Escape Artists

Escape Pod => Episode Comments => Topic started by: Russell Nash on October 12, 2007, 07:49:22 AM

Title: EP127: Results
Post by: Russell Nash on October 12, 2007, 07:49:22 AM
EP127: Results (http://escapepod.org/2007/10/11/ep127-results/)

By Kristine Kathryn Rusch (http://www.kristinekathrynrusch.com/).
Read by Heather Welliver (of A.D.D.Cast (http://www.addcast.net/) and Grailwolf’s Geek Life (http://www.grailwolf.com/)).
First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction (http://www.asimovs.com/), December 2000.
 Special closing music: “Faithful” (http://music.podshow.com/music/listeners/artistdetails.php?BandHash=318a46a0317f81146822f0893994dff6) by The Shillas (http://www.myspace.com/theshillas).

She should have called her folks last night. They paged her three separate times after the test. But she wanted to wait until she had results, until she had something new to say instead of going over the same old arguments. She’s twenty-five, old enough to make her own choices. Old enough to make her own mistakes.

Her parents thought the testing was mistake number one. It certainly was expensive enough, but the doctor said he advised it for any couple about to get married. If they’re genetically incompatible, he’d said, they have the choice of terminating the relationship, planning for an expensive future, or tying tubes — practicing irreversible infertility, as one of her friends called it.

Options. That’s what her parents don’t get. It’s all about options.

And results.


Rated PG. Contains serious themes involving family planning and childbearing.


(http://escapepod.org/wp-images/podcast-mini4.gif)
Listen to this week’s Escape Pod! (http://escapepod.org/podpress_trac/web/246/0/EP127_Results.mp3)
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: ajames on October 12, 2007, 12:58:56 PM
Beautifully written, compelling characters, intriguing story. 

The emphasis on IQ distracted me from the story a bit - what exactly would an IQ of 120 or more mean in a society this obsessed with having perfect children?  But otherwise loved the story.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: TechNoir on October 12, 2007, 01:01:39 PM
someone once said that scifi is not about the future but the present. This is a strong example of this. The emotional note of this story resonates with anyone who has looked with uncertainty on their future. Do I have kids? Will I make a good father? Can I afford them? Will my kids have my problems? 

This story takes that fear and projects with the very real changes in what we will be able to do soon in medical testing. This was a really good story and I enjoyed it.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: Russell Nash on October 12, 2007, 01:47:08 PM
The emphasis on IQ distracted me from the story a bit - what exactly would an IQ of 120 or more mean in a society this obsessed with having perfect children? 

I think the point was that in this world 120 has now become the new average.  If they don't have at least 120, the kid's an idiot.

Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: Russell Nash on October 12, 2007, 01:57:47 PM
This story shows what is probably the inevitable future of having kids.  It will be the conclusion of decades of the Lake Wobegon effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Wobegon_effect).  Everybody thinks their kid is special.  In the future they'll garantee that their kid IS special.

On a side note I liked that the story seemed to say that brown hair and blue eyes are preferred.  My kids and I all have brown hair and blue eyes. ;D
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: tdmca on October 12, 2007, 02:09:50 PM
I have always found stories like this disturbing.  I have a four year old son.  Yes he has some things that in a world like the one in the story would see as undesirable, but he is my son, I love him and there is nothing that will change that.  It would be a shallow person that would look at their child and think "I wish you were smarter", "better looking" or "more athletic".  Children are not things for us to shop for and find the "best" one.  They are apart of us even with their imperfections.

After a hard day there is no better cure than his smile and a hug.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: raygunray on October 12, 2007, 02:39:46 PM
My wife and I are planning a child, the idea of which is revolutionary.  We are planning a child like we would plan an addition to the living room or a trip overseas.  My parents didn't plan for me, nor did their parents.

This story hits home for me because it encapsulates my fears of unplanned effects of having a child.  Will he/she be smart or slow.  Will he/she inherit the touch of madness rife in one side of my family and somewhat native to me.  Will he/she have one of those rare diseases which means he/she will have little chance to live to adulthood.  Then I read the papers about sex predatators and the multiplicity of dangers in our world. And will the world end soon and bringing a child into the End of All Things is indirect sadism (I can thank my Pentacostal upbringing for that.)?

Someone upthread said such concerns are shallow, but really they are deep felt.  We want the best children we can have.  Once genetic resequencing technology becomes a reality, you can expect affluent parents to upgrade their child to near perfection.  And poor and middle income parents would mortgage themsleves into abject poverty just so their offspring can be the next Nobel Laurete.
   
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: Outcast on October 12, 2007, 03:24:53 PM
I can understand the application of genetic research to help eliminate many of the diseases that make life hell for kids.  However, it saddens me to think that our society would have the gaul to use that same benevolent intention for the technology to turn pre-natal clinics into Build-A-Kid Workshops.

This story actually brought to mind those parents who push their kids obsessively...you know, the ones you see on the news from time to time, screaming at coaches and referees because little Johnny's not getting the play time the parents think he deserves?  Parents like that would be all over technology like this, building the next Wayne Gretzky or Michael Jordan just so they can show him/her off to their peers.

I'd love to have kids someday.  My wife and I were nearly blessed until a miscarriage, but we're still hopeful.  While I'd like to know that my child will be free of diseases or disabilities that could hold him back, I'm also ready to accept whatever comes, because bringing kids into the world isn't about competing with your peers to see who has the 'better' or 'smarter' child.  It's about two people loving each other enough to do it.  Sometimes that love is a challenge, but it's worth it because of the reward in the end.

Hmmm...don't know if this is really a review of the story or just a rant.  Meh...first post ever...I'll get better as I go along :)
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: tdmca on October 12, 2007, 06:59:28 PM
Someone upthread said such concerns are shallow, but really they are deep felt.  We want the best children we can have.  Once genetic resequencing technology becomes a reality, you can expect affluent parents to upgrade their child to near perfection.  And poor and middle income parents would mortgage themsleves into abject poverty just so their offspring can be the next Nobel Laurete.

Ray, I think that there is a difference between what you are going through and what I was referring to.  When we were planning on having our son we were concerned about what the impact would be.  I think that is part of going into it with our eyes open.  I want the best for my son and did so before he was born.

My comment was more looking at the child after they were born and wishing for them to be more than they are.  Before my son was born I feared that he would have some fatal illness or debilitating illness, but I knew that I would love him regardless.  In the end it turns out that he is short and has some skin issues.  There are much worse things, and he is happy and, at the end of the day the fact that he is happy makes me happy.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: contra on October 12, 2007, 08:04:24 PM
I have always found stories like this disturbing.  I have a four year old son.  Yes he has some things that in a world like the one in the story would see as undesirable, but he is my son, I love him and there is nothing that will change that.  It would be a shallow person that would look at their child and think "I wish you were smarter", "better looking" or "more athletic".  Children are not things for us to shop for and find the "best" one.  They are apart of us even with their imperfections.

After a hard day there is no better cure than his smile and a hug.

I don't have a kid.  A l;ittle young IMO, and I'm not wher enear ready to settle down with anyone.

I agree with this point though. 
While I do see why people would want all the info from the story; I don't think they should.  The ones who are shallow would make the smartest or prettiest kid, or at least try.  And sincethe whole story wasn't definates... only chances... if the kid turned out flawed, the kid would take the blame from that sort of parent.  It happens in todays world; in a world where you custom the Father to the kid you want, it would happen more.

Also there is the arguument about genetics and diversity, and compatability would recuce that, as things that were seen as bad would be removed. 

And people are influenced by fashon.  Look at how childrens names change over time... Imagine whole generations getting more athletic if a year previously the country did well at the olympics.  Or you have the failed parents who live their dreams through their kids, or at least try to; as someone pointed out above.  Pushy parents...

Basically,,, and i'm ranting for, and for that i'm sorry; there are far too many people who would abuse this, and not realise they were abusing it.  The form that this took in the story by the father was only one way; there are a thousand others that worry me more.

The story was good.  The potential father was an ass, but a relistic one.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: jeffwik on October 12, 2007, 10:46:37 PM
I don't know if it was the rhythm of the story or the rhythm of the reader, but this was the first story I turned off partway through (at just over eight minutes in) in a long time... I'm tempted to say, ever.  It reminded me of Story Hour at a children's library, and not in a good way.  I can't comment on the content of the story because I found the aural experience so unpleasant.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: Thaurismunths on October 12, 2007, 10:54:00 PM
Terrific story, poor ending.

It was well written and wonderfully read.
I was disappointed that the author chose to re-state the point while still in character. The piece was written more than well enough to not need such a blunt summarization.

On to the meat...
Shwankie and I have "What If..." about children and all the testing we can do. We both agree that we'd like to be screened for major, serious genetic issues, and that we would like early pregnancy tests to make sure the child will be born in as good a health as is reasonable. We both support early term abortion for serious problems... but what is "serious"?
A 100% chance of autism could mean anywhere between mild Asperger's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome) to full blown Autism. Is a 30% of Lou Gehrig's acceptable? Is 40%?
What if we get to know the eye color before birth?
What ramifications come with reducing the genetic variation of the gene pool like this?
There's a fine line between taking acceptable precautions to safeguard the wellbeing of your child, and ham-stringing Mother Nature.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: ajames on October 12, 2007, 11:13:23 PM
The emphasis on IQ distracted me from the story a bit - what exactly would an IQ of 120 or more mean in a society this obsessed with having perfect children?

I think the point was that in this world 120 has now become the new average.  If they don't have at least 120, the kid's an idiot.



That was what distracted me.  IQ scores are normative and frequently recalibrated. So if 120 were the new average, well, it would be 100.  See http://www.audiblox.com/iq_scores.htm (http://www.audiblox.com/iq_scores.htm).  If an IQ of 120 means the testee is smarter than all but 9% of the population, but many people won't even have a child unless their IQ is 120 or higher, how does that work, exactly?

This certainly was a minor distraction, and didn't keep me from enjoying this story immensely, disturbing as its message was to me.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: Monty Grue on October 12, 2007, 11:37:50 PM
I think the story fails for a number of reasons, but mostly for a tiresomely sentimental attitude towards children and an absurd analogy of a near genius level IQ somehow being sub par.  However, if we take the premise of a 120 IQ being the new average with a subsequent increase of complexity in society and living demands fully utilizing the advancement of intelligence, then desiring not to have less than average or just average children can be better understood.  For example, suppose a couple today were to receive a reliable analysis reporting their children would have a 46% chance of have an IQ above 100, then that might give them pause to reconsider.  That is a 54% chance of having an IQ less than or maybe equal to 100.  If potential parents were bluntly told your kid will have a 54% of an IQ below 100, many would stop and rethink having that child.  While many people have happy lives with an average intelligence, it isn't unreasonable for parents to want something more than average for their kids, especially if other options are readily available, and there isn't even a bun in the oven yet. 

Nevertheless, the whole 120 IQ thing in the story just did work, and came off absurdly.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: Russell Nash on October 13, 2007, 07:04:47 AM
The question really is: where is the line?  What is acceptable to genetically "weed out". 

My cousin died last year from cystic fibrosis.  His entire life was a battle.  He ended up having a pretty good life, but with far too many long term stays in the hospital and other "inconvienences". 

My brothers and I were able to screen for CF.  I think everyone agrees that was the smart thing to do.  But where is the line between serious illness and not serious illness and frivilous parental demands?  If you could make your child healthier, smarter, or more athletic, what parent would say no? 

These are all questions that we avoided, but only just avoided.  In a few years there will be a much longer list of genetic screenings.  By the time my kids have kids designer babies will be possible and probably relatively cheap.  Then what?
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: bolddeceiver on October 13, 2007, 07:45:46 AM
The numbers didn't ring mediocre to me.  "36% chance of having artistic talent, acting talent, musical talent... 24% chance of having strong athletic ability" sounds pretty good to me.  Maybe it's a question of degree, how you define "strong athletic ability," or "artistic talent." Or maybe it's a question of changing standards.

Either way, this story really didn't do it for me.  It seemed like a trite rehash of an overdone scenario, with nothing new to offer.  And the stereotypical gender dichotomy was completely predictable from the start.  I guess this bothers me the way some people were bothered by Nancy Kress's stories Nano Comes to Clifford Falls and Margin of Error.  The female viewpoint character with the deep-hidden maternal feelings, siding with the natural order; the man who just doesn't get those feelings, and choses to side with newfangled technology; it was all just too obvious.  This story just didn't seem to offer anything new.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: webrat on October 13, 2007, 09:20:09 AM
this story hit me on a personal level, as i was screened for the 'probability' of having a child with severe learning disability. the test was rather basic, but the result was that at the age of 15, i was told that i should never have kids.
  i've grown, and have accepted this, but for a different reason that this story doesn't touch upon, the child's welfare. whilst you could look at someone with a learning disability (an extreme example, but apt i feel) as a 'burden' on society, why not turn it around and look at the society which cannot seem to tolerate difference or exceptions?
  my personal opinion is that it would be unfair to the child to bring them into a society which, despite wonderful intentions by a good few, can also be disfavourable towards them. from lack of funding to services, to having to deal with people on the street staring or whispering, to minimal opertunities for work and recreational activities.
  so that is out world, at the moment. it is getting better, little by little, but at this current time, i have no intention of subjecting a child who may or may not be disabled to it.
  moving back to the story. again i feel the intolerance displayed for average doesn't really endear me to the characters nor the society they inhabit. i would ave liked to have more interactionfrom the parents, who might have been able to express the differing opinions and give the story a little more balance, and make the lead characters change of heart a bit more realistic.
 
enjoyable, emotive but i feel i would have been drawn to a longer short story better, possibly deleving into the wealth gap between those who could afford the genectic modifications and those could not, the stigma of being imperfect (or in this case average) and the reprecusions of having limited genetic deversity (ie, a disease affecting everyone with the non-alcoholic gene implanted or similar).
  lots of room for exspansion, and such a story deserves credit. you don't give second thought to a world that didn't grab you.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: ajames on October 13, 2007, 03:04:23 PM
The question really is: where is the line?  What is acceptable to genetically "weed out". 

Precisely.  And wherever we draw the line today, I have no doubt it will be drawn quite further out in the next few generations. Right now much of the discussion here has focused on developmental disabilities and debilitating conditions.  I expect it won't be long before the general consensus is that you take reasonable steps to prevent such conditions [at least the most severe among them], up to and including abortion [though there will always be those who do not accept abortion under any circumstances].  I wonder if by then the main discussion won't have switched to some of the topics in this story, and some others.  What if tests can predict the future sexual orientation of a fetus or a potential fetus?  I am reminded strongly here of one of the flash stories in the contest earlier this year, the theme of which was that the world at present is full of discrimination against those who do not fall in the mainstream, and as a parent you can be certain that your child will have a more difficult row to hoe if they are not heterosexual.  But does that mean we stop trying to change society?  That we all become more or less the same rather than face adversity, or have our children face adversity?  Difficult questions, to say the least. 
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: Czhorat on October 13, 2007, 03:44:41 PM
I very much liked this story. The characters and their relationship rang true to me. Although it was a relationship that ultimately fell apart, I felt that Ms. Rusch did a better job of describing a romantic relationship than, for example, Silverberg did in "N+1, N-1". I agree with those who say that the percentages felt a bit off, but I saw that as part of the story's charm; this couple wanted the extraordinary. Just a fifty-fifth chance of birthing a super-genius wasn't enough. They wanted as close to a sure thing as possible. In many ways they were struggling along, but society and the media and modern education had shown them that perfection was possible, so that's the target at which they were shooting.

For me there was a bit of irony in that the awaited-for results did give the narrator a real answer, but it was about her present relationship more than about the not-yet-conceived offspring. She learned something about how her mate saw himself and, more importantly, about what he wanted in an offspring. We saw a child as a reflection of himself and his own status more than as a new individual. To me this realization, even if not explicitly stated, was the real "result".
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: Loz on October 14, 2007, 05:17:34 PM
I should have disliked this story a lot more than I actually did, yet again we have a relationship story between a man and a woman, yet again it works on the assumption that marriage and babies is the norm future development for that relationship and yet again, the man falls short of what the woman is looking for.

Yet, strangely this story didn't annoy me, in fact I quite liked this story, even though the theme wasn't that original either. I've passed the age my father was when he and my mother had their first child (me) and, although I've chosen a different path to them, and don't regret that choice, I am still sometimes aware of the hand of heteronormative conformity asking me where MY wife and MY children are, and sometimes I forget for a second I have nothing to apologise for. So I guess this resonates with me for slightly different reasons.

I think the story did have it's flaws, it did seem that society was already segregated between the genetic haves and have nots, the narrator seems completely oblivious to her prejudice against the less-than-perfect even after she has to face the prospect that her assumed right to breed would add to them. In order to make her point the author makes her male figure too much of a jerk, I can't believe that he'd rather break up than consider trying to save for genetic modification, or why don't they consider themselves like couples that can't conceive, and adopt? Surely it's possible to write short science fiction stories, about relationships, without having to make one of the characters such a jerk that you question what the other character saw in them in the first place?
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: tdmca on October 15, 2007, 02:26:52 AM
The question really is: where is the line?  What is acceptable to genetically "weed out". 
Precisely.  And wherever we draw the line today, I have no doubt it will be drawn quite further out in the next few generations. Right now much of the discussion here has focused on developmental disabilities and debilitating conditions.  I expect it won't be long before the general consensus is that you take reasonable steps to prevent such conditions [at least the most severe among them], up to and including abortion [though there will always be those who do not accept abortion under any circumstances].  I wonder if by then the main discussion won't have switched to some of the topics in this story, and some others.  What if tests can predict the future sexual orientation of a fetus or a potential fetus?  I am reminded strongly here of one of the flash stories in the contest earlier this year, the theme of which was that the world at present is full of discrimination against those who do not fall in the mainstream, and as a parent you can be certain that your child will have a more difficult row to hoe if they are not heterosexual.  But does that mean we stop trying to change society?  That we all become more or less the same rather than face adversity, or have our children face adversity?  Difficult questions, to say the least. 

The question of where the line falls is a hard one and I think, as the discussions here prove, is very personal.  Regardless of what the future holds for this type of testing I think that it will be a hard battle in society as well as in the family.  My wife I decided against some of the testing for our son before he was born.  We asked ourselves if the answer would change anything.  Ultimately the answer was No.  We would love and care for our son.  Even if it meant a struggle or a shortened life.  Every life is important.  Even at the age of 4 my son have had a major impact on our entire families.  Brought out things in myself and my Father in Law that most would not have seen before.  He has changed us for the better.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: lowky on October 15, 2007, 04:35:38 AM
overall I enjoyed it but i did find the underlying eugenics of it somewhat unsettling.  Seems like the author has a very negative view of genetic testing, and some of the manipulation being done to correct congenital defects in the womb.  I suppose creating the "perfect child" is the next step or the extreme of repairing heart defects, and testing for MS etc, just seemed as if the author felt we shouldn't be doing these things at all.  Preachy in a non-preachy way if you know what I mean. 
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: gedion_ki on October 15, 2007, 03:49:42 PM
For me what this story offered up was an examination of the double edged sword of technological advancement. We can always know more about something, sometimes it seems the amount we can dig into the status of a subject is ten times as deep as the subject its self. Yet knowing more doesn't actually bring any great happiness or comfort.

As a father I can recall those months before my children were born and the times when I would wonder, will there be something wrong? I have four children, three living and of the three pregnancies two had something wrong. One had a test come back indicating the significant possibility of sever mental deficiencies, happily he is old enough now to say that he is fine. The second troubled pregnancy we discovered were twins and also discovered that they had a very rare problem which resulted in serious imbalances in the uterus. We lost one of the twins and looking back at the percentages, both boys should have died, 85%.

I guess what I took from the story is that knowing the numbers is simply a major way to over think life and there by take no chances. What a bland life to take no chances and to live life according to the numbers! What would I have done if I had known the odds on all of it before hand? Not sure, but in the end I am thankful for the ignorance.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: DDog on October 15, 2007, 04:55:52 PM
It's funny, I listen to a story and I think it's okay, or just enjoy the ability to listen to it even if I'm not particularly thrilled by it, and then I read the comment threads here and find myself liking it less because of what other people have said about it. Sometimes there are things I just don't notice for whatever reason, and then someone brings it up and I have to think about it and realize that it really does cripple the story in a way -- like the comments from Loz and bolddeceiver about the gender stereotypes. I should notice these things, but I don't always do -- and sometimes I choose to ignore them because I'd rather enjoy something than pull it apart (I loved the Stardust movie, and I refuse to let a review criticizing the female characters as all being either young-beautiful-and-fairly-useless or old-evil-and-covetous-of-the-younger-beauty, however true it actually is, spoil it for me) (I'm struggling to do the same thing with Midwest Teen Sex Show (http://midwestteensexshow.com/) since I have trouble trusting enough in young people's awareness of irony to really evaluate it wholly positively as an instructive tool, as much as I love the show).
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: Ocicat on October 15, 2007, 09:06:43 PM
The questions the story asks are certanly important ones, but as a story, it didn't work for me. 

Basically I just thought it was "Gattaca lite"
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: Gaijin51 on October 15, 2007, 10:30:29 PM
It was a thought provoking story. Maybe a bit too didactic in tone.
Like Gattaca, it seems that most people see our genetic-engineered future as bleak.
Whatever happens, I bet there will always be plenty who choose to have kids the old-fashioned way.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't be open to new possibilities as well.
Think what all the new Einsteins and Galileos and Mozarts will contribute to society.
I would be interested in hearing another story that is more sympathetic to a transhumanist perspective.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: swdragoon on October 16, 2007, 03:35:57 AM
So my wifes family has a history of a honorable genetic disease (Spinal muscle atrophic). So before we had children we decided that we would have genetic testing to see if we were carriers of this disease. We were not and now have 2 ½ happy and healthy children. My question is dose having this test make us evil?
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: lowky on October 16, 2007, 04:01:31 AM
So my wifes family has a history of a honorable genetic disease (Spinal muscle atrophic). So before we had children we decided that we would have genetic testing to see if we were carriers of this disease. We were not and now have 2 ½ happy and healthy children. My question is dose having this test make us evil?

Why would it make you evil to want to make sure you didn't bring a life into this world that would know great pain and suffering?
If anything I would think it makes you more responsible. 
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: swdragoon on October 16, 2007, 04:17:35 AM
so how difrent is the person in this story


needles to say this story is close to home
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: Gaijin51 on October 16, 2007, 06:19:11 AM
so how difrent is the person in this story


needles to say this story is close to home

No, of course you are not evil. Few people would object to genetic testing for a disease especially before you get pregnant. I would do the same thing.

The person in the story differs because a normal healthy child was not good enough. He wanted some sort of ubermensch. Also you didn't mention what you would have done if the test said you had the gene, but this guy decided to dump his girlfriend as soon as he found out that their child wasn't especially likely to be an ubermensch.

However, the author didn't try to make this guy into anything more than a 1-dimensional cold-hearted jerk. There is no attempt to make a more sympathetic character espouse this viewpoint.

Maybe the future will combine the elements of last week's podcast with this week's: We choose our mates based on algorithms that analyze benetic compatibility, but our companions and life partners will be robots, not people. Because robots are more perfectable and customizable than people. Real spouses yell, nag, cheat, are lazy, drink too much, are sometimes abusive, etc. Robots could solve these shortcomings.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: Gaijin51 on October 16, 2007, 07:44:15 AM
One other thing to add to the discussion about IQ. 100 is average by definition so 120 could never be average. They have to recalibrate it every so often because for some reason people seem to be getting smarter on average. But I didn't think that's what the author intended. In other words, the potential child actually had a good chance to have a higher-than-average IQ, but just not as high as they were hoping for. Even probably slightly above average was not good enough.

BTW, as far as government policy, I think people should be allowed to have "designer babies" if they want. I don't see how it hurts anyone else. People are always free to have babies the old fashioned way, and probably most or at least many people will even if these techniques become available and affordable. For religious or philisophical reasons or for other reasons. I don't believe people will suddenly see "normal people" as burdens on society to be discriminated against. The problem with Eugenics was the part about forcing reproductive choices on others such as forced sterilization. Unless there is a resource problem where overpopulation would be harmful to society, I think people should be free to reproduce as they wish according to their own philosophy. The only time I think you could make a legitimate case for preventing people from reproducing as they wish, is if they can't provide for their kids (the kids will become someone else's problem, or die) or there is overpopulation (in which case they can still have kids, just not more than 1 or 2).
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: Czhorat on October 16, 2007, 10:47:26 AM
so how difrent is the person in this story

I think we'd all agree that there's a world of difference between making choices against serious genetic defects and choosing for some kind of perfect "designer baby".

It's funny, I listen to a story and I think it's okay, or just enjoy the ability to listen to it even if I'm not particularly thrilled by it, and then I read the comment threads here and find myself liking it less because of what other people have said about it. Sometimes there are things I just don't notice for whatever reason, and then someone brings it up and I have to think about it and realize that it really does cripple the story in a way -- like the comments from Loz and bolddeceiver about the gender stereotypes.

The more I look at the story, the less the gender stereotypes bother me. Part of it is that, on reflection, the female isn't the perfect model of behaviour herself. Remember that she wanted the test. It feels to me as if, no matter what she says, she didn't really want results - just confirmation that she and her potential child are special in some way. The man was at least more honest with himself about what he wanted (and more realistic as well. It seems unlikely that a couple obviously living paycheck to paycheck would be able to save up for fancy in utero enhancements while they're still of childrearing age).

The other thing about the story that strikes me upon reflection is how the apparently lower middle class couple identifies with the wealthy people who can afford perfect babies rather than the poor who can't. It seems to be a very American trait that we choose to identify ourselves with the rich and successful regardless of our own situation. Not to get into politics, but it's one explanatation for why it's so easy to get popular support for things like capital gains tax cuts or cuts on inheritance taxes for very large estates and hard to get support for universal health care. People would rather see themselves as the ones with the million dollar estate rather than the ones who can't afford a doctor. My point isn't that estate taxes are good or universal health care is bad, but it's an interesting case of how we see ourselves. I think this story did a nice job of that.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: ajames on October 16, 2007, 11:04:55 AM
It's funny, I listen to a story and I think it's okay, or just enjoy the ability to listen to it even if I'm not particularly thrilled by it, and then I read the comment threads here and find myself liking it less because of what other people have said about it.

That's interesting, as I usually appreciate stories even more after reading the discussion boards.  In this story, for example, Czhorat's earlier post about the irony of the results giving the narrator a real answer about her present relationship more than the not-yet-conceived offspring raised my appreciation for the story a bit.   

On the other hand, if a fault someone finds didn't bother me while I listened to the story, it usually doesn't bother me afterwards.  Did the characters in this story fit stereotypes in some ways?  Maybe they did, but they felt like real characters to me nonetheless.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: Russell Nash on October 16, 2007, 12:01:56 PM
The other thing about the story that strikes me upon reflection is how the apparently lower middle class couple identifies with the wealthy people who can afford perfect babies rather than the poor who can't. It seems to be a very American trait that we choose to identify ourselves with the rich and successful regardless of our own situation.

A present day parallell would be how people are willing to go bankrupt getting a car/suv that's from a luxery company and has all of this crap they don't need.  Eventhough, most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a Mercedes and a Hyundai if you didn't let them look at the outside and took off all of the emblems.

People look at me like I have stuff growing out of my ears when I say that we have no intention of getting a new car.  Our car is in great shape and runs well, but it's a '91.  Everyone looks at my wife's job and asks us when we're buying the 5 series.  (It doesn't help that we live in Berlin.)  They think the car is more important than the house we are saving for.  (That isn't helped by the fact that we want a place in the city.)
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: eytanz on October 16, 2007, 12:36:18 PM
I'm in the "meh" crowd. The story went down such a predictable path and really didn't add much that is new to the topic, but then again, it wasn't really bad either.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: Listener on October 16, 2007, 12:44:39 PM
(Hey, Nash... nice Billy Joel lyric at the end there...  :) )

I didn't really have a problem with the theme of story, mostly because this IS the future.  IIRC it's already started in some countries where girl babies are less prized than boy babies, so efforts are made to not have girl babies.  Jess's impression of the unmodified/unplanned kids in the park doesn't surprise me either; I don't see it being far off when we look at kids in certain parts of town or who look a certain way and wonder why their parents didn't do something.

This was published in 2000, so it's already slightly dated, but really just in the way that we're seven years closer to it.  If this had been a newer story, I'd've asked if Rusch had been watching "Idiocracy" (at least the first part, which is scarily accurate in its depiction of two types of parents -- the ones that plan and the ones that don't).

Despite all the good points it made, the story was full of cliches in the characters:

* small-town parents who don't understand why big-town daughter wants to do x
* small-town girl struggling to make it in the big city, working in a theater, wanting to be an actress
* boyfriend who's a cook
* they never see each other
* girl wants to disregard the test results, boy wants to follow them, implied statement that boy is wrong and girl is right (not saying that's my opinion or not, but that's the implied feeling I got from that exchange)

I've read a lot of Rusch's Star Trek books (all of which are written with her husband, Dean Wesley Smith), and this feels about the same.  But now I can say with certainty that she is the better writer of the duo -- anyone who's read "A Hard Rain" (Smith's solo ST novel) I'm guessing feels the same way.

As for the reading... the word I would use is "halting".  I feel like the reading was either overproduced (in that the reader recorded it in chunks) or the reader wasn't sure what she was looking at.

The song was pretty good -- sort of lounge-rock meets Fiona Apple's piano riffs -- but their producer might want to back off the piano a bit, as the vocals in the first two verses got lost in places.  She sang it a lot better than I expected, given the reading; the voice also sounded completely different (in a good way).  (Are we allowed to review the songs?  :) )

Anyway, not one of my favorites, but I'm not unhappy that I listened to it.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: Chodon on October 16, 2007, 01:09:51 PM
This story is so close to reality it is almost fiction.  I like the point the story was trying to make, and I think it addressed the issues accurately.  What parents nowadays would NOT get an ultrasound during pregnancy?  This was unheard of 25 years ago, but now it's considered standard prenatal care.  In another 25 years will genetic therapy be condidered the new standard?  I think the answer is probably yes.

Will those who can't afford prenatal genetic therapy be at a disadvantage?  No more than parents who can't afford an ultrasound nowadays. 

One thing I got out of the story that I haven't seen addressed is how ALL the kids in the park seemed to have some kind of defect.  It made me wonder if something happened that made compatible mates less likely and the number of birth defects increase.  The alternative is that they are more apparent now that kids are so easily "fixed".

Overall, good story.  It made me think, which is what I'm looking for when I come to EP.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: Loz on October 16, 2007, 02:36:08 PM
FSVO 'defect'. Wasn't it more that the kids in the park didn't match up to Jollie or Pitt-esque standards of beauty? The children and their parents all seemed happy, from what I remember. Both the woman and partner were only concerned about their potential children as things or for what they said about them as parents, not as individuals themselves, though admittedly this would be difficult to do when they are only potential children and not real.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: Russell Nash on October 16, 2007, 03:06:45 PM
The song was pretty good -- sort of lounge-rock meets Fiona Apple's piano riffs -- but their producer might want to back off the piano a bit, as the vocals in the first two verses got lost in places.  She sang it a lot better than I expected, given the reading; the voice also sounded completely different (in a good way).  (Are we allowed to review the songs?  :) )

I didn't get to listen to the song as carefully as you did, because I was in a subway station at the time.  I really liked it.  It had a very bluesy feel.  I was kind of thinking: Blues with Fiona Apple Piano and Save Ferris(1st album) vocals and backing.

(Hey, Nash... nice Billy Joel lyric at the end there...  :) )

I'm collecting comments on that sig.  Most had never heard it before, so I've been sending out the MP3.  Maybe I can get him a few more sales that way.

It was in direct answer to comments about things being B&W.

Here's the lyrics, since I'll probably change my sig again soon:

Shades of grey wherever I go
 The more I find out, the less that I know
 Black and white is how it should be
 But shades of grey are the colors I see
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: swdragoon on October 16, 2007, 03:26:58 PM
so if a seris genetic disorder is ok. ware do we draw that line. i  know what i care about most of those numbers were avalible when we did our testing. but we chose just a hand full of disorders. and had any of them been probable we would have adopted.

i know that the story had frivolis reasons to get said testing. but wernt thay just being responsable from  thear view point.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: gedion_ki on October 16, 2007, 04:03:07 PM
It seems to be a very American trait that we choose to identify ourselves with the rich and successful regardless of our own situation.

I agree, Americans often seem to confuse their economic success as much greater then it really is and work very hard to project more then they have. I saw a report somewhere claiming that over half of all graduating Collage Seniors believed they would be rich in the future... that's the American delusion.

People look at me like I have stuff growing out of my ears when I say that we have no intention of getting a new car. 

You know I get that look too when I say that buying a new car is a waste of money. I always say, why buy a new one, the one I have works fine?  I use to be a serial car buyer, but now I have dreams of driving my current car until the wheels fall of twice or more.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: Listener on October 16, 2007, 04:17:37 PM

You know I get that look too when I say that buying a new car is a waste of money. I always say, why buy a new one, the one I have works fine?  I use to be a serial car buyer, but now I have dreams of driving my current car until the wheels fall of twice or more.

I'll probably do that with my NEXT car.  My current one is fine, but it's a 48-mile round trip to work through heavy traffic and a hybrid would save me a ton of money, I think.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: DeGem on October 16, 2007, 06:57:01 PM
Here is some food for thought.

1) would you send your kids to school for an education if not required by law.
2) would you buy your kids a computer and internet connection. so that they would not be at a disadvantage to other kids in their class
3) would you buy your child a pair of Nike shoes, so that they they don't stick out.
4) would you argue with the teacher because you felt your child gave the right answer on the test, but the teacher marked it wrong.  to get that extra half mark?

Odds are you said yes to every one of those points.  That makes you normal.  You would do what ever you can to give your child a better chance in life.  it's simply an extension of Darwin's evolutional theory.  We do what ever we can to be better adapted to survive our environment.

so the genetic testing and even GM of children is down the road.  they are small simple steps from where we are now.  Look back through time and you will see the same happened then.  People would sell their children into indentured service just so that they would have a better life and that their off spring would have a better one also.

GM of Food is only a newer way of doing animal husbandry and cross breading of plants.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: gedion_ki on October 16, 2007, 07:58:05 PM
I'll probably do that with my NEXT car.  My current one is fine, but it's a 48-mile round trip to work through heavy traffic and a hybrid would save me a ton of money, I think.
Can't fault that logic! I only drive maybe 12 a day so no real good reason to trade out cars either, it does depend on situation. As close as I live to work I tend to ride my bike some days, but being car-less is a real challenge here in the suburban sprawl.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: Biscuit on October 17, 2007, 12:41:48 AM
I think the story fails for a number of reasons, but mostly for a tiresomely sentimental attitude towards children and an absurd analogy of a near genius level IQ somehow being sub par. 

Monty Grue's words here pretty much sum up my feelings on the story. Thumbs in the middle for me. The subject matter was on the right track, just treated WAY too simplistically for my tastes.

Disclaimer: I am childless by choice. Disclaimer 2: I believe in population control (by numbers, and diseases/defects/burden to society. Pretty tough claims to make, and they are wholly my own.

I understand the purpose of "discussions" like this in literature and film, but I don't appreciate the black and white view. I would rather people be more informed on subject matter (whether it's the alternatives in a fictional story, or unbiased fact reporting in the media). Unfortunately, most of society has been dumbed down to expect the "quick headline" or "quick dirty fact run down" for sensationalism or entertainments sake.

The one thing that really bothered me about this story (outside the character cliches) was that it didn't explain the societal shift that REQUIRED genetic compatibility between couples wanting offspring. Where was IVF/sperm or egg donation/womb-for-rent, or were they societal no-nos? What about infertile/incompatible couples who had the ability to adopt a genetically "above average" child?

And why was genetics tied to economic status? I believe in "If you can't feed it, don't breed it", but the inference that only poor people are ugly/genetically inferior really annoyed me. While there was some Nature vs Nurture argument on the woman's side, it was almost like it didn't apply to the rest of this soceity - every other below average child in the park WAS going to be a burden on society.

Disclaimer 3: I actually really enjoy KKR. I came to her writing through her Changling series, which totally rocked.

Oh, and I agree that the delivery from the reader was too "halting" - but that's the perfectionist VA/radio person in me speaking.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: Planish on October 17, 2007, 02:56:25 AM
No, of course you are not evil. Few people would object to genetic testing for a disease especially before you get pregnant. I would do the same thing.

The person in the story differs because a normal healthy child was not good enough. He wanted some sort of ubermensch. Also you didn't mention what you would have done if the test said you had the gene, but this guy decided to dump his girlfriend as soon as he found out that their child wasn't especially likely to be an ubermensch.

However, the author didn't try to make this guy into anything more than a 1-dimensional cold-hearted jerk. There is no attempt to make a more sympathetic character espouse this viewpoint.
That's pretty much what I thought.

There were several hints about the fear of a "merely ordinary" child becoming a "burden on Society", but it wasn't very clear how that would be so. The few children mentioned seemed to be doing okay in spite of being pointed out as examples of these "burdens on Society". If they penalty for being ordinary was made more obvious, then the boyfriend would be a bit more of a sympathetic character.

As it is, the story is more about the tragedy of how he was not the man she thought he was (or hoped he would be).
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: Russell Nash on October 17, 2007, 07:39:44 AM
I'll probably do that with my NEXT car.  My current one is fine, but it's a 48-mile round trip to work through heavy traffic and a hybrid would save me a ton of money, I think.
Can't fault that logic! I only drive maybe 12 a day so no real good reason to trade out cars either, it does depend on situation. As close as I live to work I tend to ride my bike some days, but being car-less is a real challenge here in the suburban sprawl.

With the fear of turning this into a "how much do you drive thread", I say crunch the numbers and do a cost benefit analysis.  Would buying a five year old Civic make more sense? 

We just had our car in for its annual looksy and oil change.  In the last year we have driven it 4,000 km (2,500 miles).  It's our only car. 
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: Loz on October 17, 2007, 08:25:17 AM
Here is some food for thought.

1) would you send your kids to school for an education if not required by law.
2) would you buy your kids a computer and internet connection. so that they would not be at a disadvantage to other kids in their class
3) would you buy your child a pair of Nike shoes, so that they they don't stick out.
4) would you argue with the teacher because you felt your child gave the right answer on the test, but the teacher marked it wrong.  to get that extra half mark?

Odds are you said yes to every one of those points.  That makes you normal.  You would do what ever you can to give your child a better chance in life.  it's simply an extension of Darwin's evolutional theory.  We do what ever we can to be better adapted to survive our environment.

so the genetic testing and even GM of children is down the road.  they are small simple steps from where we are now.  Look back through time and you will see the same happened then.  People would sell their children into indentured service just so that they would have a better life and that their off spring would have a better one also.

GM of Food is only a newer way of doing animal husbandry and cross breading of plants.

Gah, I hate it when I see Darwin's theories being misused in this way! I'm sorry, but those theories relate to species, not individuals or small groups of individuals, over vast periods of time not over a few years in one organisms lifetime. Also how about:

1) would you send your kids to school for an education if not required by law.
2) would you encourage your children to cheat and steal in order to come top in every test?
3) would you buy a gun for your kid so they can threaten the shop owner for that pair of Nikes?
4) would you take whatever steps, legal or illegal, to remove any teacher who saw your child as a dishonest little smear of shit?

I'm concerned by what you consider 'normal'. Admittedly I'm childless, but I'd like to think that if my child came to me asking for Nikes then we'd work something out, they save up their pocket money or get a job (if they're old enough, though I don't see so many paper-boys any more), I was brought up with parents that wouldn't accept that I REALLY NEEDED the new Transformer or whatever, and had to wait for a birthday.

It seems to me that you are conflating social, economic and biological pressures all together in your examples, using evolutionary theory to justify the effects of economic hardship in times when people weren't expecting that 'all men are created equal'.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: Chodon on October 17, 2007, 11:27:09 AM
One new question I came up with while thinking about this story: 20 years after this story who is going to be doing all the non-skilled labor?  All the super-children that have grown up and fought their way through college aren't going to be satisfied with a job on the assembly line or mopping floors.  Are there going to be enough "burden on society" children to maintain the society as a whole?  Society doesn't work without a full spectrum of individuals.  That's one of the reasons humanity has been so successful in taking over the planet. 

Will the present day average be the new low?  With the story hinting that an IQ of 120 is the new "standard" (which is kind of at odds with the whole IQ scale,  but whatever) makes me think the answer is yes.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: DDog on October 17, 2007, 02:55:56 PM
Quote from: Chodon
One thing I got out of the story that I haven't seen addressed is how ALL the kids in the park seemed to have some kind of defect.  It made me wonder if something happened that made compatible mates less likely and the number of birth defects increase.  The alternative is that they are more apparent now that kids are so easily "fixed".
But what were the visible defects? Big ears, pimples, eyes not quite straight -- those wouldn't have beeen featured in any sideshow. The woman is making an inference from their appearance to their class, intelligence, and skills. Like treating someone in a wheelchair like they're five years old, just because they're in a wheelchair (I had a friend who once had a guy open a door for her and tell her "There you go, zoom!"), or assuming someone is poor and/or a gang member and/or a crack dealer just because they're black.

Quote from: Chodon
There were several hints about the fear of a "merely ordinary" child becoming a "burden on Society", but it wasn't very clear how that would be so. The few children mentioned seemed to be doing okay in spite of being pointed out as examples of these "burdens on Society". If they penalty for being ordinary was made more obvious, then the boyfriend would be a bit more of a sympathetic character.
I felt like she was just parrotting the prevailing attitude and didn't really have a concrete idea herself why that would be, so we didn't get to hear either. Small Town Girl in Big City has to keep up with the Joneses.


Another note is...Did they take the "child prodigy" test or does everyone get percentages for musical and artistic ability? Can you measure a child's percentage likelihood of being an engineer or a political scientist? Or percentage likelihood of being able to take care of themselves? It seems to me that an overabundance of Mozarts would be the "burden on society"...

I'm also reminded of a very short story I read the other year (I can't remember the author's name so I can't find the story on the internet to link it) called "Normal" which was an interesting take on either genetic modification or a nuclear accident.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: Monty Grue on October 17, 2007, 03:56:01 PM
One new question I came up with while thinking about this story: 20 years after this story who is going to be doing all the non-skilled labor?

H.G. Wells thought in terms of Class Struggle, however, perhaps the genetically unmodified, over a long long time, will turn into Morlock like beings and eat the modified. 
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: Chodon on October 17, 2007, 04:35:55 PM
H.G. Wells thought in terms of Class Struggle, however, perhaps the genetically unmodified, over a long long time, will turn into Morlock like beings and eat the modified. 
That would be an awesome sequel to this story...

But what were the visible defects? Big ears, pimples, eyes not quite straight -- those wouldn't have beeen featured in any sideshow.
I suppose that's one take on it, but it seemed to me there was something more.  Something that was preventing couples from having "normal" kids like we know it today.  Maybe I'm just trying to make something out of nothing, or read more into the story than there is, but it really seemed like there was some fear that a couple would have children that had serious defects, and these issues kids had were symptoms of that.  There was nothing explicitly said to this effect, but it sure felt that way.  Maybe that was the point; the things we wouldn't consider defects today became hideous deformities when parents (with enough money or planning) could prevent them.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: DeGem on October 17, 2007, 05:30:43 PM


It seems to me that you are conflating social, economic and biological pressures all together in your examples, using evolutionary theory to justify the effects of economic hardship in times when people weren't expecting that 'all men are created equal'.

It appears that my intent was not clear.  My intent was that people here in the forum were expressing that they can't believe that people would do this kind of screening and maybe even manipulation. 

What I was trying to demonstrate was that they are very simple and small steps over time to get to the point that this story was attempting to show. 

As for the Darwin reference, yes I understand it's over time and not of individuals.  I was only intended to show the social evolution not the human evolution.  Throwing Darwin's name in, was an attempt to use a short cut, too allow people to grasp that people values change over time.  In a poor attempt I even tried to get people look at the social changes from a 100 or 200 years ago compared to today.  The thought of selling your child into indentured service is inconceivable here in the western world today, but not back then.

you took my examples to the extreme no where near my intent.  I was stating how small and easy these tests are.  You would be willing to do them, for the betterment of your child's life.  Most would not encourage their child to cheat and steel.  but over time moral standards change.  The greater the time the greater the change.

on a side note.  Technology is an accelerator of social change.  This story could happen within the next 20 or 30 years.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: darusha on October 17, 2007, 08:24:31 PM
Thanks to Biscuit & Loz for saying what I wanted to say on the politics of this piece.

On another note, I got the impression that most people in this world did have kids the "normal way", which is why her parents were disappointed in her taking the tests.  It seemed to me that the tests were a sophisticated New York thing to do, rather than the overall norm.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: darusha on October 17, 2007, 08:27:55 PM
People look at me like I have stuff growing out of my ears when I say that we have no intention of getting a new car. 

You should see the looks I get when I tell them I don't have a car at all.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: VBurn on October 17, 2007, 09:40:52 PM
Quote
You know I get that look too when I say that buying a new car is a waste of money. I always say, why buy a new one, the one I have works fine?  I use to be a serial car buyer, but now I have dreams of driving my current car until the wheels fall of twice or more.


My goal is to get one AU out of my car.  I am currently at 1.3 lightseconds.

I thought the story was very simple, but asked very complex questions.  The reading seemed very right for the story.  Another good week on EP.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: Loz on October 18, 2007, 05:57:23 AM
You should see the looks I get when I tell them I don't have a car at all.

I love in London, five minutes walk away from buses or the Underground. Having a car would actually make my life more difficult.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: wherethewild on October 18, 2007, 02:25:08 PM
I only glanced quickly at some previous comments, forgive me if I repeat or go off tangent.

I liked this story, probably because I´m at the point in my life (like so many others here it seems) where kids are a short term future probabilty, or very recent past acquisition ;)

I´m stuck between the "oh, that´s terrible" and the "but wouldn´t I want the best for my child?" views. My mother-in-law is a genetic counselor...really no different to the stories "testing"... and thats a tough place to be actually. On one side, you´re trying to help families have healthy children, on the other you have the families of "imperfect" children abuse and threaten you for wanting to "wipe them out".

Ok, I used way to many quotation marks in the last paragraph. I apologise.

I´m sure I will be pre-natally testing for diseases in my children. If they do turn out to have Down´s or CF or anything else... well that´s a decision we´ll have to make when we get there. One thing I am sure of is that the decision to terminate or not terminate a pregnancy because the child would be terribly ill is one which will suffer heavy criticism regardless. You are either cruel for keeping it or cruel for not keeping it, and everyone will tell you their opinion.

Okay, so I´ve gone a bit away from the story now...

The story was no new idea... "positive eugenics" has been around for over 150 years, and various societies have gone through periods of education encouraging it. However I did like the way it was handled and enjoyed the story. No more indepth critique except that I found the narrator to be too monotone and difficult to listen to.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: darth_schmoo on October 18, 2007, 04:24:27 PM
I really liked this story.  It really nailed the inner turmoil and the interpersonal conflicts, both between the couple and between the woman and her parents.  The biggest question it raised for me was, how much of the couples concern over the test results was actually concern for their child's welfare, and how much of it was just the shame of having unextraordinary genes?

Obviously genes are important in this society, so much so that an average member of the society (the narrator) feels compelled to size up childrens' genetic makeup, and pass judgment on their value to society.  In a society like that, the woman's fears of genetic mediocrity do reflect real concern for the sort of life her child will be able to lead.  But clearly there are some ego issues as well, especially from the narrator's companion.  Rather than really accepting the test results, he put all the blame on her, and broke up with her so he could go find someone whose genetic awesomeness would show his own in the best light.  Mediocre, balding git.

I thought the story raised a lot of big questions in a deeply personal way.  In that it succeeds brilliantly.

There were some flaws I'd like to see fixed, or at least clarified.  I thought that the story suffered from a case of "one thing changes."  That is to say, the author seems to be trying to set the story 100 years in the future, but aside from the introduction of the genetic compatibility tests, it seems to be set in modern New York City.  Cars still clutter the streets and spew exhaust, mass transit seems basically unchanged, lower Manhattan isn't underwater, the work culture seems to be unchanged, people appear to be free to procreate when and how they will, and not a single fusion-powered killbot is in evidence.  Maybe too many changes would have weakened the story by distracting from the central point and making it harder for readers to relate to the world.  After all, the story is sort of a "What would you do?" tale, an making the world too alien would be risky.  But while it didn't detract much from the story, I found this static world rather implausible.

Like other listeners, I would have liked to know whether the 120 IQ meant "extraordinary" or "the new average".  I would also like to know whether the merely ordinary faced actual persecution in their lives, or whether they were merely an affront to the sensibilities of big city fashion.  Maybe leaving those questions open allows more questions to be raised, but I think it's more likely that the reader will make the least favorable assumption.

Good story.  Bring us more! 
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: Russell Nash on October 18, 2007, 06:18:14 PM
There were some flaws I'd like to see fixed, or at least clarified.  I thought that the story suffered from a case of "one thing changes."  That is to say, the author seems to be trying to set the story 100 years in the future, but aside from the introduction of the genetic compatibility tests, it seems to be set in modern New York City.  Cars still clutter the streets and spew exhaust, mass transit seems basically unchanged, lower Manhattan isn't underwater, the work culture seems to be unchanged, people appear to be free to procreate when and how they will, and not a single fusion-powered killbot is in evidence.  Maybe too many changes would have weakened the story by distracting from the central point and making it harder for readers to relate to the world.  After all, the story is sort of a "What would you do?" tale, an making the world too alien would be risky.  But while it didn't detract much from the story, I found this static world rather implausible.

I think the whole point was that not much had changed.  As has been pointed out this testing isn't far off.  By not changing much the author tells us this is twenty minutes in the future. 

You could ever call it an alternate history piece.  It's 2007 (or whenever this was written) and we've had this testing for twenty years.  How would things be different now?

If you had a flying car, this would be another Far In The Future piece.  Just not the same impact.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: The Other Guy on October 18, 2007, 07:59:56 PM
I liked this story too, even though the guy was a little one dimensional.  This is all from the woman's perspective, so it makes sense that she doesn't give all that much depth to the man.  After all, the sexes not understanding each other is something pretty common.

The IQ thing really didn't bother me too much.  What bothered me was setting the threshold so high of a single test, which you could argue favors one strength over another.  It would have made more sense if the intelligence was described in ways the child would most likely excel in, and the ways the child would be most likely deficient.  I would think most parents would not want to have someone who was either super artistic or super analytical, (not that these are inherently opposed), but a nice round mixture of the two.

As for the scene being present day NYC except for one change, this may be a subtle jab at the whole notion of being able to genetically alter embryos.  The resulting society could be one that stays stagnant in 100 years, and without people taking genetic "rolls of the dice", then no true human progress can be achieved, just more of the same.  Remember, Emily Dickinson probably suffered from bipolar disorder and even Einstein may have had a genetic marker for some sort of mental condition.  The poor kids in the park, would probably not be the "burden to society" the narrator predicts, but the savior from genetic stagnation.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: Planish on October 19, 2007, 01:49:27 AM
One new question I came up with while thinking about this story: 20 years after this story who is going to be doing all the non-skilled labor?

H.G. Wells thought in terms of Class Struggle, however, perhaps the genetically unmodified, over a long long time, will turn into Morlock like beings and eat the modified. 
Now that you mention the class issues, it brings to mind Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, with its Alpha, Beta, Gamma, etc. castes. They were engineered humans born in labs, while at the same time there were the largely-forgotten peoples of the "Savage Reservation", who reproduced and lived naturally.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: FNH on October 19, 2007, 07:51:35 AM
I had mixed feelings about the story.  It did seem a bit drawn out, but I was so drawn into the subject that I couldn't stop listening.  So that means it was a good story.  It was more of what I refer to as Speculative than SciFi.

I loved that music at the end!  Who was it, what was it?
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: darth_schmoo on October 20, 2007, 03:08:15 PM
One new question I came up with while thinking about this story: 20 years after this story who is going to be doing all the non-skilled labor?  All the super-children that have grown up and fought their way through college aren't going to be satisfied with a job on the assembly line or mopping floors.  Are there going to be enough "burden on society" children to maintain the society as a whole?  Society doesn't work without a full spectrum of individuals.  That's one of the reasons humanity has been so successful in taking over the planet.

I don't think this world is going to run out of average people.  It sounded like there were plenty of genetically unmodified children being born.  The society found them less "desirable", but not enough so to forbid their existence.

But in a situation like you describe, where the people forced to do the grunt work are just as capable of performing the "valued" jobs as those who actually hold them, I don't believe societal collapse would ensue.  There are other options.  The first is to automate and eliminate the worst of the drudgery (a process I believe we should be doing in any case, and one which would be further along if it weren't for globalization and our access to dirt-cheap labor).  Turn some tasks over to robots, eliminate others by designing the artifacts in our lives to be more low-maintenance.

That wouldn't eliminate such jobs completely.  The remaining grunt work would have to be spread more evenly.  I don't think society would collapse if CEOs sometimes had to clean the executive washroom themselves.

In the end, I don't think "low-skilled jobs" (and after reading Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickeled and Dimed, I really hesitate to call them that) have to be degrading.  The fact that such labor commands such low wages doesn't reflect how little we value the work being done (who wants to sit on a dirty toilet seat?) but how little we value the people doing the labor.  I think it's possible to make these jobs desirable enough that people would see them as a viable alternative to four or eight years of college.  Given the number of students I've seen who are just gritting their teeth through the whole experience, that probably wouldn't be so bad.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: Russell Nash on October 20, 2007, 03:23:31 PM
The fact that such labor commands such low wages doesn't reflect how little we value the work being done (who wants to sit on a dirty toilet seat?) but how little we value the people doing the labor.  I think it's possible to make these jobs desirable enough that people would see them as a viable alternative to four or eight years of college.  Given the number of students I've seen who are just gritting their teeth through the whole experience, that probably wouldn't be so bad.

How much a job pays is determined in exactly the same way as the final price of an item is determined.  Maids jobs don't pay well mostly because there are more people that will do the job than there are positions.  Garbage collectors pay extremely well, because there aren't enough people who want to lift heavy stink all day.  If half of the trashmen (and women) in a city left their jobs today, it would take well over a year to replace them.  Garbage would pile up everywhere.  I think any hotel could replace half of their house cleaning staff in a week.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: cathoderay on October 21, 2007, 02:13:03 AM
Worst. Escape. Pod. Ever.

There I said it.

Was that a story or a polemic?

Generally I like characters and plot in stories. Not a dissertation or rant.

Do better please.

cathode
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: secretsanta on October 23, 2007, 02:13:00 PM
Quote
And poor and middle income parents would mortgage themsleves into abject poverty just so their offspring can be the next Nobel Laurete.
   


This is the point of the story: people who cannot afford to pay for "perfect children" will simply modify their own behavior to fit the social expectations...! I never considered this "unintended consequence" of genetic knowledge. It is the same behavior we see through time: the general population emulates the wealthy. It was documented in "Freakanomics", and can be observed in all aspects of our lives, from lawns in suburbia (mimicking Old English and French gardens) to expensive weddings. Great story.

Those of you who need to analyze the numbers - get over it, it is a story first, so appreciate the idea, not the analytics. The numbers hold up anyway: An IQ of 120 is still considered high, until the test is recalibrated or the population curve moves to the right. Until then, 120 is still better than 100.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: Russell Nash on October 23, 2007, 05:20:47 PM
Quote
And poor and middle income parents would mortgage themsleves into abject poverty just so their offspring can be the next Nobel Laurete.
   

Those of you who need to analyze the numbers - get over it, it is a story first, so appreciate the idea, not the analytics. The numbers hold up anyway: An IQ of 120 is still considered high, until the test is recalibrated or the population curve moves to the right. Until then, 120 is still better than 100.


I think the point is that no matter how the numbers have been recalibrated they were testing to see if there kid would be more than 20 above average, which would be the current average.  It could be the equivalent of todays 140.  They just wanted to be significantly above "average".
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: DKT on October 23, 2007, 09:20:54 PM
This story just about killed me.

When my daughter was born, there was something very wrong with one of her eyes, something that the ultrasound and all the other tests failed to pick-up.  We had no idea about it until after she was born.  Now, two years later, she's a fine, healthy, little girl but she will have to deal with this for the rest of her life now.

If I'd known that ahead of time, before my wife was pregnant, what would my reaction have been?  Would I have made a different decision?  God, I hope not.  She's brought so much joy into our lives it makes me teary thinking about what they'd be like if she didn't exist.  We've been to see a geneticist once since, thinking about having other kids.  They really haven't been able to help out too much but if they told us that another child would have the same issues, I don't think it would stop us.  Life is more than statistics. 

Great story, very well-written.  Thanks for running it.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: Simon on November 27, 2007, 08:34:03 PM
I'm not sure if this is a criticism of the reading, or of the story composition... But there were numerous situation in this piece where an overly-evocative descriptor just completely kicked me out of the story.

"Clickety-Clack" to describe rail-roads, and "Twinkle" for a child's eye are only the two most obvious examples...  I would be listening along thinking about the story and then wham  "Clickety, bloody Clack???".  These twee descriptors hit me in the face like adverbs in dialogue attribution, giving me a real Strunk & White - type moment.

Maybe I've just been reading too much Cormac McCarthy lately.

(Story itself - Big Meh)
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: DarkKnightJRK on November 28, 2007, 03:25:08 AM
It wasn't that bad. I will say, though, that Gattaca was WAY better with the themes in this story.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: Windup on January 10, 2008, 08:54:50 PM
It wasn't that bad. I will say, though, that Gattaca was WAY better with the themes in this story.

While Gattaca was a fuller treatment -- after all, it was much longer -- I thought this story added the dimension of potential parents at the decision point. That was dealt with very briefly in Gattaca.

Like many other posters, I think this is a future that is coming, whether we like it or not.  In the end, I suspect that genetic pre-marital screening will be no more optional for most people in the developed world than cars are optional for most Americans.  Once genetic screening becomes accurate enough to provide a reasonably reliable degree of insight and cheap enough for most of the middle class to afford it, the same social forces that have given us American pre-K football teams, private voice lessons for elementary-age children, and Japanese "cram  schools" will take hold, and the process will become ubiquitus, at least in the 'burbs (or their future equivalents).  Like the automobile, so much of the social infrastructure will be built around the idea that everyone is using the technology that it will become very, very difficult not to.  How can you expect the schools to properly "track" your child if you won't even give them a usable Flescher Standard Ability Rating  for heaven's sake?  What do you think they are, magicians?

Like some other posters, I think the distinction between "curing disabilities" and "designer babies" is blurry at best, and will shift over time in the direction of a higher and higher degree of intervention becoming "acceptable."  Is my total inability to carry a tune a "disability?"  I wouldn't call it that, but I suspect a more musically-inclined parent probably would.

If there's anything that will prevent all this, it's the incompleteness of genetic information.  In the end, genes only explain so much -- there's a large element of environmental influence in intelligence, athletic ability, and so on.  But, genetic information is the shiny new toy, so we ascribe it much more predictive power than it may actually have -- some of those "superbabies" may turn out to be not so super after all. Gattaca touched on that, too, as I recall. Still, I think people will use the tool, and at least intially, probably over-use it.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: Chivalrybean on March 30, 2008, 06:03:52 AM
I've been listen to Pseudopod and Escape Pod a lot lately... this story scares me more than anything on Pseudopod has to date.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: Unblinking on March 05, 2010, 06:28:25 PM
I hated this one.  It was less of a story and more of an ethics rant with cardboard characters pinned to it so that it could be classified as a story.  It would've made a great blog post to get a great ethics argument going, but as a story it left something to be desired.  I listened to the end in the hopes that it would redeem itself, but it never did.

The big climax of the story was centered around the breakup, but I never really cared about either character, so their breakup didn't really hit home.  They apparently only see each other as breeding stock, so why do I care if they break up? 

There's a fuzzy boundary between what's ethical and what's not with this sort of screening.  The story would've been much better if it had chosen a grayer area of child traits to use, an area closer to the boundary.  Instead of artistic talent and IQ, if it had tested for some painful and debilitating disorder, then maybe I could see the other side of it, even both sides of it.  In that case, if you chose not to have the kid then some would call it murder, and if you did have the kid could some would call it torture.

But deciding not to have kids because they might not have blue eyes, or might not be above average intelligence?  That's far beyond the fuzzy boundary, and is bordering on the Nazi ideal of "the perfect race", a scary thought.  And I shudder to think what some parents would do with this power--the sort of parents who force their kids into grueling training, be it for athletics or beauty pagents, when they're only a couple years old.  The kids hate it hate it it, but mommy or daddy says they have to go.  I can just see those parents now "God damn it, Carly, we paid good money to make you pretty, so get out there and smile!  You're just lucky I didn't pay extra for the five year guarantee or you'd be on a bus to GenetixxCorps, so help me!"

And I firmly believe that genetics has very little to do with creative ability and intelligence.  Of course if there's a mental disability, that's one thing.  But if you take a "creative" person at random from the general population and take a "non-creative" person at random, I don't think there's going to be any markers that differentiate one from the other in terms of intelligence.    Genetics may somewhat affect your ability to learn, but not how you apply that ability.  Intelligence and creativity are much more influenced by your environment.  If your parents went to college, there's a pretty good chance you'll go to college.  If your parents were creative, then you're more likely to be creative.  And I think it has much more to do with environmental factors, what you see happening around you as a child then any inherent genetic trait. 

Not only that, but the definition of intelligence and of creative ability are so subjective!  Who is doing the judging?  For instance, I rarely love abstract art.  I tend to want art to look like something, even if it's a distorted view of that something.  One can throw a bucket of paint at a canvas and call it art, and some would agree and some would disagree.  The same goes for intelligence.  intelligence seems to often be measured by what you know, but that's not a genetic thing.  You still have to choose to learn.  If a child has a high intelligence rating, but isn't interested in learning, then it's not making much difference.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: Talia on March 05, 2010, 06:32:18 PM
I hated this one.  It was less of a story and more of an ethics rant with cardboard characters pinned to it so that it could be classified as a story.  It would've made a great blog post to get a great ethics argument going, but as a story it left something to be desired.  I listened to the end in the hopes that it would redeem itself, but it never did.

The big climax of the story was centered around the breakup, but I never really cared about either character, so their breakup didn't really hit home.  They apparently only see each other as breeding stock, so why do I care if they break up? 

There's a fuzzy boundary between what's ethical and what's not with this sort of screening.  The story would've been much better if it had chosen a grayer area of child traits to use, an area closer to the boundary.  Instead of artistic talent and IQ, if it had tested for some painful and debilitating disorder, then maybe I could see the other side of it, even both sides of it.  In that case, if you chose not to have the kid then some would call it murder, and if you did have the kid could some would call it torture.

But deciding not to have kids because they might not have blue eyes, or might not be above average intelligence?  That's far beyond the fuzzy boundary, and is bordering on the Nazi ideal of "the perfect race", a scary thought.  And I shudder to think what some parents would do with this power--the sort of parents who force their kids into grueling training, be it for athletics or beauty pagents, when they're only a couple years old.  The kids hate it hate it it, but mommy or daddy says they have to go.  I can just see those parents now "God damn it, Carly, we paid good money to make you pretty, so get out there and smile!  You're just lucky I didn't pay extra for the five year guarantee or you'd be on a bus to GenetixxCorps, so help me!"

And I firmly believe that genetics has very little to do with creative ability and intelligence.  Of course if there's a mental disability, that's one thing.  But if you take a "creative" person at random from the general population and take a "non-creative" person at random, I don't think there's going to be any markers that differentiate one from the other in terms of intelligence.    Genetics may somewhat affect your ability to learn, but not how you apply that ability.  Intelligence and creativity are much more influenced by your environment.  If your parents went to college, there's a pretty good chance you'll go to college.  If your parents were creative, then you're more likely to be creative.  And I think it has much more to do with environmental factors, what you see happening around you as a child then any inherent genetic trait. 

Not only that, but the definition of intelligence and of creative ability are so subjective!  Who is doing the judging?  For instance, I rarely love abstract art.  I tend to want art to look like something, even if it's a distorted view of that something.  One can throw a bucket of paint at a canvas and call it art, and some would agree and some would disagree.  The same goes for intelligence.  intelligence seems to often be measured by what you know, but that's not a genetic thing.  You still have to choose to learn.  If a child has a high intelligence rating, but isn't interested in learning, then it's not making much difference.


But did you hate the story, or hate the characters? Because deciding not to have kids for shallow reasons like mentioned seems like something people would actually do if they had the option, particularly if brought up in a society where this was the norm. Yes its ethically icky, but not, I felt, unrealistic.
Title: Re: EP127: Results
Post by: Unblinking on March 05, 2010, 06:49:31 PM
But did you hate the story, or hate the characters? Because deciding not to have kids for shallow reasons like mentioned seems like something people would actually do if they had the option, particularly if brought up in a society where this was the norm. Yes its ethically icky, but not, I felt, unrealistic.

Both.  I don't have to relate to characters to like a story but it sure helps--Immortal Sin is a case where I hated the character and loved the story.  But in that case I was rooting for something terrible to happen to the guy for the sake of justice, so I had SOMETHING to root for even if it was against the protagonist.  In this case the stakes was a relationship between two unlikeable people.  I don't care if they break up, so it's hard to care about the story.  So I guess at the core of disliking the story itself was that I didn't care about the stakes.

And besides that, I like a story that carries a message, but not when a message carries a story.  In this case, it seemed like the story was only a vessel to put the Message in, and it didn't even say anything original.  Maybe if it had covered more of the gray area of the ethics, then it might've at least served as an interesting thought exercise.  But since it chose such an extreme example it didn't even do well as that.

And I find it really hard to relate to couples who see breeding as the sole purpose of a relationship.  This isn't isolated to this story, I realize.  I've had conversations with someone in recent months who says that the purpose of marriage is reproduction, and if you aren't procreating then it's not really a marriage.  It was intended by that person as an argument against gay marriage (which is a whole nother discussion) but according to his definition, I am not really married either.  My wife and I do not have any kids, and we are not trying to have kids.  We're not sure we'll ever raise kids, but if we do there's a good chance that we'll try to adopt.