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There is always that one asshole in your family that thinks they're clever by uploading their DNA to one of the ancestry services. By doing that they've leaked

There is always that one asshole in your family that thinks they're clever by uploading their DNA to one of the ancestry services. By doing that they've leaked a fair bit of information about their relatives who never consented.

14 3y ago
I have a dumb brother who I won’t talk to decides to be a shitty career criminal. They took his dna so I’m in the same boat as family uploading it. Not that I am worried about it being used for a crime but I worry in future people will be discriminated on by dna. Life insurance could be more expensive if they know you have a slight chance of x disease for examples.
- memefrog 3y ago
  If you have a higher chance of getting a disease, why wouldn't life insurance be more expensive? Life insurance will also be cheaper if you don't have that chance. The point of insurance is to spread random risk around. Nobody complains that young women have cheaper car insurance than young men, or that young people have more expensive car insurance than older people, but cheaper health insurance. Young men are more likely to have car accidents, but less likely to have cancer. The point of insurance is not wealth redistribution or the spreading of systemic risk, but the spreading of random risk. (I mean this in the sense of 'systemic error' vs 'random error' that you will remember from high school physics.)
  - chmod775 3y ago
    This directly leads to discrimination against disabled people among other groups. For instance wheelchair bound people have a much lower average live expectancy. The lives of people who are (born) disabled or have some debilitating genetic disease don't need society to make their lives even harder. > If you have a higher chance of getting a disease, why wouldn't life insurance be more expensive? The answer to that is: Not spreading such risks evenly among everyone is morally reprehensible. Imagine your reward for living in constant pain and having a higher chance of dying early is society kicking you in the balls for the crime of being born like that.
    - wlesieutre 3y ago
      My car insurance company knows I have a Y-chromosome and charges me extra for it. Seems to be a universal practice at least in the US.
      - StanislavPetrov 3y ago
        A lot of discriminatory practices exist in the US. We should strive to eliminate them, not expand them.
        memefrog 3y ago
        No, we should not 'strive to eliminate' them. The entire point of insurance is that it is based on risk assessments that are as accurate as possible, using all the information that is available. It is not a wealth redistribution mechanism, but a randomness redistribution system. If you know that you have an illness, and don't tell your insurance company, then you're a fraudster. If you know you have a genetic predisposition to illness, that's no different. Discrimination is not inherently a bad thing. There are specific lists of special reasons, and discrimination on those bases is considered bad and has widely been made unlawful. Usually, insurance is an exception! And it should be. I don't see why men should subsidise the health insurance of women or why women should subsidise the car insurance of men. I don't see why the young should subsidise the health insurance of the old. That's not the point of insurance.
        ghusbands 3y ago
        You're pushing a very limited view of insurance, here. There are plenty of cases in the world where insurance is a "randomness redistribution system" across a whole population, where the lottery of genetics is also considered part of that randomness, avoiding building in discrimination.
        memefrog 3y ago
        Do you have any examples?
  - DoughnutHole 3y ago
    There are plenty of systemic factors that we have banned from being considered in things like insurance. Black men have a lower life expectancy and higher chances of certain illnesses or of being the victim of a violent crime than white men. If you put a race question on your life insurance form and incorporate that into your pricing you’ll be looking at a a brutal lawsuit. Actuarial math is not some moral law that we are beholden to as a society. There are discriminations that we decide are unjust and make society worse even if they spread the costs of insurance more accurately.
    - memefrog 3y ago
      I certainly hope race is factored into insurance! Sex is. Why wouldn't race be? Geographical location is, and that is largely a proxy for race. It is not "unjust" to make more accurate predictions using the data you have available. It is fundamentally incapable of being unjust. Injustice comes from making wrong decisions, not from making right decisions. You seem like the type of person that would declare statistics racist because it reveals facts you don't want to hear.
      - DoughnutHole 3y ago
        This is such a juvenile understanding of racism. Justice is not derived from statistics. Espousing statistics does not justify racial discrimination. We did not ban racial discrimination because we engaged with statistical arguments for racism and decided they were unfounded. A decision can be supported statistically (in some contrived way “right”) and be ethically wrong. We undid legal racial discrimination because it’s morally repugnant.
        memefrog 3y ago
        >We did not ban racial discrimination because we engaged with statistical arguments for racism and decided they were unfounded. That is exactly what we did. Legally entrenched racial discriminatiom was widely supported pretty much exactly up until science refuted scientific racism. The whole argument against racism is that race doesn't matter, it is just a social construct, "race" is meaningless because there is more variability with races than between them, etc. That has always been a key argument against racism. >We undid legal racial discrimination because it’s morally repugnant. It is morally repugnant because it is incorrect. It would not be morally repugnant to discriminate racially if it wasn't baseless, just as it isn't morally repugnant to discriminate in any situation where it is justifiable. For example nobody has a problem with not hiring a black man to play a white female character in a film. Nobody has a problem with having publicly funded breast cancer screening programs that are only available for women, even though in very rare cases males can get breast cancer. Racism is morally repugnant when you make decisions based on race. It is obviously not morally repugnant if you are making decisions based on something else, and that happens to correlate with race. There is quite obviously nothing wrong with basing insurance premiums on all available information about someone, including genetic information. Would you say it is morally repugnant to charge higher premiums to white people for skin cancer health insurance cover? Come on! Use your brain, man.
  - Turing_Machine 3y ago
    > Nobody complains that young women have cheaper car insurance than young men, or that young people have more expensive car insurance than older people, but cheaper health insurance. On the contrary. People complain about stuff like this all the time. An example: for whatever reason (genetic factors, stress, lifestyle factors) black people are much more likely to have high blood pressure than white people. That's a fact. What do you suppose would happen if insurance companies tried to charge black people more money, or simply refused to cover them for conditions related to high blood pressure?
    - memefrog 3y ago
      >On the contrary. People complain about stuff like this all the time. Yes. Ignorant people do. They lose the argument because they can't justify their position. >What do you suppose would happen if insurance companies tried to charge black people more money, or simply refused to cover them for conditions related to high blood pressure? Performative outrage from the insanely woke mainstream media, because racial issues drive ratings like nothing else. Insurance companies wouldn't refuse to cover them for those conditions because it isn't good business sense, both for the above reason and because the rational thing is to charge a slightly higher premium. Why should white people getting insurance subsidise the insurance of unhealthy people that make bad lifestyle choices just because those people happen to be black, but not otherwise?
      - timschmidt 3y ago
        > Insurance companies wouldn't refuse to cover them for those conditions because it isn't good business sense See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining "While the best-known examples involve denial of credit and insurance, also sometimes attributed to redlining in many instances are denial of healthcare and the development of food deserts in minority neighborhoods."
        memefrog 3y ago
        I have no idea what dumb woke gotcha this is meant to be
- skinner927 3y ago
  Sorry, you can’t get health insurance because you have a pre-existing condition from 13 generations ago.
greedylizard 3y ago
Why is this being downvoted? Is it not true? From what I’ve seen, this comment is accurate. Genuinely asking…
- dunefox 3y ago
  Because the companies and subsequent parties are the assholes in this case.
alexfromapex 3y ago
They’re not an asshole the companies are for letting the government search the data without a warrant. This kind of data collection and abuse without informed consent can easily spread and probably already has with modalities like facial recognition and needs to be banned.
- StanislavPetrov 3y ago
  >They’re not an asshole the companies are for letting the government search the data without a warrant. In my opinion trusting anyone with your DNA makes you an asshole. The possibility of a leak, hack, misuse or government search (consensual or non-consensual) approaches 100% very rapidly over time.
  - coldtea 3y ago
    >In my opinion trusting anyone with your DNA makes you an asshole It's not like they can't get your DNA in several ways without you volunteering it... Or that they need your DNA to get to things about you, unless you're living incognito or something...
    - slikrick 3y ago
      "it's not like they can't murder you other ways, why are you worried about them owning guns and patrolling out your house?"
      - coldtea 3y ago
        More like "you have no alarm, no guard dog, no fence, and your doors and windows are always open, even when you're on vacations. Why are you worried about the spare keys you've sent to some key analysis service?"

14 3y ago

I have a dumb brother who I won’t talk to decides to be a shitty career criminal. They took his dna so I’m in the same boat as family uploading it. Not that I am worried about it being used for a crime but I worry in future people will be discriminated on by dna. Life insurance could be more expensive if they know you have a slight chance of x disease for examples.

memefrog 3y ago
If you have a higher chance of getting a disease, why wouldn't life insurance be more expensive? Life insurance will also be cheaper if you don't have that chance. The point of insurance is to spread random risk around. Nobody complains that young women have cheaper car insurance than young men, or that young people have more expensive car insurance than older people, but cheaper health insurance. Young men are more likely to have car accidents, but less likely to have cancer. The point of insurance is not wealth redistribution or the spreading of systemic risk, but the spreading of random risk. (I mean this in the sense of 'systemic error' vs 'random error' that you will remember from high school physics.)
- chmod775 3y ago
  This directly leads to discrimination against disabled people among other groups. For instance wheelchair bound people have a much lower average live expectancy. The lives of people who are (born) disabled or have some debilitating genetic disease don't need society to make their lives even harder. > If you have a higher chance of getting a disease, why wouldn't life insurance be more expensive? The answer to that is: Not spreading such risks evenly among everyone is morally reprehensible. Imagine your reward for living in constant pain and having a higher chance of dying early is society kicking you in the balls for the crime of being born like that.
  - wlesieutre 3y ago
    My car insurance company knows I have a Y-chromosome and charges me extra for it. Seems to be a universal practice at least in the US.
    - StanislavPetrov 3y ago
      A lot of discriminatory practices exist in the US. We should strive to eliminate them, not expand them.
      - memefrog 3y ago
        No, we should not 'strive to eliminate' them. The entire point of insurance is that it is based on risk assessments that are as accurate as possible, using all the information that is available. It is not a wealth redistribution mechanism, but a randomness redistribution system. If you know that you have an illness, and don't tell your insurance company, then you're a fraudster. If you know you have a genetic predisposition to illness, that's no different. Discrimination is not inherently a bad thing. There are specific lists of special reasons, and discrimination on those bases is considered bad and has widely been made unlawful. Usually, insurance is an exception! And it should be. I don't see why men should subsidise the health insurance of women or why women should subsidise the car insurance of men. I don't see why the young should subsidise the health insurance of the old. That's not the point of insurance.
        ghusbands 3y ago
        You're pushing a very limited view of insurance, here. There are plenty of cases in the world where insurance is a "randomness redistribution system" across a whole population, where the lottery of genetics is also considered part of that randomness, avoiding building in discrimination.
        memefrog 3y ago
        Do you have any examples?
- DoughnutHole 3y ago
  There are plenty of systemic factors that we have banned from being considered in things like insurance. Black men have a lower life expectancy and higher chances of certain illnesses or of being the victim of a violent crime than white men. If you put a race question on your life insurance form and incorporate that into your pricing you’ll be looking at a a brutal lawsuit. Actuarial math is not some moral law that we are beholden to as a society. There are discriminations that we decide are unjust and make society worse even if they spread the costs of insurance more accurately.
  - memefrog 3y ago
    I certainly hope race is factored into insurance! Sex is. Why wouldn't race be? Geographical location is, and that is largely a proxy for race. It is not "unjust" to make more accurate predictions using the data you have available. It is fundamentally incapable of being unjust. Injustice comes from making wrong decisions, not from making right decisions. You seem like the type of person that would declare statistics racist because it reveals facts you don't want to hear.
    - DoughnutHole 3y ago
      This is such a juvenile understanding of racism. Justice is not derived from statistics. Espousing statistics does not justify racial discrimination. We did not ban racial discrimination because we engaged with statistical arguments for racism and decided they were unfounded. A decision can be supported statistically (in some contrived way “right”) and be ethically wrong. We undid legal racial discrimination because it’s morally repugnant.
      - memefrog 3y ago
        >We did not ban racial discrimination because we engaged with statistical arguments for racism and decided they were unfounded. That is exactly what we did. Legally entrenched racial discriminatiom was widely supported pretty much exactly up until science refuted scientific racism. The whole argument against racism is that race doesn't matter, it is just a social construct, "race" is meaningless because there is more variability with races than between them, etc. That has always been a key argument against racism. >We undid legal racial discrimination because it’s morally repugnant. It is morally repugnant because it is incorrect. It would not be morally repugnant to discriminate racially if it wasn't baseless, just as it isn't morally repugnant to discriminate in any situation where it is justifiable. For example nobody has a problem with not hiring a black man to play a white female character in a film. Nobody has a problem with having publicly funded breast cancer screening programs that are only available for women, even though in very rare cases males can get breast cancer. Racism is morally repugnant when you make decisions based on race. It is obviously not morally repugnant if you are making decisions based on something else, and that happens to correlate with race. There is quite obviously nothing wrong with basing insurance premiums on all available information about someone, including genetic information. Would you say it is morally repugnant to charge higher premiums to white people for skin cancer health insurance cover? Come on! Use your brain, man.
- Turing_Machine 3y ago
  > Nobody complains that young women have cheaper car insurance than young men, or that young people have more expensive car insurance than older people, but cheaper health insurance. On the contrary. People complain about stuff like this all the time. An example: for whatever reason (genetic factors, stress, lifestyle factors) black people are much more likely to have high blood pressure than white people. That's a fact. What do you suppose would happen if insurance companies tried to charge black people more money, or simply refused to cover them for conditions related to high blood pressure?
  - memefrog 3y ago
    >On the contrary. People complain about stuff like this all the time. Yes. Ignorant people do. They lose the argument because they can't justify their position. >What do you suppose would happen if insurance companies tried to charge black people more money, or simply refused to cover them for conditions related to high blood pressure? Performative outrage from the insanely woke mainstream media, because racial issues drive ratings like nothing else. Insurance companies wouldn't refuse to cover them for those conditions because it isn't good business sense, both for the above reason and because the rational thing is to charge a slightly higher premium. Why should white people getting insurance subsidise the insurance of unhealthy people that make bad lifestyle choices just because those people happen to be black, but not otherwise?
    - timschmidt 3y ago
      > Insurance companies wouldn't refuse to cover them for those conditions because it isn't good business sense See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining "While the best-known examples involve denial of credit and insurance, also sometimes attributed to redlining in many instances are denial of healthcare and the development of food deserts in minority neighborhoods."
      - memefrog 3y ago
        I have no idea what dumb woke gotcha this is meant to be
skinner927 3y ago
Sorry, you can’t get health insurance because you have a pre-existing condition from 13 generations ago.

greedylizard 3y ago

Why is this being downvoted? Is it not true? From what I’ve seen, this comment is accurate. Genuinely asking…

dunefox 3y ago
Because the companies and subsequent parties are the assholes in this case.

alexfromapex 3y ago

They’re not an asshole the companies are for letting the government search the data without a warrant. This kind of data collection and abuse without informed consent can easily spread and probably already has with modalities like facial recognition and needs to be banned.

StanislavPetrov 3y ago
>They’re not an asshole the companies are for letting the government search the data without a warrant. In my opinion trusting anyone with your DNA makes you an asshole. The possibility of a leak, hack, misuse or government search (consensual or non-consensual) approaches 100% very rapidly over time.
- coldtea 3y ago
  >In my opinion trusting anyone with your DNA makes you an asshole It's not like they can't get your DNA in several ways without you volunteering it... Or that they need your DNA to get to things about you, unless you're living incognito or something...
  - slikrick 3y ago
    "it's not like they can't murder you other ways, why are you worried about them owning guns and patrolling out your house?"
    - coldtea 3y ago
      More like "you have no alarm, no guard dog, no fence, and your doors and windows are always open, even when you're on vacations. Why are you worried about the spare keys you've sent to some key analysis service?"