"
Team:UCLA/HumanPractices
Contents |
Crazy Sci Fi Adventure Time
What the hell is this?
Some iGEM projects have very straightforward real world applications. Give an example???? The real world applications of our project, however, is not as readily transparent. Because our project is such a fundamental tool it could potentially be used in a large variety of ways and across many disciplines of science and medicine.. As we were working on the project thoughout the summer we realized that we were beginning to adopt a tunnel vision mindset. We became so focused on the various techinical details of how to jump through the next hoop of the project that we lost sight of what this project meantt to us and the potential that it had.
In order to rectify this problem and de-stress a little, we decided to have a fun team workshop in which me would discuss the potential implications of our project in the distant future. Although slightly fantastic, our team came up with some very creative and entertaining future scenarios. Listed below are the stories we came up with at the workshop. Enjoy!
Stories
Jay's Story
t’s 5 AM, April 15th 2047. It’s been 7 hours since the mock protests gave away to riots, and it’s not letting up. War of the fashions between the Inks and the Bleaks. A pale imitation of racial conflict of the previous century. And I find myself a Bleaker awake in a pile of Inked bodies. The streets look like chess board peppered in blood.
I remember how all of this began. A harmless shock statement to offend the common sensibilities. Starting with decades old viral treatment to sterilize and bleach the teeth as a basis, a group of grad students took it a step further by allowing it to modify genetic and epigenetic elements of the skin and making it open source. In the beginning, many variations of the treatment floated around such as chrome and glow-in-the-dark. Some were carcinogenic; others simply didn’t catch on. Eventually natural selection took course, and only the most popular variations remained: alabaster white or pitch black. In retrospect, I think people liked the monochromatic simplicity.
I chose the color white because my girlfriend was decided to be an Inker. Black and white used to go well together you see.
Naturally, the public was outraged. Accusations were made that we were harboring racial or political agendas. They called us unnatural and accused us of mocking the racial challenges our ancestors had go through. Thinking ourselves clever, we didn’t defend ourselves, we played along. Initially we had Bleaker rights protests and Inker Bleaker marriages. We had no common agenda, we simply wanted to rebel.
I think someone once said as a joke, “we are products of more enlightened times.” She hated the societal hypocrisy. She was young, beautiful, but hated that hypocrisy and cowardice built into the society that made discussion of race impossible over half a century. For her, inking was about protest. For me, it was about the inclusivity. Aggression between two sides was part of the joke, but there was no denying a strange sort of rivalry developing. Egged on by ever critical responses from the media and social networking sites, both sides set out to provoke the nation. If one side had a protest, other side started a riot. When Bleakers had a swimsuit parade, Inkers had nude flash mobs. Each time both sides tried to outdo one another. hat was all part of the greatest in-joke in the world. Wasn’t it? Maybe I’m deluding myself. I have some responsibility for what happened.
I don’t know when the relationship became toxic. Maybe, I saw some preferentialism from other Bleakers: better job offers here, little discounts there. Inkers weren’t happy about the preferential treatment. They felt that we were taking it too far. Of course, most Inkers are known for their crass hedonism in general. Often arrested for outrageous stunts and violence. They were in no position to criticize us.
My legs hurt. I can’t move, or they’ll find me.
It was just another mock-protest. I don’t remember too well what it was about, but there was a couple of picketers with the sign, “God, Save These Wretches”. Couple of Plainskins actually came up to us and started pushing us around. Things like these happened in all riots: idiots projecting their problems to others. Though this time they had real cause to be angry: a security footage of a Bleaker murdering a Plainskinned woman.
She said we should find other people. She didn’t want to be part of the joke no more.
While the offending parties were eventually taken away by the police. Strange mood settled over the crowd. No real accusations, but shift in a glance and suspicious stares. Many thought that crowd would simply disperse. But then someone lit the spark.
Undoing the melanin modification is easy. Like a snake shedding her skin.
I don’t know who started it, but a Bleaker and an Inker started a fight. I heard one of them accused the other, but no one knew who threw the first punch. Cooler heads from both groups tried to separate them. But accusations started flying in from both groups. When looked down from above, all the little black and white dots migrated into solid mass of respective colors.
Police were called in what happened next. But I’m not sure they came, considering I saw not a speck of blue during the whole thing. I wouldn’t be surprised if they decided to watch. It was quite a spectacle after all.
This is what I could make out before I blanked out: Inkers accused us of harboring a criminal. Bleakers jeered, saying something about arrest records. Some Inkers tried to grab a random bleach skinned man from the crowd. Bleakers fought back. An idiot with a firearm fumbled with a safety. Accusations stopped as bodies were entangled in the violence. Tide of black and white met in the middle and exploded.
I slammed down the trunk. I may have cried a little, as I drove towards the nearest protest.
My paranoia is unjustified I think. They weren’t going to look for me in a pile of bodies. All the same, I think I’ll stay here. The bleeding in my leg is not stopping.
Underneath the coal black bodies, I look at the aftermath. It’ s gruesome, pointless, and kind of pretty. As I always thought black and white go together. We are the product of the more enlightened times after all.
