Scott Alexander writes two satirical sequels to GATTACA, critiquing discrimination based on epigenetics and educational background. Longer summary

This post is a satirical continuation of the movie GATTACA, imagining two sequels that critique different forms of discrimination. In 'GATTACA II: EPI-GATTACA', the focus is on epigenetics, where people are judged based on their ancestors' life experiences. In 'GATTACA III: EDU-GATTACA', the discrimination is based on which college one attended. Both stories follow a similar structure to the original GATTACA, with the protagonist Vincent trying to overcome societal barriers through deception. The stories end with Vincent's brother Anton helping him and Vincent realizing that he wants to change the discriminatory system, not just escape it. Shorter summary

The author revisits their belief in genetic determinism, presenting evidence that environmental factors, especially in divorce, have significant non-genetic effects on children's outcomes. Longer summary

The post discusses the author's initial belief in the genetic determinism thesis from 'The Nurture Assumption', which argues that parenting has little effect on children's outcomes compared to genetics. The author then presents evidence from divorce studies that challenge this view, showing that environmental factors, particularly family conflict, do have significant effects on children. The post reviews several studies that disentangle genetic and environmental effects of divorce, concluding that there are indeed non-genetic negative impacts of divorce on children. The author acknowledges being wrong about shared environment effects being negligible and suggests that short-term environmental impacts can have long-lasting consequences. Shorter summary