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DNA Databases in the U.S. and China Are Tools of Racial Oppression
Two major world powers, the United States and China, have both collected an enormous number of DNA samples from their citizens, the premise being that these samples will help solve crimes that might have otherwise gone unsolved. While DNA evidence can often be crucial when it comes to determining who committed a crime, researchers argue these DNA databases also pose a major threat to human rights.
In the U.S., the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has a DNA database called the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) that currently contains over 14 million DNA profiles. This database has a disproportionately high number of profiles of black men, because black Americans are arrested five times as much as white Americans. You don't even have to be convicted of a crime for law enforcement to take and store your DNA; you simply have to have been arrested as a suspect.
[...] As for China, a report that was published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in mid-June claims that China is operating the "world's largest police-run DNA database" as part of its powerful surveillance state. Chinese authorities have collected DNA samples from possibly as many as 70 million men since 2017, and the total database is believed to contain as many as 140 million profiles. The country hopes to collect DNA from all of its male citizens, as it argues men are most likely to commit crimes.
DNA is reportedly often collected during what are represented as free physicals, and it's also being collected from children at schools. There are reports of Chinese citizens being threatened with punishment by government officials if they refuse to give a DNA sample. Much of the DNA that's been collected has been from Uighur Muslims that have been oppressed by the Chinese government and infamously forced into concentration camps in the Xinjiang province.
Related:
EFF to Supreme Court: The Fourth Amendment Covers DNA Collection
EFF Sues Justice Dept. Over FBI's Rapid DNA Plans
Kuwait Creating Mandatory DNA Database of All Citizens, Residents--and Visitors
San Diego Police Department Accused of Unlawful DNA Collection From Minors
Massive DNA Collection Campaign in Xinjiang, China
Study Predicts Appearance From Genome Sequence Data
GEDmatch: "What If It Was Called Police Genealogy?"
Bavarian Law Broadens Police Surveillance and DNA Profiling Powers
DNA Collected from Golden State Killer Suspect's Car, Leading to Arrest
Another Alleged Murderer Shaken Out of the Family Tree
Indiana Murder Suspect Found by Using Genealogical Website
Public Ancestry Data Can be Used to Narrow Down the Identity Behind an Anonymous DNA Sample
Rapid DNA Analysis Machines Coming to Police Departments
FamilyTreeDNA Deputizes Itself, Starts Pitching DNA Matching Services To Law Enforcement
Genealogy Sites Have Helped Identify Suspects. Now They've Helped Convict One
U.S. to Collect DNA of All Undocumented Migrants
US Court Let Police Search GEDmatch's Entire DNA Database Despite Protections
China Uses DNA to Map Faces, With Help From the West
Cousin Took a DNA Test? Courts Could Use it to Argue You are More Likely to Commit Crimes
Ancestry Says Police Requested Access To Its DNA Database
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2020, @02:02PM (21 children)
In either case it is biased propaganda. The context that is always missing whenever racial disproportionality is brought up is the rate of violent crime.
This is in the same line of thought as San Francisco no longer releasing mug shots in an attempt to "stop fueling racial bias" [nbcnews.com] Ironic. Can't look the people being arrested because the people getting arrested might reinforce a stereotype that those people get arrested.
This is a very childish way to handle social issues. It's infantilization of an entire group of people through an Orwellian memory hole for emotional reasons.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2020, @03:09PM (14 children)
It also ensures that progress is never possible. The politically correct nonsense is to try to assume that everybody is identical and thus any differences are solely a result of other some form if discrimination/bias/etc or some environmental factor. The problem with this is simple. Most of all evidence we have indicates that there are differences between groups. By embracing these differences society can help create better outcomes for everybody. But by assuming a falsehood, any action you take is almost certainly doomed to failure before it even begins. Of course the motivation for the politically correct is people going full eugenics again, but that's hyperbolic. There's a rather large gulf of possibilities between 'stick your head in the sand and insist 2+2=5' and 'all but the master race must be genocided'.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by VLM on Tuesday July 07 2020, @03:37PM (8 children)
Non-Christian creationism.
If a Christian says Jesus said love thy neighbor that's evil Christians being hateful as usual by not admitting their white privilege and giving "love" instead of retribution payments and all that nonsense.
If a Jewish woman in the legacy media says race doesn't exist and if it did its only skin deep and genetics doesn't exist and if it did then science is racist anyway, then that's being holier than thou and we have to agree with her style of devout creationist beliefs or be cancelled.
Because all religions are treated freely and equally, right?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday July 08 2020, @01:01AM (7 children)
Buddhism predates Christianity by over 500 years and has superior ethics. "Love thy neighbor" is not Christian or even Abrahamic in origin. And have you noticed that the louder a self-proclaimed Christian is the more he or she sucks pickled monkey balls at doing what Jesus said to do?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2020, @01:58AM (1 child)
superior ethics? [jchronlettsci.org]
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday July 08 2020, @12:44PM
Yes, superior ethics, because nowhere in any mainstream Buddhism that I know of does the idea of someone suffering infinite punishment for finite crimes committed by a finite mind in finite time with finite powers exist. That alone seals the deal. Nice try. I'm not a Buddhist myself, I just know evil when I see it.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday July 08 2020, @12:29PM
On the other hand, despite the claim of being older and better, Buddhists in practice usually don't have the holier than thou problem the Abrahamic religions seem to suffer from.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2020, @03:31PM (3 children)
Are you familiar with the myth of the noble savage? That really does, in many ways, sum of modern liberalism. I live in a Buddest country, so you get to see what religions turn into in practice. And it's not pretty. In Buddhism the fundamental tenant is that if you do good things in this life then you'll be rewarded with better things in the next life. How could that go wrong? Humans and self righteousness is how.
One of the weirdest experiences I had came with a family I was living with at the time. They were incredibly nice and friendly people who did genuinely seem to genuinely try to follow the teachings of Buddhism - even had a little Buddha temple thing setup at our place where they'd leave offerings daily. Well one day they were driving my wife and I around. And there was this crippled beggar walking overly bow-legged. The wife of the family couldn't stop laughing - like it was the most hilarious thing she ever saw. It essentially came down to 'lol poor [person of other nationality]'. After talking a bit and trying not to be some sort of SJW type, we found out what was up.
What's the corollary of 'if you do good things in this life, you'll find yourself in a better place in the next life'? Yip. If you're in a shit place in this life, it's because you were a super shit person in your past life. And so all of the sudden some poor guy from an even poorer country whose crippled beyond belief is just supposed to be hilarious because you're looking at an awful person being punished for unimaginably bad deeds. Yay - self righteousness. An amusing thing as well. In the country Christianity is revered. Good people see what Buddhist monks do, how Buddhist people act, and realize it's all just a shit show. But they very rarely see Christians and so they have this idealized version of Christianity in their minds, exactly like you have this idealized version of Buddhism in your mind.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday July 09 2020, @01:01AM (2 children)
Please don't insult my intelligence. I'm not some dillettante who watched a video of a Tibetan retreat and thinks that's the entirety of Buddhism. I am well aware of where its faults and flaws lie, and the problem you're describing here is one it inherited from Hinduism--remember, Buddha himself, like Jesus, was not intending to start a new religion so much as purify an existing one, and Buddha less so than Jesus in my estimation.
People suck no matter what. The value I see in Buddhism is that it appears to be the world's first serious attempt at an understanding of the mind. Some of the texts sound almost clinical, such as the ones describing the chain of events between perception and suffering. If you are introspective enough to make use of it, you can figure out how to start debugging your own mind.
The key insight is that there is nothing special about your ego, the "self," vis-a-vis the rest of reality. It's just another emergent phenomenon. Once you understand this, there is a great letting-go, and an amazing sense of continuity and one-ness with everything else. This in turn lets you stop taking your own existence so seriously, which lets you act a bit more dispassionately when analyzing your own circumstances, thoughts, habits, and goals.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 09 2020, @05:44AM (1 child)
I don't disagree. The thing I took note of was you taking an existential interpretation of one religion, and a personal one of another. Your quote above, "have you noticed that the louder a self-proclaimed Christian is the more he or she sucks pickled monkey balls at doing what Jesus said to do?" is equally accurate should one substitute in Buddhist and Buddha. Many who live in the Western world don't really realize this because they aren't generally exposed to what the mass adoption of Buddhism looks like, which is similar to the mass adoption of Christianity. People and self righteousness are a recipe for dystopia.
However, while I do think Buddhism adopts a much more Stoic value system (which to me is more precisely of what you find so appealing in Buddhism - perhaps look into Marcus Aurelius' Meditations? [dailystoic.com]) you can find a similar worldview in Christianity in that it emphasizes the distinction between the worldly world and the one after, with the former lacking ultimate relevance. This is a recurring theme in all major religions since for a religion to achieve mass adoption it quite tautologically needed to appeal to the masses. And the masses generally lived less than pleasant lives. A way to reconcile their existence of today for something better tomorrow is where the appeal of religion came from. This is also why today as we live mostly *relatively* pleasant lives, the mass adoption of religion is dying except for in areas where life remains unpleasant.
I suspect this is also why Stoicism never received the same adoption. The Stoics rejected any notion of a knowable afterlife. And so the virtue espoused within Stoicism is not for some greater reward or outward signaling, but simply to gain mastery of oneself. This is one of the many reasons that Aurelius' writings are so interesting. Those are the writings of the most powerful and wealthy man in the world - who could have had anything he ever wanted, not writing for an audience or some grand cause - but simply writing for himself. Clearly it's not always the case that absolutely power corrupts absolutely.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday July 10 2020, @01:21AM
I know little of Stoicism but have been very impressed by what I've seen so far.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2020, @04:11PM (3 children)
Don't worry, they've already started working on the next step. 1984, Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451 have all been implemented, and they've started working on the Harrison Bergeron stage. If everyone can't be equally any other way, they'll force the matter.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2020, @09:39PM (1 child)
Where is my soma ?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 09 2020, @01:08AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_cannabis_by_U.S._jurisdiction [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday July 09 2020, @01:02AM
You think you're one of the ones who'll get muzzled or weighted down, no doubt. You may be in for a rude shock... :D
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2020, @11:32PM
There are statistical differences between groups. Individuals should be judged on their own merits, without being subject to prejudice, whether it's detrimental or in their favor. Sadly, prejudice and xenophobia are instinctual reactions, so they are unlikely to ever disappear as traits of human societies.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2020, @03:10PM (4 children)
Because someone of the same color as them, who died many generations ago, that they don't know, was traded by their african tribal chiefs for slavery in exchange for pretty trinkets.
That my friends is "truth"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2020, @07:49PM (1 child)
FTFY, and your historical perspective seems, er, a bit racist?
Angles and Saxons are almost useless as slaves, though. They malinger, lie, steal, and rape the livestock. Francs or Iberians are much better.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2020, @05:41PM
What he's referring to is the fact that the slave trade in Africa was already thriving long before foreigners arrived. It's the main reason that Africans ended up being the final slaves. Europe, Asia, and the Mideast saw the rise of massive, powerful, and relatively technologically sophisticated empires. And within these empires slavery was generally restricted if not banned against other 'in group' types. So in Europe the in group was religion - the church forbade Christians from enslaving other Christians.
By contrast Africa was still a completely divided continent with vast numbers of tribes using primitive equipment and a thriving domestic slave market. Their lack of development and unification left them very vulnerable. This is part of the reason I suspect the future belongs to China now a days, with India coming up the rear. Multiculturalism seems to have been a failed experiment simply because you can basically halt any and all progress in the nation by invoking claims of racism. And the only way that would not be true is if everybody was completely equal which will never true. So the only way to ever proceed cooperatively is if nobody ever decides to start race baiting but that's just never going to be the case - even in a world with 0 racism.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2020, @08:04AM (1 child)
Many in the "one, two, many" sense? Ie. five generations? Dave Chappelle's great grandma was a slave.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2020, @06:23PM
You mean his great grandfather, William Chappelle [wikipedia.org]. William Chappelle was born into slavery and became the president and chairman of a university, as well as also taking the time to become a bishop in his church. One of his sons would go on to become a physician and surgeon opening a significant practice. Chapelle's dad was a statistician who became a professor.
If you want to know why some people end up thugs and others end up as 'Chapelles' (of any generation!) it's not because of where they came from, but because of who they are. And in some ways the two are related. Genetics is real. And if you stick two idiots together, guess what's usually going to come out. Of course stupid people have the right to breed as much as anybody else, so there's no good solution. But blaming people's failure to achieve on "racism" is getting dumb and not really doing much besides dividing America.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday July 07 2020, @03:25PM
Financial reason not emotional. Ultimately anyway. A lot of people make a lot of money off selling victimhood.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.