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.
They will probably use Hitler’s pseudoscience to start camps for psychological minorities. Where have we heard of that before?
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He’s been dead for 80 years, that’s plenty long enough for anyone’s feelings to not matter.
USA: IP right is 100 years after the creators death.
So when did hitlers parents die?
US IP rights are only a good example of a bad example.
US law is an interesting response to an ethics question
Money > humans?
Also, it is internationally generally agreed upon that criminals forfeit their rights to personally identifying information, such as fingerprints and DNA evidence.
Given Hitler’s regime has been internationally agreed to be war criminals and have committed crimes against humanity, even if Hitler himself chose the coward’s way out to avoid being convicted for these crimes, I think we can all agree on him being responsible for these crimes thus is essentially convicted posthumous.
Therefore combining the two, Hitler was and is a criminal therefore privacy protection laws don’t apply, therefore his DNA should be freely usable by the scientific community.
Did he get convicted or does the ICC or ICJ need to do a court process? If any state can just allege someone being a criminal to exhume and extract dna without judicial oversight we open a door quite wide for abuse.
Edit: “Everyone knows he did it so no court is necessary” havent given humanity perfect scores in human rights before
Also while the UN/ICJ/ICC did not commit him due to the suicide, the UN War Crimes Commission did indict him as a war criminal, which, in civilised countries, does mean the withdrawal of certain rights, including the right to privacy, therefore the DNA is still processable.
I do see your point, however the fact that Hitler gave the direct orders (often well documented) that were later deemed criminal, I’d presume that would be enough to assume criminal status.
Also, yknow, defending Hitler on technicalities is like defending a paedo on the distinction between paedophilia, hebephilia and ephebophilia - legally speaking you’d be correct, but in reality it just makes you sound like you’re supporting the person in their acts…
Lol, yeah I really should choose my battles of technicalities better. According to another user he seems to have been properly and lawfully declared a war criminal so my point was moot :)
Edit: oh, that user was you!
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…
Do dead people have rights? 🤔
They ain’t go no souls.
Can’t dance neither. That has major friendship implications
The DNA would probably fall in public domain before any significant research could be done with it.
Maybe this is the way, we looked at ancient human DNA, maybe there should be a public domain aspect to it. Sequence today, study after XX years.
Is there any value to analyzing his DNA? The idea that evil is genetic is itself feeding into some Nazi ideas about eugenics that are deeply wrong.
The personality disorders that led Hitler down the path of evil have strong genetic components, so yes there’s value in studying his genes.
Is that anything unique to Hitler?
Realistically he was just the right person at the right time with the right ideas to make a righteous mess and end and ruin so many lives in a surprisingly short timeframe.
Also worth remembering that Hitler took heavy inspiration from Benito Mussolini, even coming to visit Mussolini early on to take inspiration from him (and later propping up Mussolini once the anti-fascists got too successful) even the Nazi sulute was inspired by Mussolini, who had lifted it from a series of silent films about a Roman hero which those films had likely invented the concept of the “Roman sulute” in one of the earliest examples of Hollywood fiction influencing reality
Hitler himself was unique, so there’s always value to studying what made him that way. Even if the research shows his genes aren’t relevant to his evil, that’s a valuable finding.
Everybody is unique. Unless I’m an historian, I think there’s more harm than good in selecting Hilter of all people as the source for that data.
Like if we want to add context to events in Hitlers life, then this could be useful. But our social discourse isn’t immune to narratives that would seek to blame an individual’s genetics for a social ideology / inevitable historic symptom of runaway global capitalism.
We learned he had a micro penis, a potent weapon against his neo-nazi fans. The value is already immense.
And monorchidia
Yeah to me that’s the biggest objection… he’s long dead, he has no surviving family that wants good for him to my knowledge. So to me that’s kind of on the same level as, digging up mummies. The evil actions he commited in life don’t really come into play here, and agreed it’s really stupid idea to think that his behavior is genetic.
Kind of reminds me of when most of the nazi generals swore to have no kids to not carry on their DNA, except one, who said “No I won’t sign that pledge, that’s eugenics which is nazi ideology”.
It’s historically interesting to maybe understand who he was as a human being. He’s often painted as a monster but he was a human, and is a warning to all of us what evil human’s can achieve.
For example, they’re revealed he had Kallmann Syndrome (which can cause a micropenis and undescended testes) - he may have essentially been essentially asexual which may explain some of his life choices and why he was so dedicated to politics and gaining power. They’ve also shown he had high genetic risks for psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, as well as ADHD, autism.
Sensationalist reporting aside, these findings do add something to our understanding of a historical figure who had massive influence on human history.
not really… identifying and/or ruling out genetic origins of diseases isn’t racism.
my moral objection to this is: we shouldn’t be scanning and storing hitler’s dna; that’s how you end up with Hitler clones.
The sort that would want a Hitler clone would be happy with a direwolf-style pseudo-clone with good marketing.
Maybe we want to clone Hitler but raise him to be antifa.
Reminds me of a classic AskReddit aneurysm post.
If Hitler was Hitler today, and Hitler cloning machine. You hold world hostage with Hitler Clone Hitler Unlimited Hitler. What hold hostage with exchange for Hitler Hitler?
Give hitler me give eat hitler me eat hitler give me eat hitler give me you
Real ambienposting hours
This comment made me reach semantic satiation of the word “Hitler” and it’s kinda nice. A word so associated with disgust has ceased to even register as a word in my brain.
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I’ll allow it.
I don’t think this is about “is evil genetic.” The first psragraph of the article states it’s about his underlying health conditions. Which I think is absolutely worth studying, if it means spotting the early warning signs and intervening before another person ends up like Hitler.
But then I remember the world we live in and realize it’s probably not at all going to end up like that. So who knows? But they’re definitely not going to find “the Evil Gene.”
The “underlying health conditions” they mention are a possible predisposition for schizophrenia, autism, bipolar disorder, and kallman syndrome. Things that most certainly do not create hilters, and if it’s being argued by anyone that they may then it is indeed apologia for fascist ideology. The thing that actually does create hitlers.
I think that his genetics can significantly illuminate or inform historical events, but having it out there in our media environment just begs to have it abused and misconstrued by the wrong people for the wrong reasons.
Exaclty my point. It’s information that could help us understand what conditions lead to the path he went down and thus help us understand what we can do to better prevent people from tumbling down the facist pipeline, such as better support for people with mental health issues and neurodivergent people.
But that’s not how the wider world is going to receive that information. They’re going to see “autism causes facism” or some shit and mistreat people even harder without the slightest hint of irony.
Your second paragraph is exactly why this line of thinking is dangerous. People with disabilities aren’t uniquely prone to dangerous ideologies. No matter how good the intentions are this would only create an association between disability and becoming fascist, which does nothing but hurt vulnerable people in the long run. We can support them without fear-mongering about how dangerous they may be otherwise.
I am not trying to imply that. What does lead to dangerous ideology is feelings of abandonment and hurt coupled with propaganda getting you to direct your anger towards people who don’t actually deserve it. Which is why baseline support and understanding for everybody is important, not just those with neurodivergence and mental illness.
My interest would be in the potential to understand how, if he had these conditions, the treatment he endured might have lead him down that path. It would not be a stretch. As awful as mental health support is now, it was not just nonexistent in his time, you were downright abused for it.
But I am not saying mental illness/neurodivergence = fascist inclinations, I’m saying rejection and abuse for these things leads to resentment and isolation and these are factors extremists play on to recruit people. It is not unique to these demographics, but it can be a factor, and it should be visible without extracting and studying DNA, but if it gets people to listen, fine.
And it will get them to listen, but as I mentioned in my previous comments, they won’t take the right lesson from it, and the responses I’ve receives prove that. All they’re going to see is “mental illness leads to fascism,” when I’m saying “abuse and abandonment is the problem,” but that isn’t coming through. We make our own demons. We have always made our own demons. And we will continue to do so as long as we choose locking them up in cages or killing them to understanding how we got here.
Nope but sociopaths probably do have a gene we can detect
Is there any value to make 2 million Hitler documentaries? No, but they do it anyways.
Nazis will take any data they want and turn it evil, even if it’s only half true. And they’ll ignore data that conflicts with their belief. It doesn’t matter what science discovers.
We already have evidence that some forms of “evil” are inheritable. This isn’t new. For instance example, I saw a documentary like 20 years ago that showed how one adopted baby—in a nice suburban family, with a couple other perfectly normal kids—was a criminal at a young age. Like stealing-a-school-bus-at-age-nine criminal, and that was just one of many examples. They showed two family trees: his adopted and his biological, and highlighted people who had been arrested, convicted of crimes, etc. They used a few different colors, and sometimes colored in one person’s node with two or more colors. His adopted family had like one spot going back 3 generations. His biological family was a rainbow! Remember, he was adopted as a baby and raised with love, and the other kids were fine.
And science has demonstrated that offspring of stressed-out female mice are much more aggressive than their peers.
Now what do we do with this kind of data? Be proactive about helping certain kids if they have certain genes. Give them safe outlets for their impulses, or what have you. Extra monitoring. I dunno.
As for the stressed-out mothers… If you want to stop generational crime, give financial support and therapy to low income mothers. Because their stress is likely epigenetically producing criminal children.
What would a Nazi do? Nothing. Nazis don’t care if people are evil. What are they going to do, eugenics themselves? They’re the ones with the most colorful family trees.
Just some food for thought. I don’t think we should suppress science just because Nazis exist.
If it turns out Hitler had some bad genes his relatives’ descendants will get a bad name. This is obviously a joke, but it’s actually true as well. They’ve all distanced themselves from the name Hitler, but surely some people know about their relation to Adolf. I guess the questions is: how bad is it when you’re grandfathers half-brother or whatever his DNA is public. There is a legitimate privacy concern there, that shouldn’t be too easily dismissed because ‘haha hitler & privacy’.
the question if you need relatives consent to make your dna public is interesting. I have my opinions, but the question of an historical dead figure has rights to privacy is another.
However, seeing if there’s an “evil” gene is both cartoonishly naive and smells of eugenics. Hitler would have approved said study.
I feel like you still haven’t explained what the privacy concern is
the same as with 23andme and other genetic analysis services
That they reaninate dead people…?
how does that relate to privacy?
Yes, that is my query
DNA is basically your identity. Your health, your ancestry, everything. But its also, not just you. Its your family, past and future. If we start talking the DNA of the dead, and Im pretty sure we already do as the dead have no rights, then at some point someone is going to challenge the right to privacy of the living in this area. After all, we’re all going to die sooner or later, so why not get that sweet, sweet data just now?
Basic harms would be health insurance. If a provider has your DNA, it might show that your great, great granny got cancer. And they use that data to increase your rates. Or worse, deny your treatment, because your granny had the same treatment, and it didnt work.
What about work? Your ancestor has his history of health issues, and so refuses to hire you because you might get that too.
DNA from you or your relatives can also be use to track you, identify you, connect you to certain locations.
But heres the big one. Cancer. Your DNA holds the key to curing cancer. Some company has your DNA, and using your DNA creates a cure for Cancer. They then make trillions of money off of it. And you get fuck all, even though it your DNA. You dont even get to say that it should be given away. Its theirs now.
Also, once a company has your DNA. They have it forever. That you and your family, easily profiled, tracked, and whatever else until the end of time. What if, at some point, some targets you or a descendant with a DNA targeted virus? Science fiction now, but maybe not in the future.
Basically, the damage that can be done is limitless.
So what is the actual privacy concern though?
What I just spelled out to you…
Sorry but I just still don’t understand how any of that is related to the privacy concern?
Ok, say an insurance provider now has Hitler’s dna. And let’s say I live in the United states of corruption also. And I have a bad gene. What will they use Hitler’s dna on me to harm my privacy? I feel like I am missing something ? Am I supposed to infer a mecha-nano hitler clone drone or something similar will perform a multi stage cyber attack on my privacy?
You are missing something. The ability to read. Everything is spelled out for you in the post. READ IT AGAIN. And keep reading it until you get it.
I already have. I still wonder; what is the privacy concern?? Hitler’s relatives have to also form a public organisation and start producing Hitler clones?? When does the jump happen to everyone’s dna being public, is there also an implied dna registrar that happens on the timeline due to the extreme fascism? Please I need to understand how this mind contortion happens
And additional question: even if it was technically feasible, was it really ethical to surgically implant Hitler’s cloned brained into the body of a silverback gorilla and make it fight against Tigerstalin?
Stalin disappeared thousands of people. Tiger Stalin “disappeared” a few, but there was no hiding it, the pile of intestines and bones was a dead giveaway.
I would unironically watch that on TV.
It would be to more unethical to not do that.
Everybody’s so concerned with preserving Hitler’s brain. But when you put it into the body of a great white shark, ooh, suddenly you’ve gone too far.
A great white shark with fricken laser beams!
great white shark
I see what you did here.
Well, there’s neither a great black shark nor a great Jewish shark.
Goblin sharks exist!
/j
nah, put it in a Greenland shark so that piece of shit can wallow the depths for 300 yrs
Nah put it in a pergante hyena
Ah! I knew it was not a novel approach. Thanks Pr. Farnsworth, you crazy sciency trailblazer.
But in the 80s, we transplanted Donald Trump’s brain into a house cat addicted to cocaine.
That’s ridiculous cocaine was addicted to Bill
Other dead people have no right to privacy, especially dead famous people
This means release the Epstein files.
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.
Just ask whoever saved his brain to ask permission
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.
