Would you get your genome mapped? While getting your entire genome mapped is still in the year-plus salary level for many people, multiple services now exist to sequence part of your DNA and thus seal your fate. At Gizmodo, one person wrote about his experience with two such services and the results. It’s long, but well worth the read.
Would I want to do something similar? There is a certain power in being able to lower your risk for a heart attack or diabetes, especially if you’re already in a high risk group, but what about the unpreventable? I see that there’s an 80% chance of something happening and think that it’ll probably happen. 20%? Meh, probably not. Throw in health issues that I may stumble upon in the future and those statistics describing how at risk I am for those, and I would be just like someone without a knowledge of basic statistics: looking at the stuff that will probably happen and trying to imagine what will happen in that world.
That aside, there’s a beauty in not knowing, in living every day blissfully unaware of what your body will throw at you, in taking in every moment as it comes. Why ruin that with the possibility of death over your shoulder? I won’t be hosting any spit parties any time soon.