What is the impact of having your DNA known? As far as I can tell the worst case scenarios are finding out you have to pay child support or getting placed at the scene of a crime.
If those risks don't apply to you, who cares?
If those risks don't apply to you, who cares?
Others have mentioned that that's a bad argument, so I won't rehash that.
> getting placed at the scene of a crime
That's a pretty damn bad "worst case scenario", but here's a few I'm going to toss out without too much thought:
1. Health insurance companies can deny you coverage. In America, that can be a literal death sentence. (Yes, GINA 2008 was passed, no, I don't want to bet my future health care coverage on it not being repealed, mangled, or bypassed in some other way.)
2. International risks. A lot of discussion here is largely focused on American law. But many of us aren't American, or aren't just American. Look at my username; I have ties to another country, and I frankly have no idea what sort of risk I might get exposed to there. Getting placed at the scene of a crime in some jurisdictions is much more serious than you make it out to be; being identified as being a relative of someone else could also have dire consequences.
3. You know those scams where Grandpa Joe gets a frantic call from his distraught granddaughter Jane, and she's in Mexico being held up on a bogus charge, but if he wires their police department $500 ($5000?) the whole thing goes away? This becomes much easier if you can look up family histories.
4. You cannot predict the future. You have no idea what's coming down the pipeline.
0. You are arguing that people who aren't subject to a specific risk should be worrying about being subject to that risk. That is a bad argument. So bad it feels absurd to have to type it out to you.
1. The law could change in the future? OK... Laws could change in an infinite number of ways. I can't mitigate an infinite number of risks.
2. If you visit a country where this is a risk to you, then avoid the risk. Nobody said otherwise. It is dishonest to argue with strawmen.
3. There are many easy ways to find someone's relatives. DNA does not change this situation in a material way.
4. Yes, I agree that you cannot predict the future. But much of your argument is based on the assumption that you can do so.
Remember that once you do it, it’s out there forever. So you can’t just rely on “I haven’t and won’t break any laws that exist in my country right now”.
Having certain characteristics that show up in your test could be illegal in 20 years time. You don’t know.
As for genetics, most of your genetics are on display every time you walk out the door. People look at you and they can have a good guess about a huge portion of your genes. For example if you have a beard and a penis you probably have a Y chromosome, though this is more challenging to figure out nowadays.
Thus mostly their's really nothing left to hide in terms of genetics. In terms of finances... while I specifically have nothing to hide, more people have things to hide in this area.
Every time I've used it they just laugh it off with "why would I do that?" and think I'm ridiculous.
Even if this doesn't happen, the future is a devious thing; I think we will eventually get to a stage of gene oppression; We have went through periods of oppressing and persecuting religion and ethnicity. DNA seems even more vulnerable to this kind of prejudice. And even if we can secure some legal protection, to the million peoples families, that won't matter now.
I don't know what will happen in the future, but i can imagine how much smoother the holocaust would have went if DNA were public.
We should not be tricked into ignoring these issues because catastrophes are rare, as this would logically make them less rare.