Would you have a problem with human cloning?

[MicaelS]

If yes, why?

If no, why?

As for me, I would not. Are we NOT the party of reproductive freedom?

I am posting this because of this LBN piece. And I am fine with this, too. The guy is dead.

Parents of dead West Point cadet can use his sperm to produce a child, judge rules

Science fiction has long discussed the idea. The invention of a Uterine Replicator would make it possible.

[rurallib]

1. depends on who it is - Trump? hell no!

[True Dough]

103. First thought that entered my mind when I saw the question in the OP

And, sure enough, here it is as the first response. I'm proud of you, rurallib!

[Meowmee]

158. 😹nt

[Proud Liberal Dem]

2. I'm not really sure TBH

To what end? Purpose? Could it be abused (yes)? Stories like the West Point cadet just weird me out in the same way that keeping pregnant women on life support just to serve as a literal incubator until the baby is adequately gestated push my limits on what is ethical and/or desirable.

[yortsed snacilbuper]

3. creepy

[Voltaire2]

4. Nope.

[Moostache]

5. I don't have any religious hang-ups about anything...

So I don't get the "icky's" over cloning...BUT, messing with the genome to create hybrid or altered or "designer" children is probably where I draw the line due to the potential for inadvertent disaster like creating designer diseases along side of the designer children that could imperil the current wild-type / native populations of humans...

I am more discomforted by someone having saved and frozen sperm that is used post-deceased tahn the actual cloning...that seems a little bit like forced conception - maybe their son never wanted children (devil's advocate not sure about the actual deceased's wishes here...)

[MicaelS]

17. We are headed that way.

When you take into account how many human diseases / problems are genetic, it is almost certain we will create designer human beings.

And I have no problem with that. I would love to not have the medical problems that I have. Am I selfish? You bet I am.

[Blue_true]

63. We can also create designer Frankenstein monsters.

The human genome is just so complex and there is much that is not understood. Better to focus on curing each disease in isolation than try a moonshot human clone. So much can end up wrong in the mind and body of the clone that could imperil the rest of society.

[brush]

84. So spot on.

[Doodley]

112. You seem to be advocating YOU not being born.

[MicaelS]

161. Furthest thing from that.

I am saying I would love it if my genome was fixed in such a way to fix my genetic problems.

[brush]

6. Ahhh...hell yes! We live in a racist country. Guess who will be cloned...

over and over and over. It sure won't be any POCs, and the clones will mostly likely be produced by a cloning corp to vote a certain way.

Sorta similar to how the manufacturers of voting machine produce easily hacked machines with no paper trail.

And come on, people. Can you say "Stepford Wives?" Enough of them for certain men to have as many as they want. Hell no to human cloning which could easily get out of control.

We can produce enough people the old fashioned way.

And why produce more people anyway when their is already talk of robots taking more and more jobs and out of work people becoming useless eaters.

[Codeine]

11. "Cloned to vote a certain way"?

That’s really not how cloning works. A clone is not a robot.

[brush]

80. It's a duplicate, right? A duplicate of who?

[Codeine]

87. A genetic duplicate.

Like a twin, that person will have their own independent thoughts, beliefs, and actions. Those thoughts will be as impacted by their upbringing and surroundings and cultural milieu as those of any other child.

Many liberal DUers had conservative parents and grew up in conservative neighborhoods, and yet here we are, liberal pinko commies all of us. Why would a genetic duplicate be any more likely to vote as their parent did?

[Doodley]

122. White, tall, good facial symmetry - these are physical attributes that influence socio-economic

status and voting intention, just to name a few.

[Codeine]

127. That is a social construct

and represents the upbringing and surroundings of the child. A cloned white kid raised in a white neighborhood would be more (or less, to be fair) likely to vote like their parent as a regular white kid in the same circumstance.

[Doodley]

132. Exactly the point I am making.

[MicaelS]

21. So if a Uterine Replicator was invented...

And women chose to use that instead of the "natural" way, you would be opposed to that?

[brush]

83. What the hell is the push for this about? For those who can't get laid?

Last edited Thu May 23, 2019, 10:22 PM - Edit history (1)

Come on, people. This can get out of control in so many ways. Do we really want to play God?

Ya just know it's going to become all about who can afford it, and those who are afraid of immigrants will try to wriggle control to make sure that the majority minority country that is to happen in 15-20 years will never happen. Meaning exactly that whites will be duplicated/cloned.

[Codeine]

88. Whites can already make as many whites as they want

for a lot less than the cost of cloning.

[brush]

93. But birthrate is lowest of all. You have to know that, right?

[Codeine]

94. Of course, but that's not through lack of ability.

Why would people who don’t want to have lots of kids kids the normal way want to have lots of kids via cloning?

[brush]

98. Read the thread. That was already discussed in many posts...

Stepford wives, alter the racial make-up, duplicate certain voter types—just to name a few motivations.

[Codeine]

104. That's not what cloning is.

You have a fundamental misunderstanding of what cloning actually entails. There is nothing about cloning that involves the creation of Stepford Wives, zombie humans who vote on and as commanded, or any other B-movie silliness you can conjure up.

What special attributes would a cloned white baby have that would make it any more or less likely to grow up to vote like any other random-ass white baby?

What special attribute of a cloned baby girl would make her a Stepford-Wife-to-be than any other random-ass baby girl?

They’d just be people who are younger twins of their parent.

[brush]

107. They're duplicates. Didn't we already have this discussion?

Duplicates of whoever gets cloned.

[Codeine]

110. A genetic duplicate.

Are you strictly the result of your genetics? Did your genetics control your last presidential vote?

You fundamentally fail to grasp what a genetic duplicate is.

[brush]

117. And you fundamentally do? Doesn't seem like it.

[Codeine]

123. As I am more than the sum of my genes

(thankfully, as my parents were scum) so would a cloned child be more than the sum of theirs. They would possess as much independent thought and agency as any other child, as much as you or I.

Their clone background would not determine their vote, would not make them Stepford Wife material, or any similar scenario that you’ve postulated. They would be a person with one genetic parent instead of two, simple as that.

That I understand these basic facts and you do not pretty much answers your question.

[brush]

126. Seems naive to leave out the motivation of the cloners and the...

myriad of things that could go wrong or go according to plan. Who the hell knows?

[meadowlander]

144. People can have good motivations as well.

The story in the original post is about a couple who lost their son before they could have grandchildren and are wanting to cope with their grief by having another child with the same genes.

Why should the state tell them "no, you can't do that"?

It's not like it's anybody else's business how they want to mourn the loss of their son. And how is cloning him somehow inherently worse than having another child?

[brush]

154. Pls, I nave no problem with the West Point family and that very...

sensitive, personal situation. The OP broached the proposition of wholesale cloning availability, which presents undeniably, unpredictable complications.

[meadowlander]

106. Presumably cloning is going to be a lot more expensive than artificial insemination though

and both are more expensive than finding another racist idiot and getting your Duggar on.

So if there were a lot of racist white people just itching to redress the "racial imbalance" they wouldn't be waiting on cloning to do it.

[brush]

109. One would hope so. You have more faith in the country than I do...

but I'm speaking from experience as a POC, centuries of experience in the racism here.

[MicaelS]

91. No push, I asked questions I wanted to get answers about.

I extrapolated from the story about using a dead man's sperm to carry on the family line.

I extrapolated from today's reproductive choices to future reproductive choices.

I wanted to read the opinions of people about fixing human genetic defects in-vivo, or in-utero.

I wanted to see if people thought it was "icky".

I wanted to see how many would fall back on to the old "Playing God" meme, because that EXCUSE has followed mankind through ages.

Finally I am an optimist, and think the benefits outweigh liabilities.

[brush]

95. IMO you have more faith in the prevailing racial attitudes than is warranted.

[MicaelS]

99. At no time did I mention race.

That did not even enter my mind at the time of my OP.

I was more interested in people's views about the advance of technology. I read a lot of SF, and Uterine Replicators, Cloning and Eugenics are common tropes in SF. Especially when Women's Reproductive Choices are under threat from the RW

I wanted to see how intelligent people would respond to these ideas.

Except for the issue of race, the spectrum of answers is falling about where I expected.

[defacto7]

108. I'm not opposed to the process, it's the circumventing

of a natural process of population control that I'm opposed to. It's ok to not want to go through the birth process, it's ok to not physically be able to have a child. If we go around that we are adding to an already dying planet where our mental and physical limitations have already intervened. What makes humans think we are better than the rest of nature? We are not. We need to get over ourselves.

[Hekate]

120. Ridiculous. All you need for fertility treatments is money in this country.

[brush]

121. Fertility treatment is hardly the same as cloning.

[Hekate]

131. Science is science, and it has already happened with animals. Change has happened so fast....

...that law and medical ethics have been left in the dust. Still, I wonder at that because it's been two generations of accelerating and expanding technology.

[applegrove]

7. The only think stopping some horrible people from doing bad things is

mortality. You can bet if they had cloning back at the end of WWII some nazi would have cloned Hitler and he'd own South America right now. In fact evil people would not even wait to die to clone themselves. Many more good people in the world than bad and it happens naturally. Let's keep those odds.

[Codeine]

19. A clone of Hitler

wouldn’t of necessity be “Hiltler”, any more than an identical twin of a serial killer would automatically be a serial killer. Genetics do not determine destiny.

[Doodley]

129. Genetics plays at least a partial role in many mental illnesses. Are you saying, you'd be happy

if Hitler was cloned?

[Codeine]

135. I wouldn't give two tugs of a dead dog's dick

if Hitler was cloned. He’d just be some random guy without the specific set of events that created Historical Hitler. Maybe a slightly crazier-than-average random guy, but pretty much a non-entity. Unstable megalomaniacs are a dime a dozen (points discreetly at the White House.)

In fact, as I am pretty sure human cloning is inevitable, and as humans are predictable as shit, I hereby postulate that there will, with a fair level of certainty, some dickwad who endeavors to clone the bastard. Presuming the existence of a viable genetic sample (probably not? No clue, really) then it’s a fair bet it’ll happen, and it will amount to absolutely fuck-all. Total non-event.

[Doodley]

143. It wouldn't be a non-event. A cloned Hitler would be a

lightning rod for neo-Nazis around the planet.

[Codeine]

145. Who would be immediately shut down.

The problem with trying to bring back Dead Bad Guys is hindsight — the rest of the world can see it coming the second time.

[Doodley]

151. You don't think there's a demand for a Hitler clone? Such a being would be

held in high reverence by modern day Nazis.

[Codeine]

152. Of course,

which is why I declared it a near-inevitability. It wouldn’t herald a new Reich, it would be a punchline, a pathetic joke that ended in humiliation for all concerned.

[BigmanPigman]

8. Too many unknowns and variables to say "yes" or "no" at this time.

[shanti]

9. Against

It would surely be used for negative purposes by the wealthy and powerful. Besides, it's creepy.

[MicaelS]

15. Why is it creepy?

Is in-vitro creepy? Is operating on a fetus in-utero creepy?

[shanti]

22. Because of the future implications

that I mentioned before. It will NOT be used for good purposes. Pretty sure there have been movies made on this theme.

[Codeine]

38. What would the negative purposes be?

The ruling elite pretty much keep within their class in terms of baby-making anyway, so it isn’t as if they don’t have the ability to make little rich babies of their preferred ethnic origin.

I’m not sure what is inherently negative about making babies who share all of your genes instead of just half of them.

[ADX]

10. Yes...

...Certain things shouldn't be fucked with and human cloning is one of them.

If we start down that road, where does it stop?

[MicaelS]

14. Ah, so humans are "Playing God", correct?

Never heard that one before, now have we?

[ADX]

30. No, incorrect. I didn't say anything of the kind...

...but since you want to try putting words in my mouth in order to start some shit, you can take your sarcasm and sti...nevermind.

[Codeine]

16. That's not really an explanation.

“Should humans be allowed to clone themselves?”

“No!”

“Why not?”

“Because they shouldn’t.”

Not a really convincing argument.

[ADX]

35. The question I posed - "where does it stop?" - is self-explanatory enough...

...but if you find that unsatisfactory, I wasn't really trying to convince you or anyone else of anything in the first place, so there's that.

[Codeine]

37. Fair enough.

I just think it’s a sufficiently interesting question that it bears actual discussion.

As to your question, I would say it ends where it begins; people making babies who are genetic copies of themselves, no more and no less. It’s just reproduction with a bit more precision as far as I’m concerned, and if someone wants to go about doing that it’s entirely their right.

[Codeine]

12. Many posters seem to be under the impression

that clones are mindless automatons or something. They would still be individual people, able to think and reason for themselves.

[MicaelS]

13. Yup, I hoped someone would get THAT point. n/t

[Kurt V.]

56. i disagree. human behavior is contingent on social environment and genetic

Endowment. more and more scientists are arguing that genetic endowment could be an even greater influence than social environment.

[Codeine]

25. Nobody is postulating cloning armies of oneself.

As long as people produce offspring at a rate that doesn’t exceed the replacement birthrate then the method of said production isn’t material. If everyone is making ten clones that’s bad, but no more or less bad than everyone making ten kids the old-fashioned way.

In other words, you’re conflating two entirely unrelated issues.

[JonLP24]

26. Post #23 is closer to my position

[Codeine]

28. And yet has nothing to do

with what you posted.

[JonLP24]

29. I'm sorry about that

You are right. I'll self delete. I don't care about cloning.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

20. People seem to think clones are completely identical

to the original, including behavior. No. All you get is an identical twin. Anyone who has ever known identical twins, or triplets, or quadruplets, know that they are each unique individuals, despite the identical DNA.

People who insist on cloning a dog expecting the will get the same dog back are idiots. So are people who want to clone a human for the same reason.

[Brawndo]

75. When one identical twin commits a crime, let's lock up the other twin

just to be safe.

[dameatball]

23. Yes. I think it would be wonderful to clone humans and expect similar results from previous humans

who were not cloned but developed who they became over time. (Sarcasm!)
I think cloning for organ transplants, rescuing endangered species, maybe some others that would be beneficial would be something to "consider." But cloning individuals….eh...not supportive at this time. For one thing, who decides who is to be cloned?

[2naSalit]

24. Yup.

Every one of our manipulations of nature have turned out to be problematic and/or used as a weapon... I suspect it would be used a s a weapon as soon as it would be possible.

[Codeine]

27. Every one of our manipulations of nature

has proven problematic? Literally ALL of our foodstuffs are the product of manipulation through artificial selection and selective breeding. We have succeeded as a species as a result of “manipulation of nature.” We’re able to eat and clothe ourselves and protect ourselves from the elements as a result of “manipulation of nature.”

Jeezus.

[LiberalFighter]

31. Cloning someone won't make them the same person.

They won't have the same shared experiences so the relationship would be entirely different.

So I would say I'm against it.

[mwooldri]

32. Yes I do have a problem with cloning.

It is in essence creating a twin of yourself, albeit many years younger. It is another entity like yourself.

Now if we were talking creating an exact and aged duplicate then heck no... Which one of you gets to go to work while the other copy of you enjoys themselves?

[tavernier]

33. If I could see Freddie Mercury perform live,

then I’m all for it.

[doc03]

34. Yes! Can you imagine more Trumps

[Caliman73]

36. It is a complicated subject (obviously)

I can understand the motives of the people in the story. I imagine from a cultural perspective and pragmatic (in the sense of continuing the lineage for property or other purposes)reason that they would want to do that, as well as from an emotional stand point. On the other hand, what will that child be like. There are a great many psychological ramifications. Obviously depending how the child is treated but still, my parents had me because they wanted a child to raise and to love as well as a great many biological, cultural, and societal factors. This child will be birthed to "carry on the family name" a very utilitarian purpose OR because they want a piece of their son to remain, which is still a rather imposing reason. I suppose you can argue that my parents wanted to have a child because they wanted a piece of themselves in the world but there is at least some romance (literally) involved for the fantasy.

Cloning is a level beyond this replication without any kind of relationship. What would the purpose of cloning be?

The problem with human beings in the modern world is that technology seems to advance much faster than our ethical constructs do.

[SlogginThroughIt]

39. I am not sure id cloning bothers me

However when we get to memory transference along with cloning then the question gets a whole lot more interesting. I agree with someone else that cloning will likely be most available to certain demographics (white privilege) at least in this country and that scares me.

But memory transference would make the entire thing a different ballgame. I believe someday there might be a way to access the brains information on some level.

[Codeine]

40. That would be fantastic.

Effective immortality.

[SlogginThroughIt]

100. hmmm with terraforming and long range space travel perhaps

hmmm with terraforming and long range space travel perhaps

[Celerity]

101. watch a great telly series.................Altered Carbon

https://www.netflix.com/title/80097140

[SlogginThroughIt]

102. Yep I have seen it

Although the basic premise is something that always fascinated me.

[Celerity]

111. Anthony Mackie (Falcon in the Avengers movies) is the new lead for season 2

[backtoblue]

41. Eugenics would be inevitable...

So my vote would be no. Because as humans, we aren't responsible enough.

On second thought, clone me and the world would be peacefully wonderful ...

Editing to add that cloning to use for spare body parts is a scary possibility for our most evil doers.

[Codeine]

42. Eugenics is probably inevitable

with or without cloning. Being able to select genetic traits will likely be quite simple in the very near future and will be impossible to police or prevent.

Cloning for spare parts might be easier to prevent; you’d have to hide the birth and existence of the child until it grew old enough to provide the requisite part. It may prove simpler to use stem cells to grow individual organs.

[backtoblue]

43. Agree

What was the book? Congo? About the genetic engineering of evolving primates for rich people's organs?

[Generic Brad]

44. If someone had my same genes, they would still not be me

My clones would be living in different times, have different experiences, different influences, different opportunities. They would have a vastly different life experience than I have had.

Being opposed to cloning is like being opposed to the existence of twins or triplets. Objections to cloning based on moral grounds does not register with me.

[JI7]

46. that's not the objection. the objection is the health issues and not being considered

equal to humans in our society.

[Codeine]

50. They'd be a baby.

Why wouldn’t they be considered a human?

[JI7]

52. they should be but many won't and they won't be treated well

[Codeine]

54. I think that assumes facts not in evidence. nt

[JI7]

55. we already have facts with how humans treat each other

how people think those who are different in various ways are less than them.

[Codeine]

48. I completely agree.

I think the opposition to cloning is based primarily on a lack of understanding. People are imagining armies of people engineered to vote in specific ways or “Stepford wives” being mass-produced for the wealthy.

I’d say it was a comic-book understanding of what a clone is, but even most comic books are more accurate.

[JI7]

45. my problem would be for the cloned person and how their life would be

health issues they would face, and society they would deal with.

[Codeine]

49. To be fair, any child faces those issues.

Genetic copy or not, one’s future is always some uncertain shit.

[JI7]

51. i agree, but this would be another level plus we don't even know

what exactly they would deal with and to knowingly bring that into the world would be something to seriously think about.

[0rganism]

47. against, pending a solution to telomere shortage

as i understand it, current cloning technology produces what is effectively a pre-aged clone with an artificially shortened lifespan. seems unfair to me.

[In It to Win It]

53. I'm not sharp on the subject of cloning but...

what cloning not be a medical gift?

Assuming that cloning gets to an advanced state, I'm thinking that organ replacement would be a great use for it.

[tymorial]

57. Humans cannot be trusted

If we start cloning then they will be manipulation of DNA which will lead to eugenics.

[Codeine]

60. We're going to manipulate DNA.

Why on Earth wouldn’t we? Possessing the ability to endow our offspring with a genetic loadout less prone to cancer, near-sightedness, cognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s, asthma, sickle-cell, or what have you and NOT granting them that gift seems just horrible to me. There’s nothing noble about maintaining some sort of unsullied genetic code when there is a healthier alternative.

[tymorial]

79. Oh and you think there will be a line they wont cross? Give me a break

[Codeine]

86. Every line will be crossed.

Genetic manipulation gets cheaper and easier every year. Pretending we can have even the slightest hope of stopping it is a pipe dream. Every technology will be misused at some point, but that doesn’t invalidate those technologies.

[meadowlander]

58. Yes with conditions.

1. The original person has to give their consent in each circumstance. The duplicates can't give consent for further duplication.
2. The duplicate has the same rights as any other person (except as above).

I don't think cloning is inherently different from any other form of reproduction other than the genes coming entirely from one person. If some rich Game of Thrones fan girls want to purchase Jason Momoa embryos and raise them and Jason is fine with it and presumably compensated, who am I to judge?

What would be wrong would be cloning yourself for spare parts. But as long as the clone is still treated like any other autonymous human being then what's the issue (beyond the ick factor)?

[Codeine]

61. Why a proscription on further cloning? nt

[meadowlander]

65. Copyright.

Consent is meaningless if, as soon as you let one duplicate be created that duplicate can then authorise as many additional duplicates as it wants.

It's like if I paid for the right to use a Beatles song and that somehow gave me the right to authorise anyone else to use the same song for any other purpose.

And I do think people should have a right to specify the exact circumstances under which total genetic copies of themselves are created.

[Codeine]

68. Each clone is an independent human being

with as much autonomy and humanity as any other. I would be loathe to tell any person that they had to surrender the rights to their body.

If a person clones themselves they would have to do it with the understanding that the resulting baby has as many rights as any other human, and if they wish to maintain their unique genetic pattern to themselves then perhaps regular babymaking is more in their wheelhouse.

[Blue_true]

59. Yes. Because so much can go wrong. nt

[Codeine]

64. Stuff goes wrong all the time when we make babies.

At the moment cloned embryos seem to require a bit more coddling in the early stages, but ultimately I think a cloned embryo/fetus/baby would have its development more monitored than your average birth, presumably resulting in the potential for less to go wrong.

[Blue_true]

66. The complexity of the human mind and body is enormous.

I would be more comfortable with cloning ONLY if every possible outcome is 100% predictable, which it isn't and likely never will be.

My main issue with cloning is what is the purpose? Do we want to create human beings with a greater tolerance to hazards that non cloned people? If that is the case why not simply focus on developing smart robots? I see no practical reason for cloning any living thing, even beyond concern about all the things that can go wrong.

[Codeine]

72. A clone is basically just a twin.

It wouldn’t be any more tolerant of a hazard than the original parent. Perhaps you’re thinking more along the lines of genetic manipulation.

I honestly don’t know WHY a person would want to clone themselves (seriously, there are enough generic nearsighted bald skinny white dudes in the world already, I don’t need to make a copy of myself) but I do maintain that if someone does then they should be able to reproduce that way.

[Blue_true]

76. Ego is the only reason why a person would want a clone, IMO.

A person convinced that he or she hold within special characteristics that will never exist in anything but a clone of them. If such a concept was even possible then the children of great scientists should have long shown a great propensity for scientific breakthroughs, yet the record on that is few children of great scientist even become noteworthy scientists or mathematicians. If a cloned person does not have all the unique sets of the cell donor, in my guess, there will be no way to get the same end result, even if the clone is a perfect match mentally and physically.

[meadowlander]

78. I wouldn't clone myself, but I might raise a clone of someone else if I had the option.

Basically if I decided I wanted kids I wouldn't want them to have some of the genetic issues that I have.

And adopting a kid, you have no idea what you're going to get. Maybe that kid's genes won't turn out to be any better than mine.

But I can look at the grown version of a famous person and say "they turned out OK - good looking, smart, successful, no major diseases... I'll have one of them. How badly could I screw them up? I know at least one version of that genetic package was a hit."

And if the famous person is fine with it, and gets compensated, what's the issue?

It's a bit superficial and not ideal from a social welfare standpoint but it's not like it's any worse than all those people who go to Eastern Europe to adopt white babies instead of adopting older, disabled, or non-white kids in their home town. And that certainly hasn't been made illegal.

[Blue_true]

82. I honestly don't know anyone among those that I kniw

in my red county who would go to Europe simply to adopt White babies. There are several Whites here that have Black adopted kids or foster kids that seem to be doing perfectly fine. There are many White grandparents that babysit or are parents to their racially mixed kids. So not all Whites are as racially closed minded as you indicated.

Back to cloning. You may be able to get a clone of a "perfect" person, but will the clone turn out remotely so? What happens if the "perfect" person has one gene combination that prevents him or her from being a serial killer but the clone does not? So many things can go wrong with cloning, it is something that we should not get into.

[meadowlander]

89. I didn't say all white people are racially close minded

or anything remotely resembling it. And that's totally besides the point.

I said lots of white people go to Europe to adopt white babies and that hasn't been made illegal even though it's not as PC as adopting a local kid who doesn't fit what those parents are imagining as their ideal child. The Ukraine is still the third most popular country for international adoptions by American parents and Russia would be well up there as well if their hadn't cracked down on it. Ten years ago, American parents were adopting 20,000 kids a year from Russia. And it's not because they had a borscht recipe they wanted to try.

You don't have to look very far online to find thousands of examples of adoptive parents who want "a healthy baby who looks like he or she could actually be theirs".

So many things can go wrong with any form of reproduction. But think of it this way... you are going to invest eighteen years of your life and hundreds of thousands of dollars in raising either child A or child B.

Child A - complete black box. You know nothing about this child's genetic predisposition.
Child B - clone of a successful, smart, good looking, happy person who is not a serial killer.

Playing the odds, and with your competent and caring parenting as a constant, which one is more likely to turn out a serial killer?

[Ilsa]

62. Why would it be needed?

There are plenty of people in the world.

And the more you mess with the earliest form, the more likely something could go wrong and disabilities manafest.

[Croney]

67. It is all explained and explored in this, the best telenovela ever made.

(Spoiler: The Clone is one-and-done, doesn't get the ingenue, and walks off into the desert at the end.)

https://m.

[Dorian Gray]

69. Yes.

Is my problem rational? I don't know. I have arguments against it that are pretty standard. Philosophically, why would we want to try to recreate what already exists? I don't think that any reasons don't come from a selfish place. Then how ethical can it be?

[Codeine]

73. Your philosophical argument

is actually the best I’ve encountered. The variation and unpredictability of the human animal is part of what make us strong and keeps us advancing. I like that argument.

[Dorian Gray]

159. Sometimes

I stumble across good points!

[tinrobot]

70. There's already too many people, so no...

We don't need to invent new ways to overpopulate the planet.

[tazkcmo]

71. No, I'll take two!

But only if I can enslave mine. After all, they are really just extensions of me...

[RockRaven]

74. The answer depends ENTIRELY upon the details.

There are more ways than I could possibly list which would render a human cloning scenario morally unacceptable to me. But I am not ready to assert, at this moment anyways, that I am categorically opposed.

However, in regards to the story which prompted your question, I have some middling ethical objections. Not enough to get hot and bothered about, but enough to be mildly annoyed. I think there is insufficient consideration given to the rights/concerns of the purported child.

[gulliver]

77. It's a bad idea. Sexual reproduction as a process more or less strengthens our species.

Look what has happened with the banana.

Also, the question can be pointedly rephrased as: "Would you have a problem with being a clone?"

[defacto7]

85. Would a clone be a secondary human?

I wonder how they would feel about being not quite a real human? What psychological conundrum could come of that?

[meadowlander]

139. I already am a clone, just of multiple people.

I have my dad's personality. I look like my grandmother and half a dozen of my cousins. One of my cousins and I look so close other family members can't tell just from photos whose baby and childhood pictures are whose unless there are other reference points (she's ten years older).

We have some family photos of ancestors who fought in the Civil War and one is the literal spitting image of my uncle.

Would you have a problem with being a twin? Or a quadruplet? What about an octuplet?

Presumably as long as you were still raised as and respected as your own person what difference would it make how many other people were running around with your same genes looking just like you? It might even be interesting to compare how differently your lives turned out despite starting from the same place.

[Snackshack]

81. No.

[defacto7]

90. Humans can't be trusted. We are not a natural animal on this planet.

We are a freak of nature, a mistake, a short lived species. We have more in common with a virus than with animals. We feed on our host until it kills us or we kill it.

We are on the way out and fast. Cloning humans would perpetuate the destruction of life on this planet. It's more likely that our evolutionary replacement would be AI if we last that long. It's an ego trip, a genetic one, to think of ourselves as the top lifeform on the planet. Perspective is a b***h. We have been devolving since at least the early 19th century and we cannot improve ourselves or the earth through cloning.

We need to get over ourselves.

[Codeine]

97. Oh good lord. nt

[cynatnite]

92. First off, this is NOT cloning...secondly, I have no problem with this or cloning...

We're all mostly a product of our environments. Of course DNA can still throw in it's two cents.

Clones or not, we're all still human at the end of the day.

[defacto7]

96. The question was about cloning.

I'm going with the question but you are correct that the other op is about artificial insemination.

Does anyone have a problem with artificial insemination these days? It wouldn't be much of a topic for discussion.

[Celerity]

105. it will happen (if it hasn't already) and there is nothing, literally nothing, we can do to stop it

I find AI to be far more problematic.

Techno-Utopians give me the creeps.

[Codeine]

114. A Chinese scientist claims to have done it

but it seems like his claims are dubious at best. That said, it’s completely inevitable.

[defacto7]

118. I don't lose sleep over it.

Humans are going out in a relatively short time. AI will never become our replacement because we will never have time to make it self-sustaining. In the end the planet will move on as if we had never existed.

[mahina]

113. Ya, for one thing we don't need more people and for another,

The person who is cloned has no agency over their own double existence.

It should be used to save species that are at risk, not make more humans. My 2 bits.

[Hekate]

115. People imagine a clone is like a xerox copy, with everything the same, an adult. Uh, no. It's a baby

A clone starts out as a baby like any other, and will become a unique individual, taking the usual amount of time to reach physical maturity. S/he will have to go to school for years, like anyone else. All of his/her experiences will be different. Until science (currently fiction) truly can do brain/personality/memory transplants, that is exactly how it will be -- a very very expensive baby to satisfy someone's ego. And even with a putative brain transplant, you end up with an old organ in a young body.

There are some people already who pay a great deal of money to have a beloved pet cloned. It's not the same dog -- even the fur pattern is different.

[Codeine]

119. There's a lot of that in this thread.

Some people get all their science knowledge from 1960s B-movies.

[Hekate]

125. There's a lot of nonsense in the thread about the dead West Point cadet, too...

It's like 40+ years of reproductive science (all right there in the news) has completely passed some people by. Whoosh. Right over their heads.

[Codeine]

128. Zombie voters and Stepford Wives.

It is to laugh.

[Hekate]

134. I thought we were supposed to be the Party of Science. This is a bit discouraging. nt

[Codeine]

137. Ignorance knows no party. nt

[GoCubsGo]

116. Yes. I have 7,706, 050,000 reasons and counting.

That's the world's current population. The planet already has more people than it can handle. There is no fucking reason whatsoever to clone more of them.

[keithbvadu2]

124. Jurassic Park from uncle Fred's hairbrush or saved baby teeth.

Jurassic Park from uncle Fred's hairbrush or saved baby teeth.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

130. You might not even get a physically identical person.

When they cloned a cat some years ago, the clone didn't look anything like the original.



http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3076908/ns/health-cloning/t/year-later-cloned-cat-no-copycat/#.XOdexdNKjOQ

But cat coat coloration can be somewhat random, so maybe this result wouldn't apply to people.

[Codeine]

138. Cat coloring is some funky stuff.

Lots of mama cats with four babies, three of which match and one that is some other color entirely.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

140. That can result from the fact that a single litter can have more than one father.

Cats get around.

[sellitman]

133. NO!

See this movie:

[gopiscrap]

136. as long as it is a democrat I am ok with it

[JustFiveMoreMinutes]

141. No, it's all just DNA basically...

and experience IMHO shapes the person into what they eventually become.

And if over time, we find that somehow someway in some dark recess of science fiction, we pass memories, thoughts, and adaptation down through our genetic structure! FUN!

[Doodley]

142. The year is 2050 and I'm shopping on Amazon for a clone.

The number one best seller is the white boy with blue eyes and blonde hair. They have sold nearly two million. My wife and I already have three. We are going to get a girl next. My wife wants her to be white with blue eyes and blonde hair. In fact, she is the same color scheme as the boys. The black ones just don't sell so well. Walmart have stopped selling them. There was a problem with the first clone we bought. He had a defect, and his eyes weren't blue enough, but we were able to claim under the warranty.

Is this really what we want our society to be like?

[meadowlander]

146. Can I get the delivery on Prime?

Seriously though... artificially and ineffectively holding back inevitable technology isn't going to stop people from being racist.

If we want to stop people being racist, stop them from being racist.

You might as well argue we shouldn't have televisions because most news anchors are pretty white women.

[Doodley]

148. Are you saying, everything else sounds fine.

[meadowlander]

150. I'm saying racists are going to racist.

You can't not have technology because there is a chance racists will use it. Otherwise we wouldn't have an internet because white nationalists post on it.

If you want to solve society's irrational bias towards white people, then focus on getting more diverse people on television and in movies and into politics and business and other high profile positions in society. And let's, by all means, call out advertising that posits the ideal of beauty as light skinned with light hair and eye colour and TV shows or news programmes that portray black people as criminals while the equivalent behaviour in white people is explained away. And let's have school text books that include stories about diverse heroes from history.

You're not going to solve the problem you're talking about by banning cloning. Cloning is just a technology that some people are inevitably going to abuse to express their inherent racism.

And they don't need cloning to do it. Racist white women who want blonde haired blue eyed kids pick blonde eyed blue eyed men to have them with. Should the state ban that in the name of preventing the moral hazard of some people preferring to have white kids?

[Codeine]

147. Why would clones be sold?

You’re postulating a system wherein a clone isn’t a human being with rights. There’s no basis in reality for that, as a clone would be a baby like any other. Do you really foresee society changing laws to deny personhood to babies based on where some of their genes come from?

In your nightmare scenario the problem doesn’t stem from cloning at all, it stems from some weird resurgence in human slavery. I see that vision as fodder for a middling 1970s science fiction novel, but not one with any real basis in reality.

[Doodley]

149. I didn't indicate the clones wouldn't have rights.

If you advocate cloning, why would you object to giving consumers choice, and the convenience of buying them at Amazon or Walmart?

[Laffy Kat]

153. Yes, and I don't really know why.

And I suspect it's already been done.

Reminds me of a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro entitled, "Never Let Me Go". It was also a movie, although the film didn't do it justice. That book has stayed with me and it changed me.

[YOHABLO]

155. For this case I would say 'yes'. But for rich people to have designer babies? Fuck no !!

[I_have_had_enough]

156. NO please

Can we even imagine the downside?
Don't think so.

[BigRig]

157. Not at all.

I think it will be mans next phase of natural selection. Surely there will be hiccups, but I would trade a few hiccups for evolution on steroids. We need super humans sooner than later with all these crazy ass bible thumpers wanting to burn down the world thinking they will be saved because they are special.

[rownesheck]

160. I would love to clone myself.

I could send my cloned self to work while I stay at home. Remember that movie Multiplicity? It's probably mentioned somewhere on this thread. That would be awesome. I also want micro chips implanted in my body that contain all my info. I could wave my hand over a credit card machine to pay rather than having to carry a stupid wallet. Please future! Arrive already!

[LanternWaste]

162. It will both help and hurt.

Much as splitting the atom, the consequences will be amazingly great and absurdly horrible dependent upon its applications. I can't honestly state I have a problem with nuclear fission, merely the way it's used in some instances.

It's impossible to explore every variable of the practical application of science prior to usage. We can only hope and attempt to maintain standards within acceptable norms.

[Turin_C3PO]

163. No, I wouldn't have a problem with it. nt

[brooklynite]

164. Nobody objects to the use of acquired sperm for IVF...

The objection in this case is that this is being undertaken by the parents with no apparent approval of the donor or a partner.

Question: if I'm a woman who wants to have a child, do I have the right to stroll down to the hospital and request a sample from anyone who looks appealing?

[bluedigger]

165. Yes and no.

Cloning of complete humans would be a terrible waste of global resources if it became widespread. On the other hand, cloning of replacement organs could be a good thing. I know I could use a fresh change of heart myself.