If they want to market their services as "donate your DNA for research" and then, as a side-note, we'll send you back some fun details about you... Fine. But right now, they sell it as a way to know about yourself, your family, genes, etc. Then millions of people wake up to the news to find out that their DNA was handed over to a pharma company.
If they feel fooled for whatever reason (I assume because that research is being done by another company instead of 23andme directly) and are now claiming they've lost some semblance of privacy over deidentified data they already handed over, that pales in comparison to lifesaving cures that are enabled and made more likely by sharing such data.
Quality of life for everyone > pedantics of what exact things you're opting into when you give your DNA to a genetic research company that dedicates a whole page in the signup flow to using your DNA for lifesaving research and cures.
Or when signing up for health insurance a policy chain down the road. At that point the new treatment better be cheap enough to pay out of pocket...
But seriously, how can you in good conscious claim this all being willingly when it's very nature shares info about other people as well. This feels like unaware people giving Facebook access to their phone book all over again, thus giving away all kinds of info about me. No, I don't want FB creating shadow profiles about me and certainly wasn't asked.
Can we please find a way to not create piles of data about third parties? Since, if history has shown one thing, them being used against me is just a matter of time. Or, at least have in place strong protections by e.g. regulations?
But more generally, the arguments being raised here regarding risk of abuse of the data are predicated on tyrannical or illegal activities occurring. Instead of denying ourselves the benefits of cures derived from data such as this, why can we not build a society where the data is not abused?
Human pro-social activity is a very powerful thing. If there are risks in unifying data, we should work to build a society that stewards those risks responsibly, we shouldn't try to cut ourselves off and hope the life of a data hermit serves us better.
I mean, what other technologies should we deny ourselves? A tyrant can use tanks and troop transports to wage war on their citizens. Should we tear up the roads lest they be abused by tyranny?
This doesn't preclude drusepth from using their property in an assholish way.
>This would be similar to arguing that if I had an identical twin, I need my twin's consent to donate a photo of myself to a facial recognition library.
No, it'd just mean that you're an asshole if you do.
>But more generally, the arguments being raised here regarding risk of abuse of the data are predicated on tyrannical or illegal activities occurring. Instead of denying ourselves the benefits of cures derived from data such as this, why can we not build a society where the data is not abused?
Time scale. Societies come and go. To the extent that we don't have tyrannical ones they're not exactly long lived. Once you've given the data and power to the non-tyrannical government, you're screwed if tyranny ever swings around again. That's a huge gamble to make off of nothing given the history of all world governments. Seems far more likely they'll all be tyrannical again at some point than never again ever.
>I mean, what other technologies should we deny ourselves?
All of them. Technology is a perversion of our innate condition. A result of mate signalling gone off the rails.
>A tyrant can use tanks and troop transports to wage war on their citizens. Should we tear up the roads lest they be abused by tyranny?
Of course!
As you have been overly fond of using tu quoque as a rhetorical device throughout this thread ─ in your earlier response, you trivialised the exercise of willingly handing-over the most precious of all and the pinnacle of personal data, whilst paying for the privilege, and compared it to just another transaction on Amazon: what about the fact, that almost all tyrants are enabled and empowered by somebody (usually the govt.); it would be conducive to conclude based upon your fervour, that you are equally complicit in creating yet another tyrannical corporation, which shares your disdain for privacy?
If you seek an answer to that question, you don't have to venture very far from Google, who birthed this creation.
"Begs the question" means your argument presupposed the truth of this part of the statement instead of supporting it.
That is not the same thing as selling data to third-parties. Especially considering that 23andMe asks users questions and then shows results based on correlations, it's too easy for users to understand "opting in for health research" as research being done by 23andMe and not by a third-party.