If those with good “3bn biochemical letters of human genome” ask insurance companies for rebates, what about the bad?

Sir, in screaming silence I read what Clive Cookson writes about “technologies advancing at extraordinary speed to make possible ultra-precise manipulation of the genome” “Engineered evolution takes another step forward” January 18.

In March 2000, after reading “the government plans to allow insurance companies to use DNA testing to assess whether people are at risk of inheriting serious illness and should pay higher premiums”, I wrote an Op-Ed titled “Human genetics made inhuman”.

In it I expressed many of the concerns about the discriminatory implications of DNA mapping and expressed the view that something needed to be done before any release of DNA information caused irreversible damage. I there suggested “that all insurance companies design a plan which obligates them to issue policies for all of those who undertake a genetic examination. This policy should cover the negative impact and consequence that could arise from anyone getting access to such information.”

But I also admitted: “I know this is only a Band-Aid, but what else can I do? I am not among those that resign and lie down to cry, even though this matter actually would justify just that.”

Now, 17 years later, I have no idea on whether something, anything, has been done to save humans from a release of the information contained in a “DNA sequencing, which reads out all 3bn biochemical letters of an individual human genome [and which can be done] in a few hours for less than $1,000”.

Sir, I ask, if with only $1,000 investment, I can get a test testifying I have a good DNA, and which perhaps allows me to for instance negotiate special favored rates with an insurance company, how will that affect those whose tests indicate a not so good or even a very risky DNA, something that in fact could include me or the ones I love?

Environmental challenges, 1st class robots, 3rd class robots, intelligent artificial intelligence, dumb artificial intelligence, terrorism, nuclear weapons, fast and cheap DNA testing, crazy bank regulators, structural unemployment… and the list of challenges goes on and on. How will a world that spends so much of its very scarce attention span glued to so very attractive juicy fake/irrelevant news stories cope?

@PerKurowski

If regulators insist on that any information gathered by banks must be doubly considered, that would be real dangerous.

Sir, Martin Wolf writes: “Finance is an information business. Indeed it already spends a higher share of its revenues on information technology than any other. It seems ripe for disruption by information technologies. Consider its three essential functions: payment; intermediation between savings and investment; and insurance. All these activities are information-intensive.” “Good news — fintech could disrupt finance” March 9.

Banks already perceived information about credit risks, and cleared for it with interest rates and the amounts of their exposures... and they were not doing that bad when it came to identify “the risky”, where they sometimes really failed, badly, was when they identified some as very safe.

But then came the regulators and told the banks they also had to consider the same perceived risks in the capital. And so banks did doubly stay away from the risky, and doubly fall into the traps tended by the false safes.

And so if all that information is going to be of value for the banks and for us, be sure to keep the regulators away from it.

Martin Wolf also quotes John Kay on that “parts of the financial sector today . . . demonstrate the lowest ethical standards of any legal industry”.

Not so. Compared to the ethical standards of regulators who abusing their powers distort the allocation of bank credit to the real economy; and by discriminating against the opportunities for fair access to bank credit of “The Risky” increase inequalities, one could argue that bankers are saints.

@PerKurowski ©

Day by day, the world is losing more and more, of that incredible valuable resource known as blissful ignorance.

Sir, Mohamed El-Erian writes: “These days, even small changes to market paradigms cause outsized price moves, contagion, and unsettling correlations among asset classes.” “Relying on central bank policy manoeuvres risks more volatility” March 8.

Indeed but that is not solely the result from what central banks do.

In 2001 in an Op-Ed I wrote: “The development of decision-making processes has benefits but also risks. Thus we see that the speed of information itself, which promotes quick and immediate response, can exacerbate problems. Before, those who took the problem home to study it, and those who simply found out late, provided the market a damper, which often might have saved it from hurried and ill-conceived reactions.”

When I was young and off to a boarding school in Sweden, with my parents living in Venezuela, I might have sent them one letter per year. They opened it and gladly determined that I was doing ok. Nowadays, if any of my daughters do not report to their mother sort of every six hours, all sort of possible volatility breaks lose.

@PerKurowski ©

Brussels and US, when ruling on cyber space, never forget it is we, the undefended accessed, who most need assistance.

Sir, Carl Bildt holds that “Digital mercantilism — a misguided attempt to regulate away competition, or build up new boundaries to achieve some imaginary sovereignty in cyberspace — can only hurt Europe’s ability to innovate, compete and succeed in this new world.” “Brussels should resist the urge to rig the rules of cyber space” May 4.

Absolutely, but that does not mean all is fine and dandy.

Bildt writes: “Google, Facebook and Twitter have been extremely successful in establishing services that have a commanding lead in the markets in which they operate… not by exploiting the advantages of incumbency, but through groundbreaking innovations that have led users to flock to the services they provide.”

Indeed, but those companies did not create the internet Mr. Bildt; and all of us flocking to obtain their services are paying a price for it, by means of allowing these to access information about us, in order for them to resell advertising access to us. And that price could be reasonable or not.

If it constrains too much our ability to access information freely, the price would be way too high.

And it is in the area of unfair restrictions in the competition for information of all sort, that we, the undefended accessed, sure need some assistance from regulators, whether European or American, or from anywhere else on the globe where they might be hosted.

PS. Should I have a copyright over my own preferences, so that I could share in the ad-revenues from advertising directed to me, because of my preferences?

@PerKurowski