[ExI] [ZS] [cryo] Nick Bostrom, Anders Sandberg, Stuart Armstrong to be frozen after death

spike spike at rainier66.com
Fri Jun 14 18:11:47 UTC 2013



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty
...
>
>>... If we were to develop a software toolbox of some sort which can 
> automate some of this process, it would be worth a fortune.

>...To whom?

>...How do you measure the value of this knowledge of genetic ancestry?
I'm not even being facetious.

>...I really don't understand what to do with it.  Mike
_______________________________________________

We use it to figure out what genes do what.  This was the early and
yet-unfulfilled promise of the human genome project.

Mike you might not be one who buys that service, but there are plenty who
would.  Actually I think you would too eventually, after it is demonstrated
there is something cool to be found.  We measure the value of the service by
how much the proles are willing to pay for it.  I gave 180 bucks for two
23andMe kits, and now some of my relatives are doing likewise.

I have learned so much that my extensive investment into traditional
genealogical research couldn't tell me.  I eventually lost interest in
traditional genealogy, after I did a cumulative probability distribution
calculation and realized one is mostly wasting one's time once you get back
about 5 or 6 generations: you have no way to know if the people you are
seeking are genetically related.

I have a notion that all those promises we were given regarding the medical
value of decoding the human genome cannot come to pass until we map out who
has what genes in common, then collect the people somehow, virtually perhaps
into a massive online party or picnic, then figure out what those people
have that is different from the rest.  That will be the path to figuring out
what the gene do.  This is our best path to finding that info.

As far as I can tell, there is no alternative path to figuring out what the
individual genome segments do.

Take that oddball Neanderthal business.  I have observed something already
that high-caveman people all seem to have in common.  I can't explain why,
and I don't have enough data to publish the results.  But if I can get a
local party or even an online community of high-Neanderthal, I think we can
figure out what is different about us.

All that being said, I think 23andMe is well worth the 99 bucks now, and it
gets more valuable as more people sign on at a rate exceeding 1000 per day
now.  Currently there are over 300k proles in that database.

People will pay to see where their DNA came from and how it diffused thru
the land, especially Americans, since almost all of our DNA came from
somewhere else fairly recently, the last couple hundred yrs or less in most
cases.

spike






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