[extropy-chat] Century City: The law show of the future

[Hal Finney]

I watched the initial episode of Century City last night and thought
it was an interesting look at the future with a number of issues of
importance to extropians.  The show is about a Los Angeles law firm in
the year 2030.  I'll include spoilers in this discussion, so be warned.

There were two main storylines.  In one, a man had a cloned embryo of his
10 year old son created overseas, but was arrested and had the embryo
impounded when he tried to bring it back into the U.S.  The man's son
is dying of a liver ailment, and the man wants to grow the clone and
extract a piece of its liver to save his son's life.  He says he's
willing to pay the fine for his smuggling, but wants the law firm to
sue to recover the embryo from the government so that he can proceed
with the medical procedure.

A number of interesting issues came up.  First, I thought it odd that
it would be legal to possess the embryo but not to import it.  One could
hardly sue today to recover illegal drugs that had been siezed by Customs.
However, it was explained that cloning was a highly controversial issue
and that the U.S. government had never been able to create a unified
policy about it.  The procedure itself is illegal in the U.S., and so
is the import; but there are no other limitations.  I thought that was
somewhat realistic, that with a politically controversial issue you can
end up with inconsistent and even contradictory policies.

There was also discussion of what would happen to the new child who would
give up half his liver.  The man says that "as a last resort" they can
"pinch off" some of the cells of the embryo and grow it as a liver donor
but not a human being.  What does this mean?  He further explains that
they would "pinch off" the cells that would become the head, and grow
a headless body.  (I had the impression that although he did not want
to admit it, this was in fact his intention, since he did not seem to
be giving much thought to the implications of raising another son.)

Shades of Robert Bradbury!  He has often suggested this method for
obtaining organs for transplant.  However the reaction on the part of
the lawyers was horror and disgust.  They suggested that he not tell
the jury about this part of his plan (although the man later slips up
and does talk about this on the witness stand, giving the prosecutor
ammunition to make him look bad).

Then, a twist in the story occurs.  It turns out that the man's current
son is secretly a clone as well!  The wife had died before they were able
to have a child, and the man did not want to use a female donor with all
the questions about parental rights and unknown genetic contribution.
The attorney reveals this to the judge, asking that it be suppressed
from the jury's hearing as prejudicial, but the prosecutor pounces
on it.  Biologically, he explains, the man is not the boy's father;
he is his twin brother!  The boy's biological father and mother are
the man's parents, the people the boy has known as his grandparents.
Therefore the man has no standing to sue to recover the embryo, and only
if his parents join the lawsuit can it go forward.  The judge agrees.

This doesn't seem quite right to me.  If the man has not legally adopted
the boy, he might not be the father, and possibly could not authorize the
liver transplant, but that is not the issue before the court.  The issue
is recovery of the seized embryo.  Just because the man has created an
earlier clone it should not mean that suddenly only his parents can sue to
recover the embryo.  Now, it's true that the reason for wanting the embryo
back so badly is for the medical procedure, and maybe the judge is right
that the grandparents would be the ones who would have to authorize it.
So there might be some justification, but it's a confusing issue.

In the end it all works out OK; the grandparents are persuaded eventually
to join the case; the prosecutor makes a foolishly nasty summation about
the evils of cloning, causing the boy to run crying out of the courtroom
and obviously making the jurors despise the prosecutor and everything
about him; the good guy lawyer tells the jurors that if they are going to
decide against the boy, they might as well plunge a knife into him, for
they are sentencing him to death either way and the knife would be kinder.
Obviously the defense will win, and so the prosecution cuts a deal at the
last minute where everyone goes to Singapore to have the baby.  They had
never explained why the man didn't just stay in Singapore in the first
place and avoid all the legal hassles, which was a little frustrating.

There was one element of the story where the timing didn't seem to work:
it came out that one of the young lawyers was supposedly the subject of a
human genetic enhancement experiment.  Before she was born she had been
given enhanced genes for intelligence, strength, even happiness.  Now,
the problem is that she looked about 25 to me, and the show is set in
2030, requiring her to be born in 2005.  But we have no technology for
making these kinds of changes today.  She could be a few years younger,
especially if the genius treatment worked and she graduated from law
school at 20 or something.  But that would still leave an uncomfortably
short time for the tremendous technological, ethical and social changes
which would be necessary for an enhanced baby to be born in the next
few years.

She did allude to some of the ethical questions in such an effort.
When she feels happy, she said, she wonders, is it because something
has happened to make her happy?  Or is it because some genetic engineer
tinkered with her genome to make her predisposed to be happy?  She finds
this quite troubling.  The wise old lawyer who runs the law firm gives
her some blunt advice: just be happy to be happy.


The second story line was about a 1980s "boy band" which is still active
in 2030, even though its members are pushing 70, thanks to cosmetic
surgery.  It turns out that they are also using telomerase inhibitors,
an experimental and illegal rejuvenation treatment which tends to cause
cancer.  One band member refuses to undergo the dangerous and radical
procedures, which is a breach of the band contract requirement to keep
up a good appearance, so he is being sued.

Of course we have often discussed telomerase inhibitors, and I think
the consensus today is that they are not likely to be that effective
at rejuvenation, but I'd say it's safely within the sci-fi envelope to
suggest that there could be some bodily functions which are helped by
the treatment.

This story line, too, has a twist, in that the lead singer of the band
suddenly drops dead.  "Was it cancer?  Was it the telomerase?"  No, he
died of a stroke.  He was 70, after all.  Without him, the tour can't
really work, so they are dropping the case.  They conclude with the band
members (including the one who looks 70) giving a short performance at the
funeral.  They're quite spry for 70, even the old guy doing handstands.

I took two contradictory implications from this.  When the singer died,
the suggestion was that although they look about 30, the rejuvenation
is only superficial and cosmetic, and they are still subject to the
infirmaties of age.  However, when the band performed at the funeral,
they showed physical vigor that would be quite unusual for 70 year olds.
I'm not sure what that was supposed to mean; maybe it was just meant to
be played for laughs.


Overall, I was pleased with the show's exploration of ideas.  The mere
fact of a non-dystopian future is a pretty radical concept today.
But they went beyond that and explored concepts that are the kinds of
things that we discuss all the time.  That's very brave for a mainstream
show.  They also seemed pretty sharp technically and I didn't see any
major errors.

On the down side, I didn't think much of it as a drama.  The acting
was wooden and the characters stereotypes.  The reliance on surprises
and twists which come out of nowhere does not suggest strong dramatic
skills on the part of the writers.  So I am afraid that the show may
not last long.

The next broadcast will be Saturday night, about whether a baseball
player with an artificial eye should be allowed to compete.

Hal