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Comment by grumple | Hacker News Reader

The administration could decide to detain, deport, or kill everyone who has certain traits - say, Jewish, or Arab, or Mexican, or maybe just has undesirable traits. The db of millions of users makes this very easy.

The US admin is already at the stage of mass deportations. Detention camps (beyond those we already have at the border) are probably not far behind.

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None of those actions require the use of dna sequencing to happen.

Not required. Also not the point. Genetic data allows bulk identification of traits that may not be outwardly visible. Or even invention of new traits.

This information can be easily used to target large groups of individuals.

What happens when an ambitious young data analyst correlates a gene with criminal activity?

The point is you don’t want an admin that carries out malicious discrimination to have genetic data. We have already seen that movie. It doesn’t end well.

> What happens when an ambitious young data analyst correlates a gene with criminal activity?

Then such would be a great scientific study to examine, peer review, and replicate to assert if true or not.

If true, wouldnt it make sense to monitor them? May be not go full minority report, but certainly makes it easier to catch.

> If true, wouldn't it make sense to monitor them?

My point is that there's no reason to believe criminal tendencies are genetic in nature. If they are or aren't it is still easy to identify correlation. To even embark on this dangerous path of research we would need robust guardrails to ensure it doesn't devolve to genocide again.

> May be not go full minority report, but certainly makes it easier to catch.

Makes what easier to catch? How close do you think we should get to Minority Report? My opinion is that we should strive to be as far from Minority Report as possible at all times.

Racism comes from a place of ignorance. It's literally stupid. Genetic data is very easy to misinterpret and human history has no lack of examples of how it can be misused to cause harm to innocent people. Stupid people will misinterpret genetic data the same way they misinterpret skin color or any other physical characteristic.

Ask yourself, honestly, how comfortable you'd be with the idea of the government monitoring you (regardless of how you act, think, or feel) because you have a gene sequence correlated with antisocial activity.

... if, in your deepest heart, you'd be comfortable with that...

... I'd humbly suggest that you may have a genetic condition that makes you a lot more trusting of under-constrained authority surveilling you than the average human being, and you should be sensitive to their genetically-predisposed needs for privacy.

If the US is 'at the stage of mass deportation' [of people here illegally in the first place] it's only because we've been wildly generous to that set of people for so long that there's a backlog of them. In most countries, doing crimes while there illegally is something you don't dare do, or deportation could be the least of your worries.

They're now revoking residence permits[0] of people who arrived and stayed by legal means so you can't play the "illegals" card anymore.

0: https://apnews.com/article/immigration-humanitarian-parole-c...

Okay, but almost no other countries ever accepted people on this vague basis in the first place -- since "The country I'm from is poorly run" isn't a recognized reason for seeking asylum. They got 2 years free out of generosity, and now they want a green card on what grounds again?

Would you advocate for the US to invite every citizen of Haiti, Cuba, and Venezuela to move here? If not, why these particular 532,000 people?

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