China Is Collecting DNA From Tens of Millions of Men and Boys, Using US Equipment (nytimes.com) 67
The police in China are collecting blood samples from men and boys from across the country to build a genetic map of its roughly 700 million males, giving the authorities a powerful new tool for their emerging high-tech surveillance state. From a report: They have swept across the country since late 2017 to collect enough samples to build a vast DNA database, according to a new study published on Wednesday by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a research organization, based on documents also reviewed by The New York Times. With this database, the authorities would be able to track down a man's male relatives using only that man's blood, saliva or other genetic material. An American company, Thermo Fisher, is helping: The Massachusetts company has sold testing kits to the Chinese police tailored to their specifications. American lawmakers have criticized Thermo Fisher for selling equipment to the Chinese authorities, but the company has defended its business.
The project is a major escalation of China's efforts to use genetics to control its people, which had been focused on tracking ethnic minorities and other, more targeted groups. It would add to a growing, sophisticated surveillance net that the police are deploying across the country, one that increasingly includes advanced cameras, facial recognition systems and artificial intelligence. The police say they need the database to catch criminals and that donors consent to handing over their DNA. Some officials within China, as well as human rights groups outside its borders, warn that a national DNA database could invade privacy and tempt officials to punish the relatives of dissidents and activists. Rights activists argue that the collection is being done without consent because citizens living in an authoritarian state have virtually no right to refuse.
The project is a major escalation of China's efforts to use genetics to control its people, which had been focused on tracking ethnic minorities and other, more targeted groups. It would add to a growing, sophisticated surveillance net that the police are deploying across the country, one that increasingly includes advanced cameras, facial recognition systems and artificial intelligence. The police say they need the database to catch criminals and that donors consent to handing over their DNA. Some officials within China, as well as human rights groups outside its borders, warn that a national DNA database could invade privacy and tempt officials to punish the relatives of dissidents and activists. Rights activists argue that the collection is being done without consent because citizens living in an authoritarian state have virtually no right to refuse.
Let's track our people in the slowest way possible (Score:2)
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How can you tyrannize someone who cannot feel pain?
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Re:Let's track our people in the slowest way possi (Score:5, Insightful)
It's for the future. The data they collect today will be useful for the better part of a century, as long as these individuals live.
Note also that the USA is doing the same thing. The difference is they advertise it on TV, and people voluntarily send the samples, so they can find out they're 2.4% Irish or whatever. And there's a friendly job-creating, stock-boosting company doing the collection. A lot less scary than Big Government... and the end result is the same.
Why only males? (Score:2)
Numbers (Score:4, Informative)
If you want to stop the spread of non-desirable genes, sterilizing the males is the easiest way to do it.
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It seems that they would skip half of the population by taking only male DNA.
In China, it's closer to an 8:5 ratio of men to women due in no small part to their former "One Child Policy". Just for clarification.
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In China, it's closer to an 8:5 ratio of men to women due in no small part to their former "One Child Policy". Just for clarification.
Citation needed.
Right now the ratio is 1.06:1 male:female according to the CIA: https://www.cia.gov/library/pu... [cia.gov]
At birth the Ratio is 1.11:1, or 11% higher.
No where are males at a 60% higher (8:5 or 1.6:1) ratio.
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It seems that they would skip half of the population by taking only male DNA.
This is China; after their one-child policy and female infanticide, it's probably more like skipping 40%
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Re:Why only males? (Score:4, Informative)
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It seems that they would skip half of the population by taking only male DNA. Also, people get mitochondrial DNA from their mothers only, so female DNA could even be more useful.
Does it even matter? If you have the DNA of every male in the population, I doubt there are a lot of females running around with genes you can't identify.
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only the sex linked ones... silly if it was for promoting advanced medicine not precrime.
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I doubt there are a lot of females running around with genes you can't identify.
I don't think pants theft among young women are the kind of crimes the Chinese government is worried about.
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I don't think that follows - male humans might not pass on mitochondrial DNA, but they still have it.
On the other hand the Y-chromosome is (with rare exceptions) exclusive to male humans.
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I hate goddamn trolls.
You think you're funny. You're not.
Wait, you're talking about the guy hating on the Jews, right?
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Seriously? This is the same stupid logic that says that businesses that produce knives are responsible for all the stabbings.
Manufactures are not responsible for how others use their products. The idea that they are makes you a worthless human being. If the Chinese people get tired of their fucking government they will overthrow the bastards... until then... they have the government they deserve. People are only oppressed because they are too lazy or scared to get of their asses to do anything about it.
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You are the one with stupid logic. Selling equipment to the Nazis or to fascist states that abuse their citizens absolutely is complicity. Selling Saddam dual use tech to make the WMD that gassed a hundred thousand is complicity. You are a shill for evil, you have complicity.
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How about selling weapons and food to CHOP which abuses its hostages and demands “protection fees”?
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It's only evil when it fits into their narratives. That is the rule!
You can bomb, murder, rape, pillage, and oppress as long as you say the righting things in the process or belong to a protected group. Kinda like how BLM can murder black folks during a BLM rally, riot, or protest and the media just glosses over that.
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oh puleeze you lying shit stain.
If we didn't sell them anything you would suddenly change your narrative to how "USA is denying those poor oppressed people necessary supplies for medical care and defense".
Give it a rest shit stain! If you were in Iraq back then you would be Saddam's personal boot licker... o'wait... maybe you actually were... didn't mean to call you out like that bro!
Everyone does evil, no human and especially no government for that matter walks free of guilt for having done something wron
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I'm not sure how you decided iggymanz was a boot licker, since you seem to be the one defending state actions.
On the US is the world's number one arms exporter, and has frequently used arms sales as a bargaining chip to advance other policy positions. While I wouldn't characterize it as "evil", it is at the very least amoral, and it is 100% tied to political influence. While the US has embargoed arms sales due to human rights concerns, we've also resumed them on the flimsiest of promises (see cluster muni
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That is where you are wrong.
I am not defending state actions, that is just a bullshit lie because you morons lack reading comprehension. I am bitching about that fact that there is logic out there that says someone who sells someone something should be held responsible. This is bullshit logic and is expressly used for bullshit reasons.
Under that logic just giving food to a hungry person that then goes out and rapes someone makes them guilty by helping them.
"However, if I came to you and asked to buy a han
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Oh really, if we didn't sell the Nazis the IT gear to tabulate and track Jews I'd be whining about "denying poor oppressed people" supplies?
Or GIVING Saddam the gassing tech?
No, you are just ranting being a shill for evil.
It IS the place of "we the people" to decide and vote, pressure, debate and publicize. A truly patriotic citizen opposes evil actions of government.
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That does not support their BS narratives and therefore makes you wrong for pointing out the bullshit holes all over their swiss cheese logic. They don't care, they never cared, they only care when it can be used to bludgeon those they hate... that is when they finally act like they care!
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HP sells products to Israel which are used to manage apartheid there.
I do not think you know what that word means. Is it Apartheid when every citizen has the same rights, can vote, can worship how they want, own and operate businesses, be freely open with their chosen gender, intermarry, even be members of the Knesset? If Israel is an example of "apartheid", then the rest of the Middle East - ALL of it - is the Holocaust.
Maybe it will be used for genetic weapons? (Score:2, Interesting)
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if you think this matter is about anything other than size matters, you're off the beatin' path
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Would be a useless weapon in the hands of any nation other than the US itself, because if any nation has the highest genetic diversity and thus the biggest shield against such a weapon then it's likely the US. Such a weapon would only be useful if China wanted to wipe out the entire planet except of course China itself. They would have to design a virus that targets the entire world, which ... oh, wait. Hmm ...
Racial purity? (Score:2, Troll)
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My understanding is that Han Chinese is the "one true race" according to the CCP, and that many people living in China say they are, but they're actually a mix. Armed with this DNA database, the CCP can sift out the lower classes and make sure that they can't attain higher social status.
First you'd have to determine what genes make you part of the one true race. It's possible they'll try to do that, but extremely unlikely they'll succeed.
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No problem. Hitler already solved this. Your "race" is determined by whether he likes you or not.
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You're getting closer. But who wants to stay clay?
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Okay, go away idiot. Or stop talking about things you reject, and therefore by definition can add absolutely no value to the discussion.
You know, same as for the rest of your existence.
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You have nothing to offer me or anyone, and everything I say is true, and has nothing to do with a "cult".
You lose every argument, of course, because you're in the Cult of Dawkins Parrots, and that is transparently obvious.
And soon you'll be dead, eliminated by the naturalistic evolution you love. Dead, irrelevant in every conceivable way, and as you're gasping for your last breath, even you won't be able to mentally fight off how -perfectly right- that is, and how -completely- you deserve it.
Meanwhile, I'
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Don't be ridiculous. You have no intention to "help" anyone, just to troll. Nor could you even theoretically. If you are wrong, you are wrong. If you were right, then, nothing. That's the problem with basing your brain on a Reification Fallacy, and thinking that "not-X" is ever something. It never is, it's nothing, and that's all you could ever have to offer anyone, including yourself.
And, you hope, unsuccessfully, it will help you escape accountability for your lack of ethics.
Neither will work.
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Once the Uyghu
Totalitarians love eugenics (Score:1)
China has already demonstrated they're fine with a more primitive form of mass eugenics [wikipedia.org].
I wouldn't want to be a dissident being informed they "clearly aren't genetically correct for understanding the greatness of the Communist Party".
MAGA (Score:1)
Kiss that IP goodbye (Score:1)
Thermo Fisher can kiss that IP goodbye. I hope it was worth it to them.
MAGA: Making American Genetics Aggressive
You've got to hand it to them (Score:2)
The West will wish for this kind of scrutiny for a long time to come, even if only to use it for good.
Controlling (Score:1)