Back When I Watched Gundam SEED, I Was on the Naturals' Side

A YouTube video explaining the anime Mobile Suit Gundam SEED appeared in my recommendations.

I used to watch it years ago. It brought back memories.

To explain it briefly, the story takes place in a future where conflict between “Coordinators,” people born after having their genes adjusted, and “Naturals,” people who have not undergone genetic modification, escalates into war.

The title includes Gundam, so the familiar robots engage in spectacular battles—and those battles are really the main attraction.

Genetic modification is ultimately just part of the story’s background setting.

At the time, my reaction was little more than, “Of course people would resent genetically modified humans.”

But reconsidering it now, I find that, logically speaking, the Coordinators may have had the stronger argument.

Humanity Betrayed Nature Long Ago

Human beings have, after all, been resisting the mechanism of natural selection for a very long time.

We use antibiotics when we contract infections and perform surgery when someone’s heart fails. Even when a person is born with a serious illness, modern medicine does everything it can to save them.

That is a wonderful thing.

Biologically speaking, however, technology is saving people who would otherwise have died.

Natural selection itself has not disappeared, but there is no doubt that medicine has greatly altered how it operates.

And yet, when genetic modification enters the conversation, some people suddenly declare that leaving nature alone is best.

But we were defying nature just a moment ago.

Treating Someone After Birth Is Fine, but Treating Them Before Birth Is Not?

Imagine, for example, a serious hereditary disease.

Most people would probably support treating it after birth with expensive medicine or gene therapy.

But what if technology advances to the point where we can modify the parents’ genes and prevent the mutation that causes the disease?

Ethical objections suddenly arise.

Of course, today’s technology still presents many issues that must be resolved, including safety and its effects on future generations.

But those are technical issues. They are separate from the claim that it is inherently wrong for humans to alter genes.

It is better not to develop an illness in the first place than to treat it after it appears.

At least to me, that seems more rational.

What Do We Do After Weakening Natural Selection?

Through medicine, humanity has greatly reduced the pressure of natural selection.

If so, should we not also use technology to address the problems that result?

It may be difficult to say this loudly, but natural selection plays a role in eliminating weaker genetic traits.

Medicine, however, has made it possible even for people who, genetically speaking, should not pass on their genes to have descendants.

That is a fact. It is a welcome fact.

The point is that we should also take responsibility for what comes afterward.

If we can repair the cause of a hereditary disease, then repair it. If research can prevent future generations from experiencing the same suffering, pursue that research.

This is somewhat different from redesigning human beings to make them superior.

More simply, it is the belief that once we have intervened in nature’s mechanisms, we should take responsibility for the consequences of that intervention.

Humanity already wears glasses, uses artificial joints, transplants organs, and compensates for one physical problem after another with technology.

I do not understand why genes alone should be treated as a sacred, inviolable domain.

Apparently, I Was on the Coordinators’ Side

Of course, in the world of Gundam SEED, the superior abilities of Coordinators lead to discrimination and conflict, eventually escalating into war.

In reality, too, widespread gene editing would probably create difficult problems, including economic inequality and discrimination based on ability.

But those are also questions of social institutions and how the technology is used.

They are not reasons to reject the technology itself.

Thinking about it this way, I apparently held views closer to the Coordinators’ side than I had realized.

Then again, if I had been born in that world, I have no idea whether genetic enhancement would actually have made me an exceptional person.

There is every chance that, despite having my genes carefully edited, I would still have ended up sitting at home, watching Gundam and complaining about things.