Comment by logram | Hacker News Reader

Comment by logram | Hacker News Reader

The danger about making these lists is that you may end up thinking that you have to get a high number of reasons to make your claim seem valid. I would not be surprised if the author started stating five to ten reasons and then thought that 23 was a good number for the reference, therefore proceeding to fill up the article with whatever nonsense. That's the only process I can think of that nets you "they sell your DNA to other companies", "scientists can make gifs with your DNA" and "companies buy ads" to be arguments in the same hierarchical level.

Some of them are pretty serious consequences of using their services: some of them involving the company's practices, and others involving the dangers of developing this industry. Both should be considered in separate to get a clearer picture of the issue. This article is treating it as BuzzFeed treats a new game of thrones episode, therefore depriving it of any legitimacy.

I'd like to see more elaborated on three points particularly: the privacy implications of having your DNA shared, the accuracy and precision of the purported results and the possible dangers of applications of this industry.

The quickest way to lose a good faith debate is to exaggerate your side. From that point on the debate shifts to be about your exaggerated claims, you're now on the defensive, can't put forward whatever legitimate points you might have, and even those points are now put into question due to your lack of trustworthiness. This article is guilty of that.

Personally, I just assumed the "23 reasons" was a play specifically targeted at the company "23andme" (one of the major DNA testing companies)

And they got their name from the fact each cell normally has 2 pairs of 23 chromosomes.

No, the cell has 23 pairs of chromosomes.

You don't keep your shoes in 2 different piles for lefts and rights; you pair them together.

Then again, when I was growing up, we did boys and girls sports separately :)

There's a joke here about C programmers and header files, but I don't have the wit to pull it together.

C programmers are at the end of their wits anyway.

> You don't keep your shoes in 2 different piles for lefts and rights; you pair them together.

My toddler actually came up with that very process. Box of left shoes and box of right shoes. It works pretty well for her.

I’d never considered that but it’s an interesting concept. When you’re deciding what to wear you only have half the number of shoes to look at so have a smaller physical area to search and compare. Once you’ve chosen it’s fairly straightforward to find the matching one in the second container.

One downside would be if you have a few very similar pairs of shoes, that would undoubtedly make finding the matching shoe much more difficult because you couldn’t immediately home in on it.

I don’t think I’ll try it, but certainly something new to ponder.

FWIW, us adults haven't adopted her process. But it worked especially well for her as she optimized for her biggest issue at the time, which was figuring out which shoe goes on which foot. Now she can tell almost instantly but the 2 boxes remain. :)

exactly my thought. the author was either removing good reasons or making up bullshit reasons to arrive to the magic number of 23. just why?

Presumably because we have 23 chromosomes.

23 pairs, we have 46. the author owes us another 23 reasons.

But presumably they'd be very similar to the existing 23 reasons except with very minor variations.

See my comment above, but I think it's meant to be a reference to "23andme"

Agreed that it is, but still not a valid reason to start throwing up junk items just to make a magic number. Undermines the validity of the entire piece.

Or you know, concentrate on the good arguments, and judge them on their individual merit, instead of obsessing with their tally?

If someone comes to you and makes a succinct 3-point argument and someone else comes to you and make those same 3 points plus 20 tangentially related, low-quality, possibly irrelevant points, who has been the more persuasive?

If you have 2 strong points and 12 weak ones, you're generally much better off making a 2 point argument than a 14 point one.

>If someone comes to you and makes a succinct 3-point argument and someone else comes to you and make those same 3 points plus 20 tangentially related, low-quality, possibly irrelevant points, who has been the more persuasive?

If I'm not superficial, either both the same (if those 20 are totally useless), or the one with the better arguments. Those "20 tangentially related, low-quality, possibly irrelevant points" could still have some point worth considering.

Everyone has limited time and (presumably) attention. You don’t go around adding paragraphs of lorem ipsum or random bytes/words to your replies. Why not? Some of that could have some point worth considering.

you think it's a good strategy to arrive at a magic number of items? if you have 9 items, stop there, instead most articles on the web will bullshit one more and do a headline 10 x ...

I find it annoying.

This list is similar to what antivaxxers would push. We are looking at a slippery slope here.

The difference is antivaxxers are arguing against something that has a known and demonstrated benefit for reasons that offer nothing in return.

What is the benefit of commercial DNA testing? Some dubious genealogy that might be mildly entertaining? If there's an actual health benefit to DNA screening, it should be done by a health professional where the information could be subject to HIPAA.

Your opinion will be outdated in a few years. You drop dna wherever you go. When your phone is able to read it it will be used as part of your id. It is not private information the same way your face isn't private when you appear in public.

What we need to do is stop companies from claiming they own your dna because you sent in a sample.

Learning about my personal source code was plenty worth it.

I am personally in contact with hundreds of people who have made powerful familial connections and relationships with genetic relatives as a direct result of commercial DNA testing.

How do you stay in contact with hundreds of people?

Facebook.

Cytochrome P450 phenotyping could save a lot of harm by accurately prediction drug responsiveness and outcomes.

There is an entire field called Pharmacogenomics for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmacogenomics#Cytochrome_P4...

Which is neither here, nor there.

Some slopes are indeed slippery.

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