[ExI] 23andme again

[spike]

>... On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty
Subject: Re: [ExI] 23andme again

On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 1:55 PM, spike <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
>>... So who "outed" my cousin's father?  Did I do it?  Or was it 23andMe?  
> If both, would that be 23andMe and me?  ...

>...If you wanted to be that for-profit joker I mentioned...

Oy vey, I was up to my eyeballs in ethical dilemmas when I was doing this
for nothing, with exactly zero external forces.  I could scarcely imagine
the orders of magnitude greater ethical dilemmas presented if one has a
bunch of other motives, among them carrying out what one agreed to do as a
business.  I would rather make a living as a prostitute than even attempt
doing this kind of research for profit.  I wouldn't accept money for this
unsavory business if I were starving.  (The 23 business I mean.
Prostitution?  Sure no problem.)

>...I offer this name and slogan

>...23andWe:  Don't do it alone...

Waaaaahahahahahahahaaaaaahahahaaa!  Excellent Mike.  Hey just because the
ethical dilemmas presented here are driving me nuts doesn't mean we aren't
allowed to have fun with it.

>...Between now and that EZ button service offered directly from 23andMe,
you have plenty of proles who would rather spend another $99 to have you do
the modest digging.  My guess is that few cases would really require more
than that...

Ja I am astonished at how easy it has become to find out a ton of stuff,
with only a bit of internet mining and modest reasoning skills.

Here's another take on all this for you Mike.  I am tripping all over myself
on the ethics of being the one with potentially harmful knowledge, but I
wouldn't give a second thought to the ethics of developing software which
just runs, as software always does, cold-heartedly enabling potentially
harmful knowledge to be generated.  I would help develop an EZ service
Go-find-em button.  

This episode has pointed out to me an ethical blind spot have had for years
and never really pondered, one which is related to AI and singularity
research.  I will participate in development of software which performs
duties I would not do myself.  I did not and would not tell the information,
but I pointed out how to use existing software to get the same info.  So I
will not be the bad guy myself, but I will explain how to use software which
will do the same thing I wasn't willing to do, or even let my own computer
code be the bad guy.

Sheesh.

spike