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: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 06 2018, @04:13PM (12 children)
also I'm susceptible to malaria so that's fun
thanks 23andMe
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 06 2018, @04:42PM
In the off chance that I need to do something illegal, I'll just throw a bunch of random biological items around the scene.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday August 06 2018, @04:50PM (10 children)
The fun crimes are not (usually) fun for the victims of those crimes.
Don't worry they'll start taking everyone's DNA soon enough. Police states simply cannot resist. It is too powerful a temptation. (Just as pedophiles say.) It will happen by inches. So we'll gradually accept it.
First they'll start taking DNA of people who volunteer.
One day they'll start taking DNA of people convicted of crimes.
Then they'll eventually take DNA of people arrested, even if falsely arrested, or later exonerated.
Then they'll want DNA to get a driver license.
Then they'll collect all DNA voluntarily given for medical purposes.
Then they'll want DNA voluntarily given for family history purposes.
Then they'll take DNA from children receiving vaccinations. (But the anti-vaxers will be left out!)
So they'll routinely take DNA from school children entering school. Because it's an important part of their school record! And its for their protection of some kind! And . . . um, Think Of The Children! And, oh, look . . . a Shiny, over there! (But the home schoolers will be left out!)
They'll routinely take DNA from all newborns. Safely done in the hospital, while the infant is getting other routine shots. (but what about people not born in a hospital! They would not get the benefit of having their DNA on file with the government!)
Banks will require DNA to get a loan. And to make withdrawals. (but not deposits)
But don't worry about scope creeps or creepy scopes. None of this DNA will evar be used for any purpose than for which it was involuntarily taken.
And what to do about people, criminals really, who don't submit their DNA?
As I said. We will accept it! People will accept anything as long as pot boils slowly enough. We now think the DMCA is normal. We now accept the PATRIOT act as normal. TSA screamers and gropers. The things Trump says would have gotten any other president impeached long ago, if for nothing else, being mentally unfit for office. But if the bar is lowered by inches, there doesn't have to be any bottom to how far it can descend.
I remember when Sci Fi was an antiseptic, bright, utopian view of the future. Both Alien and Blade Runner seemed shocking, but interesting, in their view of the future. Now dystopia seems the new normal. You can't have Sci Fi without it.
If you eat an entire cake without cutting it, you technically only had one piece.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 06 2018, @05:13PM (4 children)
Maybe we didn't read the same Sci-Fi. Dune was all about a dystopian inter-stellar society. Foundation all about a dark age, and a possible map through that age to a new age of enlightenment. 1984? That would be utopia for police state fanatics - at least until the fanatics learn that they aren't among the elite.
Besides - if you ever did discover Utopia, or Paradise, or whatever you want to call it, all you need to do to fuck it up is introduce some humans.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday August 06 2018, @05:26PM
That I already realize. I would merely point out an old testament quote from Jeremiah.
I had much more limited exposure at a young impressionable age. I did read 1984 and Brave New World in high school, and some other sci fi. Maybe I only think of the stories I liked, or only selectively like the parts that seem like a world that would be worth living in. I started Foundation in the mid 80's but got interrupted and never got back to it. Once I saw how large of a project it was, I wondered if I could invest the time. From what I had read, I thought it would make a great franchise of movies. And that seems to be what Hollywood wants these days. Not a single, stand alone movie, with an actual ending.
Yes, I definitely realize that outside of fiction, there is no utopia. At least not in this mortal life.
If you eat an entire cake without cutting it, you technically only had one piece.
(Score: 3, Touché) by DannyB on Monday August 06 2018, @05:29PM (1 child)
I would also point out that Soylent Green is made from all natural ingredients.
If you eat an entire cake without cutting it, you technically only had one piece.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday August 06 2018, @07:06PM
would also point out that Soylent Green is made from all natural, Tastes like Pork, ingredients. Mmmmmmmm, pork.
FTFY!
:)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 06 2018, @06:27PM
Personally, I feel the Culture in Iain M. Banks' books is a pretty good candidate for a plausible Utopian society. It of course has its own set of conflict and political and societal problems (otherwise it wouldn't be proper sci-fi) but overall I don't think I could imagine a better place to live. That is, if you're content with machines managing most of society and acting as friendly benevolent dictators.
I found the optimism a refreshing change from all the dystopias and doom-and-gloom pervading all of today's storytelling.
Yeah human's suck. We get it. No need to rub it in. No need to wallow in despair. No need to assume we cannot change ourselves to be better than that, given enough time and effort.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday August 06 2018, @05:44PM (1 child)
Banks won't routinely require DNA to make withdrawals until it's a lot cheaper and faster. Possibly to issue a credit card, though.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday August 07 2018, @02:40PM
It doesn't have to be cheaper to require it. Just make the customer pay for it. The point of the DNA sample isn't because the bank (nesecelery) wants your DNA, it is simply to erect one more roadblock to getting your money.
If you eat an entire cake without cutting it, you technically only had one piece.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 06 2018, @07:20PM
DNA is already taken from people who are arrested.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Thexalon on Monday August 06 2018, @08:44PM
Oh, you mean like Brave New World, where the antiseptic, bright, utopian viewpoint was at least challenged?
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by realDonaldTrump on Monday August 06 2018, @10:29PM
In High Tax, High Crime California they take babies' blood. They take the cyber of that, they put it in database. And they do scientology with it. And, New York does that too. But, you'll never hear about it from SoylentNews. Because, Sub rejected!!! cbsnews.com/news/california-biobank-dna-babies-who-has-access [cbsnews.com]
(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.
If you eat an entire cake without cutting it, you technically only had one piece.
(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.
If you eat an entire cake without cutting it, you technically only had one piece.
(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).
If you eat an entire cake without cutting it, you technically only had one piece.
(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"?
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(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.
If you eat an entire cake without cutting it, you technically only had one piece.
(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!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 06 2018, @08:42PM
In the short term, before the police state matures, avoid 23andme. They've always been too willing to share raw DNA results with others.
Family Tree, so far, places importance on DNA data. A while back, they forced GEDMatch to improve its procedures before re-allowing uploading to that site.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 06 2018, @10:42PM (1 child)
I bought a test kit but used the swab on my dog. Now at least one pharma giant's going to be wasting its resources on a polluted data set.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday August 07 2018, @03:26PM
I'm pretty sure they can tell the difference between human and non-human DNA. Then, toss out the non-human DNA. Otherwise, that's some serious kind of data pollution.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @10:14AM
If you have an account with these people in the first place, you are already beyond help.