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posted by martyb on Tuesday July 07 2020, @12:48PM   Printer-friendly
from the could-just-ask-23-and-me dept.

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.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2020, @03:37PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2020, @03:37PM (#1021287)

    I don't know how you got any of from what I said.

    The point of the military example was to show that all of our current ideas about education, solving poverty, and everything amount to *much* less than 2 years in the military *on average*. Why? Because all of our ideas we are *currently* implementing are actively based around pushing people down paths that they're unsuited for. I have no disdain for computer science, I make a living from software and absolutely love it. However it's a horrible path for the vast majority for people. And vice versa for the military. It's going to be a bad fit for some, yet it's somehow clearly *much* more effective at producing better outcomes than what we're *currently* doing.

    The idea is simple: you don't push people in any direction. You find out what they're good at and you work from there. Take your emotional intelligence idea. I could not care less about the feelings of others besides my loved ones, and I strive to even nullify my own emotions. And I view these things as values worth pursuing. So any education in "emotional intelligence" is going to be a disaster with me in your class - and I would end up, even if unintentionally, actively antagonizing the rest of the class. The exact same thing is *currently* happening today as we put people in math classes where they simply have 0 interest (or perhaps ability in some cases) of learning. Yes, becoming highly capable at mathematics would give these people a far better chance at a better life, but you ultimately cannot force people to do anything they don't want to. That effort to force people simply results in them disrupting the class for those who would want to learn it and wasting the time of the non-learner. So, again, instead find out what people are good at and pursue that.

    Essentially, I believe that general education has been a failure. What can we do to improve it? I'd look in the other direction - specialized education, no longer just for the short bus.

  • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday July 15 2020, @12:57AM

    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Wednesday July 15 2020, @12:57AM (#1021594) Journal

    Somehow you managed to gag yourself on Heinlein's rotting dick *and* run straight into his "Specialization is for insects" snark at the same time. Amazing. Where the hell are you *going* with all this?

    --
    I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...