Semipalatinsk, 2009
I spent three months filming in the villages around the Soviet nuclear test site in Kazakhstan. The documentary—"After the Apocalypse"—followed a pregnant woman and the local doctor trying to prevent her from having children.
The doctor's tool was something called a "genetic passport." A document that classified people by their radiation exposure and hereditary risk. If your passport was red, you were forbidden from reproducing.
I thought I was documenting a historical horror. Turns out I was documenting a preview.
The Pattern Resurfaces
Today, I'm tracking three converging trends:
1. Insurance genomics- Companies using genetic data to price risk2. Immigration health screening- Countries requiring genetic testing for visa applicants 3. Climate adaptation planning- Regions identifying "resilient" population profiles
Each of these, separately, seems reasonable. Together, they reconstruct the logic of the genetic passport.
What the Doctor Taught Me
Dr. Toregozhina genuinely believed she was helping her community. She'd seen the birth defects. She'd held the dying children. Her solution was monstrous—but her evidence was real.
That's the danger. The genetic passport wasn't imposed by obvious villains. It emerged from people trying to solve real problems with the tools they had.
The same will be true of whatever we build next.
Field notes from the future we're already building.