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This feels like a "think of the children" type of appeal. I personally don't have any murderous history to hide. But there are unintended consequences with all
by consumer451 3y ago
This feels like a "think of the children" type of appeal.
I personally don't have any murderous history to hide. But there are unintended consequences with all of these losses of privacy. As a peer comment has rightly pointed out, nation state adversaries now have these same profiles.
Maybe they can find a common DNA profile for an efficient bio-weapon. Oops.
I escaped an authoritarian regime as a child, thanks to the same mother. I hold no ill will towards her, but I am deeply aware of the issues that bad actors can create with by compiling huge databases of otherwise unnecessary information.
- jimbob45 3y agoMaybe they can find a common DNA profile for an efficient bio-weapon. Oops. I think we already reached the end of the bioweapon tech tree with Sarin gas.
- jacquesm 3y agoNo, you are misreading the GP. What they mean is a bioweapon specifically tailored to match a particular DNA profile. Think Germany, 1939, or South Africa, 1985, but with this capability to see what the possibilities are and how utterly unstoppable that would be. And probably there are contemporary examples as well, but I don't feel like starting a flame-fest.
- consumer451 3y agoIt could be specific to a family, or with this broad a DNA + meta data dataset, it could be enough data to wipe out much of an entire group. Choose the common traits in people who self-identified as a group. English, Jews, Slavs, Native South Americans, non-Han, etc. The problem with bio-weapons has always been "blow back." Narrowing the scope of the weapon would help a lot with that.
- jacquesm 3y agoExactly, the better the control the bigger the chance that a weapon like this would be used.
- anonymouskimmer 3y agoAny narrowing of scope would be temporary.
- Libcat99 3y agoI think the important takeaway is such a weapon could potentially target a DNA profile while ignoring others.
- jacquesm 3y agoYes, exactly. And that DNA profile could be more or less specific as well to the point where you can commit genocide. Think 'final solution', not 'James Bond'.
- eesmith 3y agoThere will be several Nobel Prizes in creating the technology to get this bioweapon. You need something which reproduces itself even in non-targets, which enters the cell's nucleus, which detects the correct DNA - which may be scattered across the genome! -, which has a mechanism that kills the target people, and where none of this will mutate so as to stop effectiveness, change/broaden the target population, etc. Furthermore, just because people identify as a group does not mean they have a distinct genetic pattern. How would you target "Christians" or "Americans" or "Hispanics"? This appears to be a harder task than curing cancer, in that many of the same techniques could be used to target cancerous cells but that does not require the ability to spread from person to person. A bioweapon doesn't appear in a vacuum. The required technological advances will be widely known. In this fantastical cancer-free world, why wouldn't your local health care center have the ability to sequence unexpected genomes and prepare a vaccine or phage in the same day?
- janalsncm 3y ago> How would you target "Christians" or "Americans" or "Hispanics"? You don’t need to have a 1:1 mapping in order to be effective. Incapacitating a sufficient number of a group is enough. Similarly, such a bioweapon in an assassination context doesn’t need to only kill the target or go unnoticed. It’s enough that it is a disease or irritant that a particular individual is susceptible to.
- 3y ago
- jimbob45 3y agoThat only seems useful if said bioweapon can’t be determined by anyone else to have been DNA-based. Otherwise, why not just use a conventional bioweapon (lol) and target it more precisely? Using this hypothetical DNA targeting technology doesn’t seem like it’s solving a real problem. I guess if you could target one person specifically? But then again there are way easier ways to kill people.
- Rodeoclash 3y ago> I personally don't have any murderous history to hide I've been meaning to ask, could you please remove the curtains to your bedroom so I can see in? I know you're not doing anything wrong so you've got nothing to hide.
- flir 3y agoDo you want a law that says people can't publish their own DNA SNPs? Sounds like a free speech issue.
- Filligree 3y agoSounds like a good idea. Free speech isn’t the highest law.
- flir 3y agoNow there's an opinion I don't often see on HN... hi, fellow European! (Putting aside my modest proposal, I still want to be able to research my family history.)
- sofixa 3y agoAlready exists in some countries, like France. Non-court ordered DNA tests are illegal here, mostly for privacy reasons.
- jacquesm 3y agoI think you missed the general tone of the GP's comment and inferred something they did not intend to say.
- barnabyjones 3y agoI think his point was that using this qualifier gives more credence to the "nothing to hide" folks. The more people get used to saying it in defense, the easier it becomes to use as an attack.
- rvba 3y agoCan you share your bank history?
- anonymouskimmer 3y ago> nation state adversaries I think you mean "nation state country polity" :P > Maybe they can find a common DNA profile for an efficient bio-weapon For this it doesn't matter whether a "nation state" is making the weapon. An empire state, sub-nation state, or non-state entity would be fine. What matters for a common DNA profile weapon is that said entity targets a mostly ethnic state, or non-state nation such as the Kurds, preferably with an ethnicity genetically distinct enough from one's own people, and that said ethnicity is genetically specific enough, in exactly the right ways, to target. As eesmith writes, good luck with that.