[ExI] 23andSingularity

[Anders Sandberg]

The discovery of illegitimacy is actually an interesting example of the 
"transparency revolution" that will deeply affect traditional societies. 
I have usually looked at it in terms of gadgets suddenly shifting 
societal environments, but this is potentially a big deal: ancestry and 
illegitimacy is often a *very* big deal in traditional societies, and 
when the cat is out of the bag turbulence will result. In the long run 
people will no doubt learn to tolerate some past peccadilloes, but that 
is the long run. In the short run there will be lots of cases where 
fairly recent illegitimacy will come to light and cause trouble, 
especially in societies with strong honour, family and fidelity 
traditions. Exactly how it will play out is another matter - widespread 
domestic violence or triggering inter-family conflicts seem likely, but 
do not underestimate second order effects as societies try to self-regulate.


On 2013-07-08 05:14, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
> ### The use of genetic information for insurance purposes is already 
> illegal in the US. For some reasons, the current crop of leftists 
> despise genetics, and I expect that they will expend a considerable 
> amount of effort to thwart the activities you describe above. 
> Actually, I wonder what is their problem?

The left has always had a problem with genetics since it seems to say 
that some life outcomes are not due to your choices or the social 
environment, but are simply results of unchanging parts of you. This is 
why it was more or less banned in the Soviet union, and why sociobiology 
was hugely controversial in the 70s.

> Obviously, the ability to foresee life outcomes (health, income, 
> crime), and personal characteristics (honesty, psychopathy) based on 
> genetic testing would be highly useful on both an individual and a 
> societal level, since it would allow discrimination between actions 
> that differ in their efficiency. For example, gamete trading as well 
> as zygote choice could be dramatically better in terms of generating 
> healthy offspring. Hiring for high-trust, high-impact jobs (judge, 
> senator, CEO, mayor) could more efficiently exclude dangerous bets. 

Spoken like a true libertarian - efficiency and freedom are good, no 
matter what. Why are all the other ideology kids so angry?

> In the not-too-distant future, personal genomics could eventually lead 
> to eugenic improvement....oops, I just realized I used two taboo words 
> in one paragraph, I'd better end here... Puzzling.

Now, eugenics was actually one part of genetics the left *did* embrace 
to some extent. At least social democrats were utilitarian and 
collectivist enough to think that selecting on the population level was 
a good idea. Hence things like the Scandinavian sterilization laws (the 
last Swedish one was repealed *this year* - now transsexuals do not have 
to sterilize themselves).

The problem with personal genomics and insurance is price discrimination 
(if everybody has the same information) that will be bad for genetically 
unlucky people. I think this can be solved by having a genetic insurance 
before the test: if it shows that you are unlucky the insurance will pay 
for the higher premiums; unfortunately this requires developing a market 
for such insurance, and that requires data and some experience.

-- 
Dr Anders Sandberg
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Oxford University