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Submitted via IRC for BoyceMagooglyMonkey
23andMe has reached a deal with pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline, giving the company access to their (your) genetic data to potentially develop new drugs. Did they just sell us all out? Not exactly.
This isn't the first deal where 23andMe has allowed companies to use their (your) data for their research. The company makes up to $199 when you buy one of their spit kits and send in your DNA, but their business model has always depended on leveraging the data they amass as a result. The company has previously made similar, though smaller, deals with Genentech and Pfizer.
[...] The company doesn't technically hand over your data; analysts at 23andMe provide "summary statistics" to third parties. This is relatively safe, in theory, but if you're not sure how you feel about it, just click "Change Consent" under your account settings.
Source: https://vitals.lifehacker.com/what-you-re-really-agreeing-to-when-you-sign-up-for-23a-1828034397
(Score: 4, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday August 06 2018, @04:27PM (27 children)
Consider that Real Soon Now I'm going to pay to get my DNA sequenced. I'm going to post my entire genome on my website.
This in hopes that by doing so I will contribute to the cure of my Bipolar-Type Schizoaffective Disorder.
There's a company here in Portland that will make the arrangements for my cold, dead cadaver to be donated to medical science. I'd like to think they'd spend the next fifty years studying my brain but most likely I'll just enable some Adderall-Addled med studying to practice open heart surgery.
I'm likely to get my right kidney remove. I expect they'd normally incinerate it, but I'm going to request that they put it on ice so I can ship it to my friend in California whose daughter has a transplanted one. While she ended up in Molecular Biology, Ann at first intended to be a surgeon.
I'll suggest that she make Steak And Kidney Pie out of it. I understand that the Brits are heavily into that sort of thing.
(PS: A CT scan turned up what is likely to be cancer. It took three solid weeks for me to get in to see my doc so I could request a referral for a biopsy. Not the biopsy itself, just the _referral_ for one. Now I'm waiting for my biopsy to be scheduled. If this kind of luck keeps up I'll be metastasized beyond all human recognition by the time they schedule me for a referral for chemo. Ann would be heavily into dissecting what's left of me at that point!)
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 06 2018, @04:44PM (23 children)
One of the reasons our species cannot improve itself is that we keep funding and promoting the reproduction of low quality people.
You don't need to kill people to better our lot. Just stop funding the low end of the bell curve.
(Score: 4, Informative) by DannyB on Monday August 06 2018, @04:52PM (15 children)
The problem is that the low end of the bell curve outvotes the other end. Even if only in the electoral college.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 06 2018, @05:01PM (13 children)
As someone else stated: Democracy always ends up as 2 wolves and 1 sheep voting on what's for dinner.
Sorry, but the fool should not be give a voice equal to that of the scholar (and vice versa for certain questions).
The only humane way to give the right weight of voice to each individual is Capitalism.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday August 06 2018, @05:19PM (11 children)
Don't we already do that? Corporations are people too! And some people, including a longtime personal friend, actually believe that money is speech.
What we seem to have is Capitalism run amok. Because it is discovered how to subvert, bribe and corrupt the system so that government cannot act as a restraining influence. Or instead of "government" substitute "the will of the people" (and I don't mean corporations as people).
I can imagine how humane capitalism would be left completely unrestrained. I often joke about it. About 1/3 of the way through your service agreement (at page 223) you agreed to allow your ISP to sneak in the middle of the night and harvest your and your family's organs, unless your cable company has already gotten them first.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 06 2018, @05:22PM (6 children)
A government is a fundamentally anti-Capitalism institution; taxation is armed robbery.
The Welfare State—even in the U.S.—is enormous. Stop kidding yourself that we have a Capitalist society, because we sure as fuck don't.
(Score: 5, Informative) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday August 06 2018, @05:36PM (1 child)
-gs.
Consider Denmark, where burger flippers make twenty dollars per hour, get six weeks of paid vacation per year. I don't know about Denmark specifically but some Welfare States have free college tuition.
Yet their per-capita gross domestic products exceed that of the USD$ited $tates Of America.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 06 2018, @05:58PM
Perhaps you're arguing for a small ethnostate, and didn't even realize it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Monday August 06 2018, @05:41PM (3 children)
You should go somewhere and live by yourself.
All human groups have formed some system of self government. Sometimes it is imposed. Other times it is formed voluntarily. Not all individuals will agree with every single thing the government does.
Here is a clue for free: taxation has ALWAYS been part of it. Since at least as far back as we had ways of keeping records. The Bible describes forms of taxation in the old testament that are thousands of years old. You know the saying about death and taxes. Get used to it. If you don't like taxes, then you should move somewhere where you don't have to pay taxes (or enjoy the benefits of it).
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 06 2018, @06:00PM (2 children)
Your argument is tired and stupid.
If anything, that's an argument against taxation; you're saying that taxation is a vestigial aspect of ancient authoritarianism.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 06 2018, @06:26PM
No, YOU are tired and stupid. Be glas d some people still bother having these discussions with you.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday August 07 2018, @01:52AM
Your post doesn't even amount to an argument. All that you have a accomplished is to state in a roundabout manner that you don't like people. People haven't changed in thousands of years, and you don't like any of them because they don't change.
So - what are you? One of the lizard people? And ageless vampire? An alien observer? Or, the autistic child who just doesn't "get it"?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday August 06 2018, @05:41PM (1 child)
"Repo Men".
NOT "Repo Man": that's a completely different movie.
The Repo Men are the right chaps that repossess transplanted organs from those who have not kept up with their payments.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday August 07 2018, @03:00PM
Thanks. I will keep an eye out for that one.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 06 2018, @06:43PM (1 child)
Why reply to that troll? Hint: If there's some guy ranting about governments, contracts, etc. and he starts his comment in the title, it's almost certainly the contracts troll. Ignore and move on, instead of ruining articles with countless replies to this retard.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 06 2018, @07:48PM
Try again?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday August 06 2018, @05:32PM
The City Of London is quite a small piece of the large city that most regard as London.
To be a citizen of the City Of London, one must be a member of the Guild Of Cutpurses or some other quite-romantic sounding things.
In reality, the citizens of the City Of London are a bunch of big investment banks.
Their vote in the government of the City Of London is in proportion to how much money they have. I Am Absolutely Serious.
Every Brit who is not one of its citizens regards the City Of London as fundamentally corrupt but that it is self-governing was established centuries ago. There's not a whole lot anyone can do to get rid of it.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by J053 on Tuesday August 07 2018, @02:14AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 06 2018, @05:19PM (2 children)
And, I suppose, you are the One to decide that quality?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 06 2018, @05:26PM
The "Invisible Hand" of evolution by variation and selection does the job; society is best run as a Ouija board.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bob_super on Monday August 06 2018, @05:31PM
Summon history book: 1939-1945 -> Occupying Germans received lots of anonymous letters telling them about unpleasant people to arrest and deport.
I have no worry that history can repeat itself.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 06 2018, @07:11PM (3 children)
Define "low quality." This should be darkly amusing...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 06 2018, @07:50PM
The definition changes over time, too.
You just have to run the algorithm.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 08 2018, @03:05PM (1 child)
You can lead a low quality person to work, but you can't make him earn his keep. Let the sumbitch die.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday August 09 2018, @12:00AM
So all those single mothers with two jobs are high-quality people, and all the parasitic rent-seeking paper-pushing middlemen, sports stars, and various other drains on society who spend their days shuffling slices of dead trees from A to B are scum? Huhh...didn't think you and I would agree on anything /s
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 06 2018, @09:52PM
I had my right kidney removed ten years ago, also for cancer. I was lucky, in that they discovered it while they were looking for something else, so the cancer was just barely stage 2. They took it out, and the cancer has not returned. However...
When the surgeon says "you can live a perfectly normal life with just one kidney", please remember that it doesn't mean you will, just that it's within the realm of possibility. Also, to a surgeon "normal" means "no medically valid reason exists that I can use to charge to cut you open again".
When they remove the kidney, they'll also need to remove the lymph nodes that connect to the kidney. A small percentage of people who have lymph nodes removed will develop lymphedema. Guess how I found this out. Also, if you're a meat eater, cut back on the amount of red meat (and other foods) for quite a while after surgery, as with one kidney your odds of developing gout will go up. Guess how I found that out.
No medical "professional" warned me about any of these possibilities. Please discuss them with your medical professionals, so you can do what can be done to help avoid these and other possible side effects. Best of luck to you.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday August 07 2018, @12:16AM
I'm sorry to read about your kidney problem Michael and I hope you can get treatment for it.
I assume that this will cost many, many thousands of your local dollars, so I also hope you have some sort of health insurance.
I am not a Brit, but am descended from some, and I enjoy a steak and kidney pie as much as the bloke, but generally prefer lamb's kidney, rather than people kidney.
(You know, if there's a choice).
(Score: 2) by pkrasimirov on Tuesday August 07 2018, @01:14PM
Sorry to hear, all the best! Congratulations on keeping your sense of humor! Wishing for the best possible outcome!