Friday June 15th 2012

The Genetic Social Network: Facebook has your Personal Information; Now Google wants your DNA

Old-Thinker News | March 30, 2012

By Daniel Taylor

Facebook has amassed a gigantic database of human intelligence from its millions of users. This information has been used by police in the arrest of suspects, and is milked by marketers. What if a similar system gathered genetic information?

In 2005 it was revealed in a book called The Google Story that Dr. Craig Venter, known for his creation of synthetic lifeforms, was in discussions with Larry Page and Sergey Brin [founders of Google] to:

“…generate a gene catalogue to characterize all the genes on the planet and understand their evolutionary development. Geneticists have wanted to do this for generations… Google will build up a genetic database, analyze it, and find meaningful correlations for individuals and populations.”

Google has been funding a program to do just that called 23 and me. In 2006 the organization was co-founded by Anne Wojcicki, the wife of Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google.

Will the general public be acclimated to share their genetic information online as they were with Facebook to share personal information? Facebook has altered the public perception of privacy. As Time magazine reported in 2010, “The willingness of Facebook’s users to share and overshare — from descriptions of our bouts of food poisoning (gross) to our uncensored feelings about our bosses (not advisable) — is critical to its success.”

A recent article from Discover magazine pointed out that:

“Many researchers believe that personal genomics will really not hit the biomedical sweet spot until you have on the order of a million people sequenced. But even then in the American system how to get a hold of all that information is going to be problematic, since it will likely be decentralized.”

What this article fails to point out is that it has become known that the DNA of newborns has been secretly collected in America for decades. Samples have even been provided to U.S. Military labs. Also present in this issue is the prospect of who own the copyright your DNA.

If the government already has a database of millions of people’s DNA, what function could an organization like 23 and me fulfill?

Larry Page and Craig Venter at the Edge Billionaires Meeting (edge.org)

Managing public perception is perhaps where the answer can be found. Having your DNA in a database to share with your friends in a familiar social network setting is a good way to introduce the masses to the idea. Also, Google is an extension of government agencies. As Facebook has proven, it is much easier to have the general public willingly volunteer their personal information.

The Yale Scientific Magazine announced earlier this month that with the 23 and me genetic social network, “…it is easier than ever for people to find out their genetic risks for diseases, as well as connect with others who share parts of their genome.” It remains to be seen whether 23 and me will become a widespread success like Facebook, but it certainly has a powerful backing. As of last year, 23 and me reached 125,000 users who have submitted gene samples.

Google founder Larry Page met with Craig Venter in California at the Edge billionaires meeting in 2010. Also present were representatives from the State department, Bill Gates, Anne Wojcicki, Bill Joy and dozens of other tech company CEO’s and scientists.

The Edge billionaire meetings have discussed the future of genetic engineering, biocomputation and re-designing humanity. Physicist Freeman Dyson described the individuals leading this group as having god-like power to create entirely new species on earth in a “New Age of Wonder”. He describes them as:

“…a new generation of artists, writing genomes as fluently as Blake and Byron wrote verses, might create an abundance of new flowers and fruit and trees and birds to enrich the ecology of our planet.”

The technological elite are engaged in a mission to attain full spectrum dominance over life and its complex processes, and in the process re-write the genetic code of the planet. The harvest of your genetic information brings this vision a step closer to reality.

 

15 Comments for “The Genetic Social Network: Facebook has your Personal Information; Now Google wants your DNA”

  • Lance says:

    Is it possible that with a persons personal information and DNA in their hands they could create copies of that person?

    • Lance says:

      I’ll answer my own question. Yes, the can, though they won’t tell anybody their doing it! Cloning human organs for transplants too! Arnold Schwartzenagger made a movie about this quite awhile ago. Other scifi movies have been made about doing this. Just remember, anything they propose to do will not be impossible for them, just as the Lord God proclaimed in Genesis.

  • Lance says:

    They’ve got “god-like” power all right, but they’re NOT GOD!

  • Daniel MacArthur says:

    This is an amazing article - although not, I suspect, for the reasons you intended.

  • Lance says:

    I’ve read much about these so-called powerful people have put out, and it is flatly obvious they are liberal humanists. It has been their dream to have god-like powers, to acquire the powers of creation, but as is always the case with those humans who acquire this much power it corrupts them. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Do what you will, but understand that in the end, the Will of the Most High God is the Supreme Authority, not the will human beings.

  • Zia says:

    Its foraway,,,,,

  • Leela Hutchison says:

    This is a oh so fascinating article. Google has as much personal information as Facebook. I recently pulled my own name on Google (even with all the privacy settings on my Facebook page) and found deterimental and negative information about my name. It actually hurt me getting placed in a new job by my employment recruiter in the bay area.
    see: http://www.leelahutchison.wordpress.com. How google decides what sentence in a block of information to post in its pages is a mystery to me. A judgement against me by the court system framed the interpretation of a civil suit into what appears as a criminal action. This is intolerable and inexcusable. And it is detrimental for my hiring potential unless I can someway clear my name. My only remediation to this is to pay for a Search Engine Optimization company to bury the information for $6,000.

    The other piece of this that is so interesting is about our DNA placed in a databank since birth without our parents’ consent. I think this has been going on since the 50′s.

    Thanks for giving us such an illuminating post!

    • oldthinkernews says:

      Thank you for sharing, Leela. I am reminded of an article I saw in the Futurist magazine a while back that talked about the fact that in the not too distant future (now) a viable career could be made providing this service. “Unplugging” from the whole pervasive computing system is going to be increasingly difficult as it becomes all but impossible to function in society without having to use it at some point. The United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defense has said that it will be suspicious to be disconnected. Down the road, if people become educated, I’m sure that we will see social movements spotlighting this issue.

      -Daniel

    • Debbie says:

      Some good articles are at http://equilibrauk.com about the “grid controllers,” without all the alien bs. The only issue I take with the author of that site is, in my opinion there isn’t a single written religious codex or text which is reliable and one has to pick through yet another pile of dogma.

      Stick to nature and cave drawings, because everything else is or will be distorted.

      Don’t fret, Leela, we love you :)

  • Luke says:

    This article clearly point a gnozis sects doctrine. All gnostics are sure that has a their god light and that may use this power to become a gods on the Earth. They want to “create” a new human-robot like God created a human as His picture. This is technocratism and technomorfism which goes towards totalitarism.
    It also goes towards biological hybrids. Human-animal (animorfism) because gnosis doctrine have some animal mixed with human as a symbol of satan.
    Who knows what mean an avatar name? This is name of one of personage of pagans god. also satan, devil or as you wish…

    It shows how excellent manipulation they do. Fcbook change people’s understanding of private life. It will cause that total invigilation will be desired by free humans. It also shows poor level of intelligence of Fcbook and Google services users. They event dont suppose that “cloud technology” is kind of newes total invigilation for all internet scale! We face huge indoctrination on all intelecutal, social and clutural surfaces. We must be open-eyed and understand what they believe!


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