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Should every baby's DNA be sequenced?

economist.com

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Re: Should every baby's DNA be sequenced?

#71

Post by croes »

cm2187 wrote: post #11
newqer wrote: post #3

This is just one step away from eugenics. When the data is in the machine, you just know it will be used for malicious activities.

The problem is "eugenics" has two meanings which is unhelpful for this discussion. 1) criminal practices of forced sterilisations, ethnic cleansing and mass assassinations to phase out undesired genes 2) the more generic practice of trying to improve the genetic characteristics of your children. I don't think there is much point in debating 1). But we would be naive to think we are not already doing 2). What else is…

The people who do 1) claim do to it for 2)

Re: Should every baby's DNA be sequenced?

#72

Post by trollbridge »

nedruod wrote: post #22
trollbridge wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So far, the gathering of great deals of data on people has not been used for purposes that benefit such people. For example, one of the biggest uses of mass surveillance and data collection is to improve the targeting of marketing, which generally does not benefit the people being marketed to, and indeed often is done to their detriment. And then a side effect of all of this is that this huge mass of data is just sit…

Sure, you can imagine it, but you should be able to imagine better solutions too. Far easier to ask for a government ID, or better yet, have a third party, which is trusted, use a cross-check, so that the raw data is never shared, just a binary, yes/no to the age check. If we only imagine the bad outcomes, we'll miss on many good ones. And part of those misses will be worse bad outcomes. For example, if you object to…

I really don’t want to be forced to contract with a third party in order to do basic things like be able to buy something in a store.

Re: Should every baby's DNA be sequenced?

#73

Post by dang »

vlian2088 wrote: post #8
newqer wrote: post #3

This is just one step away from eugenics. When the data is in the machine, you just know it will be used for malicious activities.

[flagged]

Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

Re: Should every baby's DNA be sequenced?

#74

Post by bonoboTP »

laszlokorte wrote: post #64
nedruod wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In terms of slippery slopes, this argument is climbing atop one. Where does that end? Should we ban doctors from performing surgeries that would save someone's hearing? Should we ban protective gear that might diminish the size of the deaf community? It's simply a horrible argument to suggest that you have to protect a disadvantaged community by making sure they don't shrink. There's much better ways to be respectful…

I said nothing about banning performing surgeries or forcing parents to carry out a deaf child just for keeping some community alive. I just wanted to point out that there is a path from "would like to prevent" to "stop everybody who does not match the profile from living". The other responses in this thread already show in which bad light people look at deaf people. Maybe start talking to some of them.

Who shows them in "bad light"? Sane people see the condition itself in "bad light" not the people affected, who deserve compassion, help, accommodations etc.

Twisting things around to make people seem bigoted for saying that disability is bad (not that disabled people are bad) is just evil.

It has to be turned around 180 and we have to point out that this push is moral corruption and evil. Even if it comes in part from deaf people it is evil. It doesn't matter what mental acrobatics is developed around this, to wish for other people to become disabled is evil and morally outrageous.

It's the same with the "obesity is actually not unhealthy" crowd, all part of the same ideological matrix.

But then the same enlightened crowd turns around and pushes to legalize euthanasia for depressed people in their 20s...

Re: Should every baby's DNA be sequenced?

#76

Post by sometimelurker »

cm2187 wrote: post #11
newqer wrote: post #3

This is just one step away from eugenics. When the data is in the machine, you just know it will be used for malicious activities.

The problem is "eugenics" has two meanings which is unhelpful for this discussion. 1) criminal practices of forced sterilisations, ethnic cleansing and mass assassinations to phase out undesired genes 2) the more generic practice of trying to improve the genetic characteristics of your children. I don't think there is much point in debating 1). But we would be naive to think we are not already doing 2). What else is…

There's definitely a sane debate needed on this. I think there's a lot of things here people wouldn't be against, but at the same time more thought needs to be put into this. Like what if you could GMO your kids to be smarter, but it costs a lot. Should this be illegal, or should the govt pay for it for poorer people, and it just gets better and better.

I doubt that there'll be a sane debate about this and I would love to be proven wrong.

Re: Should every baby's DNA be sequenced?

#77

Post by sometimelurker »

mschuster91 wrote: post #49
quibono wrote: post #39

I had a funny experience related to this. I was a driver in a car with middle-age mums and one of the things that came up in their conversation was a cold case being solved thanks to DNA evidence. Then the conversation quickly moved onto exactly this, i.e. how everyone should be screened at birth so we can all identify the perpetrator right away; and then this moved to how the CSAM scanning is a good thing and should…

Some people unfortunately are far too willing to exchange a sense of "security" or "justice" for (effectively) all of their privacy. A large part of that, IMHO, comes from mass media outright programming people to be afraid. Fear sells, and authoritarian politicians are more than willing to capitalize on selling the "solution".

reminds me of captian America 2, in which the villains (hydra) said that what people actually want is security, not freedom. most people are boring blue-pillers* in this regard.

*(which I mean in the literal meaning in the matrix)

Re: Should every baby's DNA be sequenced?

#78

Post by sometimelurker »

boxed wrote: post #48

The negative comments against genetic screening here seems to be 100% from people who either have no serious genetic diseases lurking in their family tree or are lying to themselves and pretending they don't.

I don't think it should be mandatory but ofc it should exist; people should be able to choose.

Re: Should every baby's DNA be sequenced?

#79

Post by sometimelurker »

RobotToaster wrote: post #41
Avicebron wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is where do you draw the line with 2)? What does "improve the genetic characteristics of your children" mean in practice? Everyone starts with 2) and then it creeps into 1).

> The issue is where do you draw the line with 2)? What does "improve the genetic characteristics of your children" mean in practice? That should be entirely down to the parents. Someone having a genetically engineered baby doesn't affect anyone else.

But there's still some really major issues with 2).

Do you think it would be fair to have the children of billionares to be much much more intelligent than normal people, let along the children of poor people? I'm not sure what the answer is, but its very worth thinking about. If you could grow an Einstein in a lab, imagine if all the Einsteins that were grown ended up being biased to Musk-adjacent worldviews.

This is really not simple

Re: Should every baby's DNA be sequenced?

#80

Post by vlian2088 »

dang wrote: post #73
vlian2088 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

I'm responding to flamebait, not posting it. and expressing my point of view in a sentence or two instead of the usual walls of watered down text common here does not make it unsubstantive.
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