6 ms·

What I am looking forward to is when someone tries to start cloning process on a human being. When I was a kid, in 1990s, there was a lot of fuss around clonin

by vjsc 8y ago

What I am looking forward to is when someone tries to start cloning process on a human being. When I was a kid, in 1990s, there was a lot of fuss around cloning. Most people rejected it as unethical. I wonder how far the state of the art has come since then in cloning technology. I am guessing that cloning maybe a real chance for humans to become immortal or atleast live longer lives.

jacobolus 8y ago
i.e. via cloning yourself and then harvesting organs / injecting blood from your clone? Transplanting your brain into the clone body? Or ...?
- anonytrary 8y ago
  It would take extreme idiocy to think that this is morally sound. There is no defensible argument for treating a human clone as anything less than human.
  - a_imho 8y ago
    What if we don't call it a human | engineer it just so it does not meet some agreed criteria for human | offers their organs voluntarily* | ... ?
    - anonytrary 8y ago
      That's not how cloning works. Clones aren't empty husks full of free organs ripe for the taking, any more than non-clones are. Even if you could create a clone without a brain, it's still hard to condone. If an anencephalic fetus miraculously grew to 24 years of age, would people post a "free organs" sign on him and lay him down on their lawn? Gonna have to say... probably not.
- beerlord 8y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_transplant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_transplant I don't think its outside of the realms of possibility for the mega-rich. Grow a clone for 20 years, and transplant your brain into a fresh body.
- magduf 8y ago
  Cloning people for harvesting organs doesn't really make that much sense: it'll take many years to grow the organs to the size needed to be useful as replacements. We're already working on growing (or even 3D-printing) replacement organs without the human; that avoids ethical problems, but it also doesn't require the huge investment in time and resources needed to grow clones of yourself and raise them to adulthood. They'll probably have this technology ready for prime-time before they could have human cloning working plus have those clones grow to late adolescence.
  - grecy 8y ago
    Surely if we're cloning people it won't be too hard to accelerate growth as well. If not, just stick all the clones somewhere and have them sit around waiting until their organs are needed. ie. the movie "The Island"
    - magduf 8y ago
      That's my point. We don't need "the island"; when we've worked out the genetic issues with cloning, we'll already know how to just grow organs on-demand. The whole clone thing doesn't make that much sense when you look at it that way; it would cost a fortune to raise a human to adulthood just for organ harvesting, plus garner all kinds of ethical problems and controversy and protesters etc. No one's going to protest organ-growing or 3D-organ-printing except maybe a few religious nuts. And with the clone, what happens when you harvest its heart (killing it), and now you need a lung? Or you harvest one thing, and then get injured and need that same part, but you didn't have multiple clones lined up? With organ-printing, you just make the organ you need when you need it. We still don't have truly 100% working clones; we tried with a sheep a while ago and it wasn't 100% and died early. However, we're already experimenting with 3D-printing organs.
rqs 8y ago
I think as far as current tech goes, even if somebody gets 100% cloned, their mind (data in the brain) would still be different. That of course is when The 6th Day[0] (Brain data copy + clone) will never become a reality. Here is a video about cloning dogs you may interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmHYUvmiXQI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmHYUvmiXQI [0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0216216/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0216216/
anonytrary 8y ago
> [In the 90s] most people rejected it as unethical. I don't understand this. If a clone is given the same rights as a non-clone, I can't see how cloning is unethical. It's not like non-clones get a choice in whether or not they want to exist. Why would we treat clones differently, anyway? > I am guessing that cloning maybe a real chance for humans to become immortal Sounds like you are confusing classes with instances. If every human is a different class, the class gets to potentially live forever, but each instance of the class still goes through the lifecycle. It's not like the consciousness of a previous instance is copied to a later instance. Each instance presumably gets its own state.
- paxy 8y ago
  In people's minds, cloning = a person walks into a machine and two exact copies walk out. If you instead framed it as birthing a child who was exactly like you, I'm sure the perception would be a lot different.
  - Zanni 8y ago
    Yes. The word "clone" has been so abused by popular media that people have wild misconceptions and objections. We should call them "elective identical twins."
    - jobigoud 8y ago
      They won't be twins as they won't necessarily be carried by the same mother/womb and won't have the same age. (In the "cloning an adult" scenario).
  - anonytrary 8y ago
    > In people's minds, cloning = a person walks into a machine and two exact copies walk out. I highly doubt this is even close to true. Most people are smart enough to know that cloning has something to do with "modifying the egg and sperm and growing the baby". That's literally all they have to know to not think the absurd thing you mentioned. What you've described is "teleportation gone wrong" which is complete and utter science-fiction, and most people know that. I would even go further and say that most people are familiar with Dolly and already know cloning to be possible. Plus, they are already familiar with twins (about two pairs per high-school) which is natural cloning. You'd have to be living under a rock to think twins share the same mind.

by vjsc 8y ago

jacobolus 8y ago

i.e. via cloning yourself and then harvesting organs / injecting blood from your clone? Transplanting your brain into the clone body? Or ...?

anonytrary 8y ago
It would take extreme idiocy to think that this is morally sound. There is no defensible argument for treating a human clone as anything less than human.
- a_imho 8y ago
  What if we don't call it a human | engineer it just so it does not meet some agreed criteria for human | offers their organs voluntarily* | ... ?
  - anonytrary 8y ago
    That's not how cloning works. Clones aren't empty husks full of free organs ripe for the taking, any more than non-clones are. Even if you could create a clone without a brain, it's still hard to condone. If an anencephalic fetus miraculously grew to 24 years of age, would people post a "free organs" sign on him and lay him down on their lawn? Gonna have to say... probably not.
beerlord 8y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_transplant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_transplant I don't think its outside of the realms of possibility for the mega-rich. Grow a clone for 20 years, and transplant your brain into a fresh body.
magduf 8y ago
Cloning people for harvesting organs doesn't really make that much sense: it'll take many years to grow the organs to the size needed to be useful as replacements. We're already working on growing (or even 3D-printing) replacement organs without the human; that avoids ethical problems, but it also doesn't require the huge investment in time and resources needed to grow clones of yourself and raise them to adulthood. They'll probably have this technology ready for prime-time before they could have human cloning working plus have those clones grow to late adolescence.
- grecy 8y ago
  Surely if we're cloning people it won't be too hard to accelerate growth as well. If not, just stick all the clones somewhere and have them sit around waiting until their organs are needed. ie. the movie "The Island"
  - magduf 8y ago
    That's my point. We don't need "the island"; when we've worked out the genetic issues with cloning, we'll already know how to just grow organs on-demand. The whole clone thing doesn't make that much sense when you look at it that way; it would cost a fortune to raise a human to adulthood just for organ harvesting, plus garner all kinds of ethical problems and controversy and protesters etc. No one's going to protest organ-growing or 3D-organ-printing except maybe a few religious nuts. And with the clone, what happens when you harvest its heart (killing it), and now you need a lung? Or you harvest one thing, and then get injured and need that same part, but you didn't have multiple clones lined up? With organ-printing, you just make the organ you need when you need it. We still don't have truly 100% working clones; we tried with a sheep a while ago and it wasn't 100% and died early. However, we're already experimenting with 3D-printing organs.

rqs 8y ago

I think as far as current tech goes, even if somebody gets 100% cloned, their mind (data in the brain) would still be different. That of course is when The 6th Day[0] (Brain data copy + clone) will never become a reality. Here is a video about cloning dogs you may interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmHYUvmiXQI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmHYUvmiXQI [0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0216216/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0216216/

anonytrary 8y ago

> [In the 90s] most people rejected it as unethical. I don't understand this. If a clone is given the same rights as a non-clone, I can't see how cloning is unethical. It's not like non-clones get a choice in whether or not they want to exist. Why would we treat clones differently, anyway? > I am guessing that cloning maybe a real chance for humans to become immortal Sounds like you are confusing classes with instances. If every human is a different class, the class gets to potentially live forever, but each instance of the class still goes through the lifecycle. It's not like the consciousness of a previous instance is copied to a later instance. Each instance presumably gets its own state.

paxy 8y ago
In people's minds, cloning = a person walks into a machine and two exact copies walk out. If you instead framed it as birthing a child who was exactly like you, I'm sure the perception would be a lot different.
- Zanni 8y ago
  Yes. The word "clone" has been so abused by popular media that people have wild misconceptions and objections. We should call them "elective identical twins."
  - jobigoud 8y ago
    They won't be twins as they won't necessarily be carried by the same mother/womb and won't have the same age. (In the "cloning an adult" scenario).
- anonytrary 8y ago
  > In people's minds, cloning = a person walks into a machine and two exact copies walk out. I highly doubt this is even close to true. Most people are smart enough to know that cloning has something to do with "modifying the egg and sperm and growing the baby". That's literally all they have to know to not think the absurd thing you mentioned. What you've described is "teleportation gone wrong" which is complete and utter science-fiction, and most people know that. I would even go further and say that most people are familiar with Dolly and already know cloning to be possible. Plus, they are already familiar with twins (about two pairs per high-school) which is natural cloning. You'd have to be living under a rock to think twins share the same mind.