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posted by mrpg on Friday August 18 2017, @12:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the color-me...-anything dept.

Over at StatNews is a story on a recent trend where low cost commercial DNA testing is resulting in a number of White Nationalists taking genetic tests, and sometimes they don't like the results that come back.

The article looks at research on how they respond to the sometimes unexpected results:

[...] In a new study, sociologists Aaron Panofsky and Joan Donovan examined years' worth of posts on Stormfront to see how members dealt with the news.

[...] About a third of the people posting their results were pleased with what they found. "Pretty damn pure blood," said a user with the username Sloth. But the majority didn't find themselves in that situation. Instead, the community often helped them reject the test, or argue with its results.

Some rejected the tests entirely, saying that an individual's knowledge about his or her own genealogy is better than whatever a genetic test can reveal. [...] Others, he said, responded to unwanted genetic results by saying that those kinds of tests don't matter if you are truly committed to being a white nationalist. Yet others tried to discredit the genetic tests as a Jewish conspiracy "that is trying to confuse true white Americans about their ancestry," Panofsky said.


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  • (Score: 5, Funny) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday August 18 2017, @01:56PM (4 children)

    by GreatAuntAnesthesia (3275) on Friday August 18 2017, @01:56PM (#555877) Journal

    Hmmm....

    - Set up business claiming to do different / better genetic testing than the existing companies. Use shell companies / fake names etc to protect from recriminations.
    - Charge a lot of money, and market it only on Stormfront / similar sites.
    - Take their money and their spit samples. Throw the spit samples straight into the incinerator.
    - Return a "You are 100% white!" response for every sample received. Watch as sales go through the roof.
    - Donate all profits to anti-racism causes.
    - Profit (for society).

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  • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday August 18 2017, @03:27PM (1 child)

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday August 18 2017, @03:27PM (#555925) Journal

    That's actually genius.

    I think they'd want to throw slight but acceptable variation into the mix to maintain believability. For example, tell them they're 100% white but 2% of that is Irish. Then watch the client run out and buy shamrocks to hang on their car mirrors and stuff. 2% Italian, and suddenly watch them proclaiming that the Godfather is their favorite movie.

    You could have a lot of fun with that.

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    • (Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Saturday August 19 2017, @01:53PM

      by Joe Desertrat (2454) on Saturday August 19 2017, @01:53PM (#556353)

      That's actually genius.
      I think they'd want to throw slight but acceptable variation into the mix to maintain believability.

      If you want to cross the line into genius evil, once the business is successful start privately contacting prominent leaders of such groups and let them know there was a "problem" with their test results which you could "fix" for a modest fee. Otherwise, there might be an "accident" and we could accidentally have those test results slip out to rivals within your group...

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by meustrus on Friday August 18 2017, @06:09PM

    by meustrus (4961) on Friday August 18 2017, @06:09PM (#556004)

    That would profit you, but harm society. Taking money from white supremacists to tell them they are 100% white makes them more sure of themselves and their extreme political opinions. Giving that money to anti-racism causes validates those causes and make them more sure of themselves and their (much less) extreme political opinions. This is true if even if the cause is legal advocates who uses it to win in court; court victories follow progress rather than creating progress, after all.

    Put it all together and you're going to turn more alt-right people into white supremacists and more mainstream liberals into SJWs. Pretty sure that's a net negative for society.

    (I'm really not trying to paint a false equivalency here; just pointing out that maaybe the problem is the idea that there are two opposing sides, regardless of how very different they are)

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  • (Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Friday August 18 2017, @07:25PM

    by Osamabobama (5842) on Friday August 18 2017, @07:25PM (#556049)

    This is the essentially the conspiracy they expect from genetic testing. This particular recipe wouldn't really fit the Jewish Conspiracy (tm) they are expecting, but it's close enough in form. Maybe blame it on the Russians...

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