[ExI] before?

[spike]

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace
Sent: Saturday, April 02, 2016 8:12 AM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: [ExI] before?

 

 

>…We have touched on the issue of privacy several times lately and I wonder if it received a lot of attention before I joined…

 

Oh my yes.  One of our ExI occasional posters from the early 90s advocated for radical openness, information wants to be free etc.  You may have heard of him:  Julian Assange.

 

>…We are concerned about it but I don't see any conclusions about what the appropriate level of privacy is…

 

There are many schools of thought.  Julian’s position was unpopular here, but some found it compelling.  I was one of those, but I was doing a lot more listening than talking in those days.

 

>…Denmark is making a necrogenomic database: DNA from everyone who dies.  Is this appropriate?...

 

I don’t see why not.

 

>… I don't know what else they are collecting, such as cause of death and so on, but in the long run this could do a lot of good…

 

Oh my yes.  A looooot of good.  There is potential harm, as you point out:

 

>… It could also run up insurance rates for the descendants in some countries if the insurance companies got hold of the data…

 

Those companies *will* get ahold of that data.  Furthermore… we have every reason to believe these kinds of databases already exist.  For almost ten years now, a means has existed whereby gene sequencing can be done on a sampling basis, the way 23andMe and AncestryDNA are doing, for a cost of mid-two digit numbers.  Think how simple it would be for funeral homes to snip off a tiny piece of toenail, drop it in a ziplock and file it away, along with a bar code which contains identity, cause of death, age of death, other health conditions at the time of death and so on.  

 

How valuable is that information to an insurance company?

 

 

>…For myself, I am an open person who will tell you my grandmother's shoe size if asked… I don't care what anyone knows about me as long as my Visa card is safe…Bill

 

Does your grandmother have any say in the matter?

 

Let us turn this around a bit.  The big insurance company is used as the classic example of danger if they learn everyone’s DNA signature, their health condition at death and so on, but in your reply, I want you to imagine you are now the insurance company and it is your money at stake.  Potential clients are coming to you betting they will get sick or die, you are betting they will stay healthy and live.  How much do you charge?  What do you want to know about them?

 

If we view it from the government’s POV: if we start systematically collecting DNA from every corpse, we can eventually figure out *everyone’s* identity from their DNA, and it wouldn’t even take all that long.  Criminals tend to be young, so we could do that inside of ten years: enough great grandparents would have perished by then to figure out which persons match this subgroup.

 

If we view it from the insurance customer’s point of view, we don’t all lose if the insurance company knows all.  Many if not most of us win.  They would learn that my grandfather died at 74, but it was in a car accident on the way home from work.

 

Julian Assange was rudely shouted down here by privacy advocates and left the list over 20 yrs ago, but now I don’t think he was entirely wrong.  He was right on about many of the things he wrote.

 

BillW, do let us revisit this discussion since the low-cost DNA kits have come along since we last dealt with it.

 

spike

 

 

 

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