General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Golden State Killer and DNA privacy [View all]jberryhill
(62,444 posts)For vast stretches of human history, organized mass rape was an instrument of conquest and warfare. That goes for everyone.
Like those happy commercials.... I thought I was British, but found out Im 10% Scandinavian! Well, yeah... the Vikings would show up to rape and pillage pretty regularly, but Im 10% marauding band of rapist doesnt sell as well.
Among other things, it is also a virtual certainty, given the incidence of forced abduction and rape among humans, that just about anyone is descended from forcible involuntary sexual intercourse.
There, not a single foul word. Just happy talk
This type of thinking, that your lineage has any substantive bearing on your moral agency or capacity for good or ill, is the basis of caste systems and racism.
The Germans had to do a lot of grunt work to figure out who was or was not of Jewish ancestry when their political circumstances made that an important question. Today, people line up and actually pay to help the LDS church build out their most extensive collection of genealogical data on the planet, in the service of their interesting practices relating to securing familial benefits in the afterlife.
(Or is the LDS tie-in to Ancestry.com not generally known?)