The Next X Prize

BlueCup writes "The X Prize Foundation, sponsor of a widely noted 2004 award for developing a reusable rocket suitable for private space travel, says it is now teaming with a wealthy Canadian geologist to offer $10 million to any team that can completely decode the genes of 100 people in 10 days. And that's not all. As an encore, the winning team will be paid $1 million more to decode another 100 people's genes, including a bevy of wealthy donors and celebrities. Already accepted for future decoding: Google Inc. co-founder Larry Page, Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul G. Allen and former junk-bond king Michael Milken."

Comments

WTF is this good for?

[theCat]

OK, a prize for first-to-space-in-a-private-rocket sorta made sense. But this "give me 100 gene profiles right now" stuff? What possible use is it to be able to sequence that many individuals of a single species in a short time? The only practical value worth that kind of money is genetic profiling; sort of the Nazi eugenics approach to social purification, but on steroids, with none of that messy subjective stuff like whose brow sticks out the furthest, or nose is largest, or jaw is most rugged.

Look, just because we can doesn't mean we should. Lots of nasty sh1t lurking under the surface of something like this. The smart guy would walk away from it and never look back. But it will be those clever-but-in-a-stoopid-kinda-way guys that will belly up to the trough here. Build it and they will come; pretty soon parents-to-be will be genetically screening their potential offspring (at $5K a pop) for statistical genetic matches against... well Bill Gates and Warren Buffet I suppose... in the completely unrealistic expectation that if they can just (approximately) find out who their child is similar to genetically (by some arbitrary measure) then they can give them (somehow) the training (whatever they think that is) that the child needs to enjoy a similar life experience as that person. Same way they enrole their UNBORN children in prestigious private prep schools, thinking that they've now done their best for them and can relax for 18 years. WTF is the matter with people? 5 million years of evolution and THIS kinda of monkey see monkey do CR4P is all we have to show for it?!?

Oh wait, I changed my mind. Sequence me 100 people who know what the fsck they are doing with their lives.