Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 426 posts

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#141

Post by kibibu »

theshackleford wrote: post #94
kibibu wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly it's always seemed completely insane to me that people signed up for these services. Possible Pros: You find out you are 20% Norwegian! Fun! Possible Cons: Grandma is going to prison for an unsolved crime. Assume a non-threatening position and comply with all orders of the new Department of Racial Purity. Also, that's not your real Dad.

I didn’t fuse this service, but I used another after experiencing life changing health circumstances in an attempt to identify the half of the family I don’t know. Fuck me right?

Ok,i was hasty in listing fun as the only pro (although that's certainly the only reason I can think of for giving these out as Xmas presents)

Only you can decide if it's worth it. I hope it was for you.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#143

Post by harvey9 »

brikym wrote: post #140
midtake wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But, I figured if we enter a dystopian future, evil health care companies or governments could easily get my DNA if they want to and/or simply require that information to get care. Yes, because you gave it to them. Nihilism undermines any sort of resistance movement against evil.

No he didn't but his overly curious aunt Janice gave it to them.

He really did - the post indicates he got an analysis back from 23andme.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#144

Post by rvnx »

whyenot wrote: post #79
kibibu wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly it's always seemed completely insane to me that people signed up for these services. Possible Pros: You find out you are 20% Norwegian! Fun! Possible Cons: Grandma is going to prison for an unsolved crime. Assume a non-threatening position and comply with all orders of the new Department of Racial Purity. Also, that's not your real Dad.

> Possible Pros: You find out you are 20% Norwegian! Fun! It's kind of irritating the way you are minimizing the "pros" here (and you aren't the only one at HN who has done this recently). There are people who found their parents and siblings thanks to 23 and Me. I found my father and my half sister. Maybe it's not important to you, but there are people out there who are willing to "pay" a lot to find out who they ar…

The other pro is that with the 23andme file you can use Promethease, which helps you to figure out health risks and preventively adopt lifestyle or schedule appointments to discuss them with a health provider.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#146

Post by k__ »

ks2048 wrote: post #35

There are troubling privacy issues, but it was able to tell me: "Toe Length Ratio : Likely second toe longer". I didn't even have to look down! Maybe it was a bad idea. But, I figured if we enter a dystopian future, evil health care companies or governments could easily get my DNA if they want to and/or simply require that information to get care. When you get blood drawn, do you see what they do with it? Hopefully,…

They told me I have an average to lower risk for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.

All I wanted to know, since my grandpa died of Parkinson's.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#147

Post by yoaviram »

shreezus wrote: post #113

Even if you haven't personally used their service, if any close relatives have, they already have a sizable amount of information on your genome. They maintain the equivalent of "shadow profiles" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_profile ) as part of their data model for "ancestry" modeling purposes - for example inferring a paternal haplogroup based on data uploaded by genetic relatives. I can only hope at the…

Sounds like it's time to send 23andMen a GDPR/CCPA/etc. data deletion request. Here's an easy way to do it: https://yourdigitalrights.org/d/23andme.com

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#148

Post by mschuster91 »

Naru41 wrote: post #145

Successful Math/CS people have a hard time applying it in biotechnology. https://x.com/iskander/status/1903077361152610374 -- about a dozen of us with math/CS backgrounds ditched tech for biomedicine. And we got humbled hard: most of what we did flopped & techies

> Successful Math/CS people have a hard time applying it in biotechnology.

No surprise given that biotechnology has a lot more stakeholders. Ethics aren't just an afterthought because unlike VC/the stock market, academia has lots of ethics review gates in place. And for those that think they can sidestep ethics by going private (be it Theranos, 23andMe or various other such services), they'll all find out one day that it will catch up to them.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#149

Post by michaelt »

shreezus wrote: post #113

Even if you haven't personally used their service, if any close relatives have, they already have a sizable amount of information on your genome. They maintain the equivalent of "shadow profiles" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_profile ) as part of their data model for "ancestry" modeling purposes - for example inferring a paternal haplogroup based on data uploaded by genetic relatives. I can only hope at the…

I don't like 23andme, but don't the shadow profiles sorta implicitly exist whenever you're working with DNA data?

If their DNA test can recognise first cousins, then they've got a recognisable DNA profile for each user's parents, grandparents, children and so on.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#150

Post by 1oooqooq »

k__ wrote: post #146
ks2048 wrote: post #35

There are troubling privacy issues, but it was able to tell me: "Toe Length Ratio : Likely second toe longer". I didn't even have to look down! Maybe it was a bad idea. But, I figured if we enter a dystopian future, evil health care companies or governments could easily get my DNA if they want to and/or simply require that information to get care. When you get blood drawn, do you see what they do with it? Hopefully,…

They told me I have an average to lower risk for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. All I wanted to know, since my grandpa died of Parkinson's.

you could have asked you primary care doctor for a test, instead of paying a company for the privilege of creating a dna map to sell to law enforcement.
Post reply on HN