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I'm a member of 23andMe. I have my mom's face and my dad's bad sense of humor, so there were no surprises when it was confirmed that they are my biological par

I'm a member of 23andMe. I have my mom's face and my dad's bad sense of humor, so there were no surprises when it was confirmed that they are my biological parents. :) However! In order to see close relatives (anything closer than 4th cousins) you actually have to click a checkbox and confirm that you want to see who you're closely related to. And the other person has to also. 23andMe WARNS you that you might be surprised at the results. So yeah. 23andMe is awesome, title is linkbait. You should disregard the silly article and become a customer of 23andMe, it's important to know your own genetics. It only costs 200 bucks-- compare that cost to future medical costs that you don't prepare for!

dfc 14y ago
Apparently it is important for you to know your genetics, but it is ridiculous and maybe even pompous for you to say its important for me to know my genetics and join 23andme. If I do end up becoming a subscriber to a dna service it is not going to be for a couple years. I'd like to wait for the law to catch up with the technology and enjoy a significantly discounted price.
- civilian 14y ago
  You leave your DNA so many places anyway... I figure if the gov. wanted it, they'd have it. Enjoying a discounted price makes sense though, and a lot of the genetics things don't become something to worry about until later in life. I didn't mean to be pompous, I just wanted to counter the absurdity of the article.
  - jack-r-abbit 14y ago
    I don't think I've seen a crime drama series yet that didn't, at some point, pull the old "here... have this soda while we wait" trick and then harvested the DNA from it after the perp was released. Those sneaky law men.
  - dfc 14y ago
    I am actually more worried about nefarious private sector actors using my DNA against me. There are countless ways that the private sector can use knowledge of my DNA against me.
    - Timothee 14y ago
      First in line would be health insurances obviously, who would be very happy to increase your premium because of such-and-such genetic traits.
      - Retric 14y ago
        It's my understanding that that's already illegal in the US. http://www.genome.gov/24519851 http://www.genome.gov/24519851 +State laws: http://www.genome.gov/PolicyEthics/LegDatabase/PubSearchResult.cfm http://www.genome.gov/PolicyEthics/LegDatabase/PubSearchResu...
        dfc 14y ago
        So you are saying I should not worry because nothing ever happens that is against the law?
jes5199 14y ago
I'm also very happy with 23andMe. It's really quite cheap, it has some cool ancestry visualizations, and it told me about some health risks I should pay attention to. I think the privacy questions are overblown. I don't particularly feel like I "own" my DNA, anyway - I leave bits of it around everywhere I go, I share the majority of it with all the members of my species and the entirety of it with my family members. It seems like a fundamentally open-source aspect of nature.
- kennu 14y ago
  It's still a very different scenario to specifically acquire a single targeted person's DNA which they left lying around, than to collect a massive database of millions of people's DNA that you can use to make all sorts of queries for whatever purpose you wish. E.g. insurance companies wouldn't go through the trouble of following around their customers to catch their DNA, but they certainly would like to have that database which can predict their future illnesses.

dfc 14y ago

Apparently it is important for you to know your genetics, but it is ridiculous and maybe even pompous for you to say its important for me to know my genetics and join 23andme. If I do end up becoming a subscriber to a dna service it is not going to be for a couple years. I'd like to wait for the law to catch up with the technology and enjoy a significantly discounted price.

civilian 14y ago
You leave your DNA so many places anyway... I figure if the gov. wanted it, they'd have it. Enjoying a discounted price makes sense though, and a lot of the genetics things don't become something to worry about until later in life. I didn't mean to be pompous, I just wanted to counter the absurdity of the article.
- jack-r-abbit 14y ago
  I don't think I've seen a crime drama series yet that didn't, at some point, pull the old "here... have this soda while we wait" trick and then harvested the DNA from it after the perp was released. Those sneaky law men.
- dfc 14y ago
  I am actually more worried about nefarious private sector actors using my DNA against me. There are countless ways that the private sector can use knowledge of my DNA against me.
  - Timothee 14y ago
    First in line would be health insurances obviously, who would be very happy to increase your premium because of such-and-such genetic traits.
    - Retric 14y ago
      It's my understanding that that's already illegal in the US. http://www.genome.gov/24519851 http://www.genome.gov/24519851 +State laws: http://www.genome.gov/PolicyEthics/LegDatabase/PubSearchResult.cfm http://www.genome.gov/PolicyEthics/LegDatabase/PubSearchResu...
      - dfc 14y ago
        So you are saying I should not worry because nothing ever happens that is against the law?

jes5199 14y ago

I'm also very happy with 23andMe. It's really quite cheap, it has some cool ancestry visualizations, and it told me about some health risks I should pay attention to. I think the privacy questions are overblown. I don't particularly feel like I "own" my DNA, anyway - I leave bits of it around everywhere I go, I share the majority of it with all the members of my species and the entirety of it with my family members. It seems like a fundamentally open-source aspect of nature.

kennu 14y ago
It's still a very different scenario to specifically acquire a single targeted person's DNA which they left lying around, than to collect a massive database of millions of people's DNA that you can use to make all sorts of queries for whatever purpose you wish. E.g. insurance companies wouldn't go through the trouble of following around their customers to catch their DNA, but they certainly would like to have that database which can predict their future illnesses.