I don't buy that whole X-Men propaganda

[BeBMan]

This thread is semi-serious. Here's the thing:

In many scifi/whatever movies etc. there's this idea that the genetically enhanced, mutated or somehow altered humans will end up as an oppressed minority.

This is a regular theme in the X-men movies, and as a way to approach the whole topic of oppressed minorities if can work or not.

However, I'm super-sceptic that something like this will be a huge issue for humanity if we ever have to deal with altered humans on a regular basis - if it's via genetics and/or computer tech/implanted chips to improve certain abilities, or whatever.

IMO the cyberpunk approach to hard tech stuff is a much more realistic scenario:

From my vast expertise there, which comes from reading William Gibson ages ago, I think it will be more about the old story of who can affort to get the best stuff, and how the rest will cope via a combi of legal means, gray/black market stuff, and the related organized crime to fill the gaps.

Like you can have superduper Zeiss optics as eye-enhancements/replacements -- if you can pay for them. If you're not rich to begin with, there's always ways, whether legal or not, if we go with Gibson's approach.

The main conflict will not be about being enhanced or non-enhanced, but as always, about have's and have-nots, maybe with some societies allowing for easier access and better chance to climb the enhancement ladder.

And it might even be that the have's end up opressing the have-nots which can't afford the most recent (or any) new stuff. Just an idea.


I'm running this now thru ChatGPT and sell the result as deep thought reseach paper



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[Elok]

The X-Men are a dishonest experiment in the simultaneous having and eating of cake. It's a brilliant move, making it so the reader can identify with obvious superhumans while also claiming to be the underdog--superheroes are an oppressed minority, see the subtext, 1960s America?--but unfortunately it makes the whole metaphor nonsense. Racism is bad because it's false and irrational; if black people could shoot laser beams out of their eyes or call lightning down to strike you dead, it would be entirely reasonable to be frightened of them, or to not trust them.

[BeBMan]

Damn, I wrote "affort"

As for the point - I think if today someone could fire deathrays (lasers are just a form of deathray), the reaction might be fear, but also could be "I want that too". There might be a few deathray hippies initially who just seek enlightenment thru harmless use of deathrays while being connected to the universe (basically on drugs).

But Elon Musk would soon see the market potential of deathrays, and offer something that easily lets everyone shoot them out of their eyes, not without presenting the prototype to an ecstatic crowd on some event plus the needed anti-deathray glasses to avoid that people shoot stuff by accident all the time, for example during an Elon Musk event.​