Black Mirror episode, Hated in the Nation (2016):

The Autonomous Drone Insect or ‘ADI’ prevented widespread environmental collapse by acting as substitute bees. Their sensors and pattern-recognition software was originally developed to identify correct flowers to pollinate, however end up being used instead for extreme government surveillance, homicide and eventually, the genocide of almost 400,000 people.

Being exposed to such speculative and pessimistic pieces, my vision of the future began to become more sceptical and cynical. My assumption that technological advancements would only positively impact human living was challenged.

Biopolitics in the Future

For our scenario, we wanted to investigate how advancements in gene-editing technology would affect society. Much of our research focused on CRISPR/Cas9 technology, revolutionary for the fact that is significantly cheaper and more efficient than previous methods of altering DNA (Crossley 2018). You can read more about why this is, and how it works here.

This video by Kurzgesagt (2016) also informed most of my research into the gene-editing technology. The technology, at first will be focused on fighting diseases – the video speculates that in a decade’s time, it will be possible to cure viruses such as HIV and herpes (as they hide in human DNA). Thus, CRISPR has the potential to cure cancer and eliminate genetic diseases.

However, as mentioned above, I’ve become more sceptical to great technological advancements. As the technology develops and becomes safer and widely adopted, more people will come to accept genetic modification. Choosing to NOT genetically modify your child may become unethical – this mirrors attitudes towards prenatal screening today, causing many children with disabilities to be aborted (Elshtain 2005).

Now, my vision of the future is very uncertain. There will have to be much discussion as gene-technology develops and we are faced with the questions: If disease and disabilities can be eradicated, does it become wrong or ‘irresponsible’ to foster a disabled life, to design our descendants, to choose to be elderly? What does it mean to be ‘human’ and will this definition change?

References:

Crossley M. 2018, What is CRISPR gene editing, and how does it work?, The Conversation, Sydney, viewed 7 Oct 2018, <https://theconversation.com/what-is-crispr-gene-editing-and-how-does-it-work-84591 >.

Elshtain J. B. 2005, ‘The Body and the Quest for Control’, in H. W. Baillie & T. K. Casey, & A. L. Caplan (eds), Is Human Nature Obsolete? : Genetics, Bioengineering, and the Future of the Human Condition, 1^st edn, MIT Press, Cambridge, pp. 155- 176.

Hated in the nation 2016, Black Mirror, television program, Netflix, 21 October, viewed 7 October 2018.

Keiichi Matsuda 2016, HYPER-REALITY, videorecording, Youtube, viewed 7 October 2018, < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJg02ivYzSs >.

Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell 2016, Genetic Engineering Will Change Everything Forever – CRISPR, videorecording, Youtube, viewed 7 October 2018, < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAhjPd4uNFY> .