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You can conjure many insane possibilities in a future unknown. DNA could be tested for traits that are "more likely to cause criminality". People with those tr

You can conjure many insane possibilities in a future unknown. DNA could be tested for traits that are "more likely to cause criminality". People with those traits can be more heavily scrutinized and surveiled. Or have their employment opportunities limited. DNA could be multiplied and planted as evidence. DNA could be cloned, or used in scientific testing without consent. DNA could be used for targeted biological warfare. People leave traces of DNA everywhere they go. Who knows what type of detection mechanisms will exist in the future? There's also the very likely scenario that a central database like this becomes a prime target and leaks. It's borderline guaranteed.

miguelmota 3y ago
Social stratification, genetic elitism, genetic profiling, bio-surveillance, etc. are all very real concerns. Brave New World will become non-fiction.
- drdaeman 3y ago
  Really? What are the signs of this coming? While racism is definitely a thing today, it seem to be dying. Slowly, but the trend is certain: modern society is way less racist than it was, say, a century ago (or worse, a few centuries ago). People stop caring about ethnic origins. The care about cultures and nationalities those days (notice how even the meaning of "racism" had shifted to account for this), and those are rapidly becoming less and less correlated with genetics. While people won't stop being xenophobic (unless, idk, some miracle or catastrophe happens), in the modern world, when it comes to identity, genes are rapidly losing battle to memes.
m463 3y ago
They could clone you, force the clone to perform a crime, then arrest you for the crime based on dna evidence.
- drdaeman 3y ago
  Most sci-fi stories involving human cloning that cover legal aspects seem to predict that laws will be updated to account for a possibility that crime was performed by a clone. Laws tend to lag behind technologies, but not too drastically. It's also much cheaper to just fabricate evidence (cf. XKCD #538 aka $5 wrench vs security). Worked well since time immemorial, and doesn't leave a clone.
plagiarist 3y ago
> DNA could be tested for traits that are "more likely to cause criminality". People with those traits can be more heavily scrutinized and surveiled. Or have their employment opportunities limited. I don't think you need to consider other possibilities, this is a good enough example. And unfortunately it is not insane in the sense of paranoid, because this is what Nazis would be doing with it. Or NK jailing entire families for one member's crimes but basing it on DNA matches.
- Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
  You don't have to be paranoid to think police wouldn't do that. They already are. https://projects.tampabay.com/projects/2020/investigations/police-pasco-sheriff-targeted/intelligence-led-policing/ https://projects.tampabay.com/projects/2020/investigations/p... TL;DR - Pasco County in Florida was using "predictive policing", where based on various statistics, they would predict who would commit crimes and harass the ever-loving shit out of them until they moved out of the county.
tamimio 3y ago
>There's also the very likely scenario that a central database like this becomes a prime target and leaks. Leaks/bugs already blamed, in the article: >GEDmatch tools that provided access to DNA profiles that were opted out of law enforcement searches, which she described as “a bug in the software.”
drdaeman 3y ago
> DNA could be used for targeted biological warfare. I'm no biologist, but I've heard that ethnic bioweapons (in a way portrayed in science fiction or conspiracy theories) are basically a myth and/or convenient propaganda fuel.
- greedo 3y ago
  Read The White Plague by Frank Herbert. Scared the heck out of me as a teen. Considering how humanity still hasn't escaped tribalism even after two hundred millennia, just the thought of genealogically targeted viruses are a wonderful thought.
- noman-land 3y ago
  I'm far from a biologist as well but we're talking about an unknown future. We're entering an era of personalized medicine. Maybe you can't target an ethnic group but you could target a specific person. You could theoretically poison the water in a whole city to target one person. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But in 10 years? 20 years? 50 years?
- SpaghettiCthulu 3y ago
  There are known cases of certain groups having increased protection against certain diseases: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2011.9342 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2011.9342 Could there be some genes already circulating in certain ethnicities that would protect from a specially designed virus?

miguelmota 3y ago

Social stratification, genetic elitism, genetic profiling, bio-surveillance, etc. are all very real concerns. Brave New World will become non-fiction.

drdaeman 3y ago
Really? What are the signs of this coming? While racism is definitely a thing today, it seem to be dying. Slowly, but the trend is certain: modern society is way less racist than it was, say, a century ago (or worse, a few centuries ago). People stop caring about ethnic origins. The care about cultures and nationalities those days (notice how even the meaning of "racism" had shifted to account for this), and those are rapidly becoming less and less correlated with genetics. While people won't stop being xenophobic (unless, idk, some miracle or catastrophe happens), in the modern world, when it comes to identity, genes are rapidly losing battle to memes.

m463 3y ago

They could clone you, force the clone to perform a crime, then arrest you for the crime based on dna evidence.

drdaeman 3y ago
Most sci-fi stories involving human cloning that cover legal aspects seem to predict that laws will be updated to account for a possibility that crime was performed by a clone. Laws tend to lag behind technologies, but not too drastically. It's also much cheaper to just fabricate evidence (cf. XKCD #538 aka $5 wrench vs security). Worked well since time immemorial, and doesn't leave a clone.

plagiarist 3y ago

> DNA could be tested for traits that are "more likely to cause criminality". People with those traits can be more heavily scrutinized and surveiled. Or have their employment opportunities limited. I don't think you need to consider other possibilities, this is a good enough example. And unfortunately it is not insane in the sense of paranoid, because this is what Nazis would be doing with it. Or NK jailing entire families for one member's crimes but basing it on DNA matches.

Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
You don't have to be paranoid to think police wouldn't do that. They already are. https://projects.tampabay.com/projects/2020/investigations/police-pasco-sheriff-targeted/intelligence-led-policing/ https://projects.tampabay.com/projects/2020/investigations/p... TL;DR - Pasco County in Florida was using "predictive policing", where based on various statistics, they would predict who would commit crimes and harass the ever-loving shit out of them until they moved out of the county.

tamimio 3y ago

>There's also the very likely scenario that a central database like this becomes a prime target and leaks. Leaks/bugs already blamed, in the article: >GEDmatch tools that provided access to DNA profiles that were opted out of law enforcement searches, which she described as “a bug in the software.”

drdaeman 3y ago

> DNA could be used for targeted biological warfare. I'm no biologist, but I've heard that ethnic bioweapons (in a way portrayed in science fiction or conspiracy theories) are basically a myth and/or convenient propaganda fuel.

greedo 3y ago
Read The White Plague by Frank Herbert. Scared the heck out of me as a teen. Considering how humanity still hasn't escaped tribalism even after two hundred millennia, just the thought of genealogically targeted viruses are a wonderful thought.
noman-land 3y ago
I'm far from a biologist as well but we're talking about an unknown future. We're entering an era of personalized medicine. Maybe you can't target an ethnic group but you could target a specific person. You could theoretically poison the water in a whole city to target one person. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But in 10 years? 20 years? 50 years?
SpaghettiCthulu 3y ago
There are known cases of certain groups having increased protection against certain diseases: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2011.9342 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2011.9342 Could there be some genes already circulating in certain ethnicities that would protect from a specially designed virus?