I find it curious that they talk about privacy for Hitler but don’t mention Henrietta Lacks who this very thing happened to. Her cell cultures are being used to this day.
that’s how you know the whole argument is a dog whistle…
Does Tutankhamun’s DNA need consent?
Disregarding the fact that he was evil, Im not sure historical figures qualify for the same rights as we average people do. I think at most, we should respect what they respected, and Hitler did not respect privacy, so get fucked nazi, your DNA is ours.
Ew, undersmencht dna
The whole study is weird. Do they think there is a correlation between his DNA and the horrible acts he did? Are we going to start rounding up anyone with that genetic marker? Put them in camps?
Sounds like one step away from finding another reason for the Government to round up marginalized groups.
Why are we even talking about Hitler’s DNA? Out of all the news why this. We are seriously weird.
Researchers sequenced his DNA recently from a bloodstained couch cushion, we’ve been getting glimpses into it lately.
Also he’s dead, why do dead people deserve anything, any rights? What harm happens to Hitler? He’s dead. Did we ask dinosaurs to look at their DNA, for all we know they were sentient? The whole argument is stupid.
In the case of DNA, because it’s shared with relatives and descendants who might be still alive. In Hitler’s case, that might not be that much of an issue, but you were talking about dead people in general.
If your parents are dead, and thus they get DNA sampled, that information gained is good enough to positively identify DNA traces of all their children.
Remember how they caught the Golden State Killer? They put a DNA sample into the genetics website GEDmatch and found a few of his distant relatives. They then used publicly available family history records to construct a family tree that included all of these matches. That allowed them to narrow down the suspects to two people. One of them could be ruled out by DNA testing a close relative, which left the last one. They then took a DNA sample from his car, which was a match and that’s how they got him.
Using that kind of stuff to catch killers is likely a good use of the technology, but there’s quite a few nefarious things a state could do with a DNA database of all dead people.
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You bring up a lot of good points.
Apparently there are some rights that exist beyond death. Currently HIPAA protection after death for medical privacy only extends fifty years.
So it does appear the argument is pretty moot.
Here is an interesting read on the matter.
https://aeon.co/essays/do-we-have-a-right-to-medical-privacy-after-we-are-dead
I may be very stupid about it and not know the normative, but what is the safest option for me is the following. No informed consent -> no research on any samples from the patient.
Does not matter how important your research is. I myself would like to be informed about that stuff. I may decide to donate my organs to research after I’m dead, but I have decided that.
Under that argument you could grind up the dead and use them for fertilizer. I guess if you’re being 100% practical it makes sense, but humans have a certain sentimentality for their loved ones, dead or otherwise, and so don’t tend to like it when you use the corpses in a way contrary to the wishes of the estate.
Just a weird topic especially with all this neo-nazism happening in the US government.
I am not saying it isn’t newsworthy at all of course. It is just the timing is suspect.
According to the GOP, since the dead pay no taxes to America, they have no rights.
Fetuses don’t pay taxes either and yet the GOP are really interested in making sure they have rights.
Who is harmed by this? No one living. Maybe you could argue Hitler has some right to not have his remains disturbed, but DNA testing isn’t very invasive and we do it at crime scenes without consent all the time, so it’s minor even if relevant.
What could we learn? Nothing of value. Even if there is some “psychopath gene” or “genocide gene” you’d need 100s of examples to show the effect and far easier to just pick such candidates from living, diagnosed people who can consent.
So then should we do it? Probs not. No real reason to, even though there’s little reason not to.
There’s propaganda value to “Hitler was quasi-Trans” as same revisionist demonism as “Hitler was a socialist” to revive a (neo) naziism without the baggage of Hitler, that can better serve Zionist first Christofascism in erradicating Islam, humanist governance, and whatever “the woke” needs to mean.
Beyond privacy rights, is what is the usefulness of the messaging, and could that usefulness be more important to someone/agenda than the moral failures of completely fabricating it.
Nice try, but I watched The Boys From Brazil. No Hitler DNA for you!
Doesn’t a criminal give up their right to freedom by doing crimes?
So why wouldn’t a war criminal give up their right to privacy by doing war crimes?
Is it already proven that they are criminals or do you want to remove someone right in order to prove they are criminals?
What a pointless question. There’s literally nothing we could hope to learn from examining his specific DNA.
This is like how some scientist stole Einstein’s brain to see what made him so smart and didn’t find anything. Pointless.
The fact that this is being used as an argument against right to privacy is an ad absurdum strawman.
Yes, fascism negates the rights of the fascists. It has to in order to protect free society.
It’s call the Paradox of Tolerance, and is very difficult for centrist liberals to understand.
The faster you string fascists up, the better off society will be. The body? Who cares, do what you want with it.
It’s not fascist, to be “fascist against fascism”.
Ethically, it may be questionable, personally, IDGAF.
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What is the scientific value of it and why can’t those values be realised in a way that does not even raise ethical concerns?
The best argument for it was that eventually someone would do it and they may just as well do it rigorously.
I think everybody’s DNA should be open source…
