It’s a sci-fi trope that every new technology is introduced in the most dystopian Black Mirror way possible, and though that may make for a good yarn, it’s just plain unrealistic. Genetic engineering is coming (I’d engineer cancer and a bad back out of my genome and a few IQ points and a couple of uh ‘inches’ here and there in it), but whether that results in a Khan or not, the ability to do everything else will be here to stay, and I think that’s a net positive.
Yes, deluded or outright bad parents might try to tailor their children to be socially acceptable units as they are fit. I can see whole communities and eventually colonies going this way…New City on a Hill Colony on Ganymede or where have you, but how is that different from religious groups or gated communities today choosing to live their own (fucked up) way?
Khan’s problem was one of megalomania and global conquest, but we already live in a world of widely varied intelligence among the human population without laws curtailing the rights of those more intelligent to learn and contribute to society. If Khan were a physician or an entrepreneur, or an archeologist would anyone care?
But beyond all that, how many different races of intelligent being have we seen on Star Trek — have they all had a Khan and made the same Luddite move? Or are they all just following suit, stunting their societies, because the humans fucked up three centuries ago at the dawn of their genetic understanding? I mean, if at first you don’t succeed, stop everything and make sure no one else tries again either?
