[ExI] 23andSingularity

Rafal Smigrodzki rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com
Mon Jul 8 03:48:34 UTC 2013


On Sun, Jul 7, 2013 at 2:55 PM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:

That might well be very optimistic. But as the price
> comes down exponentially, people find uses for the data (whether sane or
> crazy uses) we should expect an exponential increase in people getting it -
> and as cellphones have demonstrated, even very high tech can, if packaged
> well, be spread in fairly poor societies. Personal genomics looks like it
> could do that (send in samples, get access to results - no need for local
> hightech infrastructure). So at some point we are going to see a genomics
> transition as a sizeable fraction gets sequenced.

### Personal genomics is key to two issues of importance to most
humans: Reproductive success and health. While the latter might appear
at first glance more important, I would expect that the former might
actually by a major driver of adoption in many cultures. The worry
that the offspring of one's wife might have been sired by another man
is very prevalent for example among the Yanomamo, and is responsible
for a lot of the violence described among this tribe. A simple buccal
swab might assuage such fears, or act as a potent deterrent.

BTW, I've been reading Napoleon Chagnon's "Noble Savages" recently,
quite an interesting book, at least the first half, recommended with
minor reservations.

Rafal



More information about the extropy-chat mailing list