In Iceland, Tap Cellphones To Avoid Incest 296
Kozar_The_Malignant writes "Students at the University of Iceland have written an Android app that helps you avoid dating your cousins. The app accesses the Icelandic national genealogical database that contains information on all living citizens and their ancestors going back 1,100 years. Tapping two phones together will bring up an alert if you share a common grandparent." Just one of the consequences of having a population small enough (and well documented enough) to have a well-known genetic makeup.
Re:It will be very successful app in West Virginia (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it will be *least* popular in West Virginia...don't ask, don't tell XD
Re:Don't you know who your cousins are? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not tapping that?
Or not even registering in her consciousness as existing?
Re:Don't you know who your cousins are? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to be creepy or anything, but from a genetic standpoint, a distant relative would probably have been fine to date.
But I know what you mean. A Playmate from the late sixties is a distant relative of mine, and I was always a little creeped out by that centerfold.
Re:No incest (Score:5, Insightful)
Things often get banned in response to being pervasive and problematic, and permitted where they're too infrequent to cause widespread public concern. I'm totally unsurprised that the "redneck" states found the need for lots of restrictive inbreeding laws.
cool app (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Don't you know who your cousins are? (Score:4, Insightful)
also promiscuity of you parents could result in not know whose kid you are, or sperm doners, or maritel infidelity could mean the girl next door is your half sibling.
just because you have someones name and were raised by them does not mean you are related to them and by extension there family making this database fallible.
Re:No incest (Score:5, Insightful)
Right.
Wrong. Marrying your cousin is unlikely to cause problems—the risk is only slightly higher than the risk in the general population. What causes problems is repeated inbreeding of close relatives over the course of several generations.
The fundamental thing you're missing is why incest is a problem in southern states. In the South, people don't move around that much. Most of the folks you meet are third, fourth, fifth generation residents of a given town. And the ones who aren't are usually from a couple of towns over. This means that there's a very high probability of being related to many of the people you meet. Left alone, this would result in significant inbreeding problems within just a few generations. Therefore, cousin marriages are problematic.
In California, most of the people you meet are transplants from somewhere else. This means that there's almost zero probability of being related to anyone you meet. Therefore, first cousin marriages are not problematic in California, not because they won't ever be problematic if they occurred, but because they're about as likely as the Cubs winning the world series, and because the probability of multigenerational inbreeding (the real problem) is basically zero.
Re:cool app (Score:4, Insightful)
It would be interesting to be able to press a button and see how closely related you are to your friends
It would be interesting to be able to press a button and see how closely related you are to your parents.
This app is based on written records. Maybe some folks were a little shy with the truth when it came to saying who was the father of the child . . . ?
My family tree has routing loops . . .
Re:Don't you know who your cousins are? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're suggesting there's no escape from the friend zone, there is
Escaping from the "friend zone" requires maturing enough to realize that women aren't just vending machines you put niceness tokens into until sex comes out.
Re:Don't you know who your cousins are? (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand there are men who do actually believe you can put niceness tokens in until sex comes out and women can typically spot that from a mile away.
And then from personal experience there are cases where a man genuinely loves a woman to the point he would lay down his life for hers but she continually pushes him aside; it's not a nice place to be in, it's emotionally frustrating and generally not worth putting up with so the parent comment's suggestion of separation is not a bad idea because it'll give you time to breathe, mature and maybe she'll realize what she lost.. or not but you'll be better off as a free man from such emotional tyranny.
Last but not least is a tidbit from the Bible; "The heart is more treacherous than anything else and is desperate. Who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9).
Listening to ones heart often leads to irrational decisions and therefore many regrets so the Bible again councils; "thinking ability itself will keep guard over you, discernment itself will safeguard you," (Proverbs 2:11). How wise it is to think before you feel!
Re:Don't you know who your cousins are? (Score:2, Insightful)
No, the friend-zone phenomenon is typically a result of one or more of the following conditions:
1) Men who don't realize how singularly unattractive they are -- sometimes, she's just not into you because you're fat, nerdy, gross, or simply... not her type. This doesn't make her any more shallow than you - when's the last time you went after a fat, sweaty girl with a hairy upper lip, telling your friends, "Sure she's not very pretty, but I can see that she's just such an amazing person that I must have her!"?
2) Men who confuse "having an agenda" with being "genuinely nice, lovable people" -- if you're being nice expecting to get laid, you have an agenda. If you have an agenda, she knows it, because you don't have ANYWHERE NEAR a good enough poker face to fool a woman.
3) Men who confuse "being a pussy" with "being nice" -- treating her like you're a servant is fucking stupid.
The guys who whine about "friend zones" are the ones who simply don't know how to look at themselves honestly, and realize that there is no way on earth the girl they're pining for is every going to want to get naked with them - barring some significant and sweeping changes to the man's appearance, demeanor, and lifestyle.
I know I'll get shouted down for daring to criticize the men in this situation, but if you're an ugly doormat hoping that "being nice" will someday turn into sex, you should learn to self-examine with half as much ferocity as you criticize the women who are turning you down.
Re:Don't you know who your cousins are? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it's not true at all.
You confuse "being a doormat" with "being nice." All those guys who you think are assholes for not treating a girl the way you would? They're treating a girl like the girl is an EQUAL, not some sort of rare, fragile flower that will die the instant you disagree with it.
The guys who think "treating a girl like shit" is the way to get a girl are simply rationalizing - they've never learned how to deal with a woman as an equal, and a human, so they put her on a pedestal and revere her from afar. And then get bitter when she doesn't break her fucking legs running at you with her panties pulled aside.
YOU lot are the ones behaving like assholes - you have unfair, unrealistic expectations of how the woman should behave, and then you blame HER for your own shortcomings.
Re:Don't you know who your cousins are? (Score:4, Insightful)
Escaping from the "dating zone" requires women maturing enough to realize that men aren't just vending machines you put niceness tokens into until money comes out.
Or, we could deal with the fact that human beings, of either gender, tend to be given shitty dating advise from society and social circles. But why waste time on that when you can pigeonhole people with sexist stereotypes?