Comment on "Does Hitler have a right to privacy?" and other big questions in research ethics.

Doomsider@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

• BanMe@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Researchers sequenced his DNA recently from a bloodstained couch cushion, we’ve been getting glimpses into it lately.

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  • faintwhenfree@lemmus.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    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.

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    • squaresinger@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      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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    • Doomsider@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      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 extend fifty years.

      So it does appear the argument is pretty moot.

      Here is an interesting read on the matter.

      aeon.co/…/do-we-have-a-right-to-medical-privacy-a…

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    • ranzispa@mander.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      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.

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    • RedFrank24@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      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.

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  • echodot@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Presumably the insights are just that he was a human and not a space alien.

    What are they looking for exactly?

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    • RagingRobot@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      They are trying to track down the genocide gene. Then we can screen all of our politicians for it

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      • LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        The Nazis couldn’t have done their genocide without the support of thousands of people, all who made the decision to actively support it for their personal gain, believes, or just plain complacency. What is a genocide supporting gene in one time is a normal suburban life gene in another time.

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      • Lfrith@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        That sounds the kdrama Mouse where they foind a serial killer gene, but turns out just because you had it doesn’t mean you’d become one. Sounds like a terrible future and another layer of future discrimination for things beyond people’s control that might just be a carrier.

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    • JamesBoeing737MAX@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      An excuse for the camps to continue Hitler’s work. How is everyone stupid enough not to figure it out?

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  • Doomsider@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    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.

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