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Annual reminder: 23andMe is a dangerous Christmas gift that could have unforeseen impacts on your entire family, your children, etc. (www.404media.co)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Whoa, lol. I never said whatever you're paraphrasing. My question is, what are these unforeseeable ramifications the author is talking about? My point is, none of these things are surprising, unforeseeable, or unexpected. Did we expect anything different from these companies? No one I know did.

I'm not debating if data collection and selling is ethical. My question again is, what are these unforeseeable ramifications? Everything he's telling me is very well known to the public and quite foreseeable. In other words, am I missing something?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yes. You're missing the definition of "unforeseen".

Let's do a thought experiment together. Picture these steps happening:

Everybody has signed up with a corporate DNA registry, or is related to someone who has. (I mean what could possibly go wrong? We know what is possible with genetic information and what isn't right?)
Advances in genetic technology let the tech do something that was previously "impossible". Like, say, identify anybody who has the markers for, say, Aztec ancestry. If you've got more than 10% Aztec blood you're spotted by this new tech.
A Nazi-adjacent president is elected on a platform of fearing the hordes of Mexicans at the USA's southern border. (That would never happen, though, right? /s)
The government commandeers the genetic database and gets a list of people with that marker. (And probably others, since, you know, it's highly unlikely that they'd figure out the markers for one group and only one, right?)
Kristallnacht Part Dos starts.

This is all a flight of fancy, of course. Nobody would think of that chain happening. (Which is what "unforeseen" means. It was not foreseen.) That chain or potentially a million other chains that lead to horrific ends. All because we did not foresee just how dangerous handing out genetic information willy-nilly would be.

Other possible chain ends include:

that data falling into the hands of terrorists who use that same advance in genetic technology to identify targets
that data falling into the hands of ~~terrorists~~medical businesses who use information about disease tendencies to deny coverage
that data falling into the hands of government who use that information to identify and eliminate trans people
…

Well you get the idea. While there's a lot of good coming from this technology (which is why we can't really ban it entirely), the prospective unforeseen outcomes that lead down the path of horror and despotism means we should not be just handing that shit around and trading it like baseball cards.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Oh, thank you for the explanations! However, all you've described is the misuse of this data, and my point is that it is not unforeseeable that data (whatever data it may be) gets misused, stolen, or sold. All your examples are just describing the same thing - misuse of data. Arguing that ethical cleansing based on misused data from a for-profit organization is a bit far-fetched as an article headline if he ment that). If it comes to a point where ethical clashing is on the menu, it will happen regardless of the existence of DNA data.

All these unforeseeable events seem quite far-fetched.

I understand if the argument was that under very specific circumstances, DNA data can be misused to identify people who might not want to be found, such as through family members who sequenced their genome, especially if the family members are in contact with or have any information regarding the target.

Or, if the argument was similar to the gun argument, like in the last paragraph you wrote, stating that it is a tool that can be misused, and now we must decide whether it is worth using as we do today and how we want to regulate it. The tool is not the problem; some humans are.

But none of the examples are truly applicable to our reality today. The regulation and control of these entities and datasets is an important question, but I think there are better ways to discuss it than the strategy the author chose.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, instead of concocting convoluted theories about potential outcomes, we should focus on the core issue, not just the symptoms. This article ignites wild theories about possible scenarios, rather than addressing the problem of our inability to effectively regulate companies and corporate entities. The issue remains unsolved even if these DNA companies cease to exist, but they certainly highlight the fundamental problem of somewhat unregulated data markets.