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Comment by apo | Hacker News Reader

... “This generation right now and maybe the next 15 years or so, there’s going to be a lot of shocking results coming out. I’d say in 20 years’ time it’s going to dissipate,” she predicted. By then, our expectations of privacy will have caught up with the new reality created by the rise of consumer DNA tests.

This reminds me of a discussion in which people were speculating about things that would not exist in the future.

There were many candidates: cancer; hunger; racism; and so on.

By far the most insightful comment came from the person who said "privacy." I don't think most people are ready for that future; it's almost unimaginable.

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One can not have freedom with out privacy. As we destroy the concept of privacy we also destroy the concept of freedom.

It will be interesting how civilization handles it. We are starting to see some signs of push back, but unfortunely people are turning to governments and authoritarianism as a "solution".

IMO we are at at fork in civilization, and it seems we are choosing the less free, less private path

Yes, pervasive DNA testing, sequencing even, poses some extremely serious privacy risks. Everyone certainly has the right to know the results of their own tests. But arguably, everyone also has the right to keep those results private. Both from commercial third parties, and from the general public.

>> One can not have freedom with out privacy. As we destroy the concept of privacy we also destroy the concept of freedom.

People increasingly do not care about freedom / liberty. This is evident by the people we elect and the things we care about. We celebrate gaining civil rights at the expense of liberty and no one cares about Snowden's revelations or anyone other exposure of government overreach.

Freedom is rapidly dying along with privacy.

Brave New World is winning over 1984.

> One can not have freedom with out privacy.

Why is that? I want both, but I think they are different things.

Sometimes I think people conflate freedom to mean that ones/or others actions/words are free from consequences now and forever more into the future… or want something without taking sufficient steps to insure something or at least be honest that one may not be completely free because of their lack of ability to insure agaisnt some downside.

With respect to technology, it seems like there's this expectation among some that one can be completely ignorant of the tools at the same time expecting such tools to be completely beholden to ones wishes.

Some people think clicking a few buttons gives them privacy… others think putting those who could exploit their privacy 6 feet under gives them privacy (sometimes with the backing of a nation state or several)… and in the real world, both of those solutions aren't 100% effective.

Richard Posner wrote about this in 1978 way better than I can today (and in much greater detail)[0]

[0] http://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl...

How can you be free if you are under continual surveillance your ever action judged in real time on mass, your ever past action judged based on the current feelings of the day, your every comment, word spoken, person you interacted with, etc judged and recriminated on a on going basis.

Every movement monitored, every interaction recorded.

Are you free in such a society? I say no....

I take "free" to mean that no one else decides what I should do.

So if a mugger has a gun to your head and say "Your money or your life" do you have freedom because you have a choice to choose???

No one is deciding if you should choose to give up your money

That may be hyperbolic but it is the logical conclusion to your statement.

This same argument is used by people to justify their mob mentality when going after people for wrong think and target their employment, and business relationships while claiming to support free speech believing that free speech is only violated if government is censoring

I reject this idea that freedom is only limited by governments

> So if a mugger has a gun to your head and say "Your money or your life" do you have freedom because you have a choice to choose???

That would be a prototypical case of _not_ being free.

The youtube/fb/ig/snapchat generations might not even expect it

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