Cloned rhesus monkey lives to adulthood for first time
nature.com
nature.com
Let's see how realistic that is:
- Despot rulers who would create such an army if they could: Check
- Despot rulers with VAST resources and abilities: Check
- Gene editing to make the soldier you want: Check
- Ability to clone primates and generate massive look-alike copies of earlier creation: Check
- All sorts of steroids and drugs to make them that much more effective and obedient: Check ...
Hmm, looks like there is no chance of this ever happening. Just science fiction.
Maybe I should stop watching so many movies.
1. Despot rulers with the willingness and ability to pre-pay for 18+ years of care, feeding, education, etc. for an uncertain long-term outcome: Very unlikely.
2. Technology for somehow skipping all of that to pop out functional adults straight out of pods: Nowhere any time soon.
_________
The first item reminds me of a fiction quote, although the story (in this case) doesn't involve cloning:
> “The Barrayarans are all so army-mad,” she explained. “I always like to put [the recovered bodies] back in their uniforms. They mean so much to them. I’m sure they’re more comfortable with them on.”
> Ferrell frowned uneasily. “I still think he ought to be dumped with the rest of the garbage.”
> “Not at all,” said the medtech. “Think of all the work he represents on somebody’s part. Nine months of pregnancy, childbirth, two years of diapering, and that’s just the beginning. Tens of thousands of meals, thousands of bedtime stories, years of school. Dozens of teachers. And all that military training, too. A lot of people went into making him.”
-- Aftermaths by Lois McMaster Bujold
Authoritarian countries actually understand the problem and spend a lot of money on indoctrination of youth. See: Hitlerjugend. Baldur von Schirach, the leader of HJ, was one of the most important people in the Nazi hierarchy and later served 20 years in Spandau prison. No one expects 100 per cent results, but if you instill certain bigotry and obedience in a large subset of said kids, it is usually enough for the regime to thrive.
In the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, where I grew up, it was somewhat complicated to avoid all the Communist youth organizations, and your non-membership would handicap you during university admissions etc. (Possibly to the degree of never being able to study at all.)
I think that, on balance, it would still be advantageous for authoritarian countries to produce kids in vitro and just assign them forcibly to parents. It has proven extraordinarily complicated to push people to procreate, but once the child is born in some lab and you are simply given no choice but to take care of it under threat of punishment, it is a different story. This kind of coercion is closer to the usual standard.
China especially has a huge demographic problem and this would be an attractive solution for Xi et al.
I practically know nothing about history other than some talking points but How did Imperial Japan go from allegiance to one's feudal lord to allegiance to the emperor to the point where officers (I assume all pilots are officers?) were willing to die for the emperor?
Is China PR on a similar trajectory with Xi? Maybe it is naive but I believe having a presidency / party politburo general secretary / chairman of the military not being a hereditary position should mean there is not much appetite for indoctrination of the children? I mean an emperor with Meiji Restoration was doing something not just for himself but for his children, right? Why would Xi lay the groundwork for a future bureaucrat?
You do realize that while you can create primate clones in vitro, you still need to carry them to term the old-fashioned way?
Which, in your scenario, means you can't just drop a "child born in some lab" on a family. It means you forcibly impregnating a woman, have her birth the child and then raise it.
This is pretty far removed from "the usual standard" of coercion. I'd call it so absurdly dystopian, imagining it happening somewhere - on any significant scale - without immediate violent revolution seems unthinkable.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02901-1
It is well possible that by 2030 or 2035, the old-fashioned way will no longer be necessary.
True, however that's still harvesting "free" labor from the general population pool, as opposed to some kind of separate track where the government has to successfully execute the tasks--and bear the expenses--of a megaparent.
The Spartan Agoge existed - a group training program where boys entered at age 7, no thoughts were given towards keeping them particularly safe or well taken care of, and whose effect was to output ferocious warriors.
In the intervening years, we have developed this concept for other animals - we can grow massive amounts of chicken in a very small area, give them hormones to grow quickly, inject antibiotics to ward off germs on the short term, etc.
If the same were to be done to (cloned) humans, they can be brought up to age 7 level quite a bit faster, with the costs manageable. If we assume that no one cares if they can have a family, or even expects the to live past age 45, that dispenses with a lot of the care giving.
While I would like to believe that no-one would actually raise people the way we raise cows, I am not sure it is really that far fetched on a technical level. (concentration camps have existed, and even now many Uyghurs are placed in camps that seem decidedly inhumane)
That's more of an terror-indoctrination camp for a tiny aristocracy rather than a training system for mass soldiers. [0]
Tangentially, the effectiveness is questionable too: It may have helped Sparta's slaveowner-ocracy retain control, but most of Sparta's military success was mythical even to contemporary sources, always existing further in the past.
> for other animals [...] If the same were to be done to (cloned) humans,
There's a huge initial gap though, between animals that walk within days versus humans taking a to walk, and similar milestones.
Also, we usually aren't speeding their maturity as much as fattening them up, which probably isn't desirable in soldiery. :p
[0] https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-p...
just simple men, trying to make their way in the universe
So I'm thinking cloning might be a viable alternative to regular IVF at least technically, somewhere mid-century-ish.
Once there's a solid protocol, the cost of the equipment isn't even that much (a few thousand dollars). Except for one essential component, which only 50% of the population possess. (Thus since the only people who can directly afford to clone themselves would be female, their clones would be female too)
The main delay is actually the fact that many people are opposed to the concept of human cloning, so research is limited.
Honestly I would welcome human cloning too if it meant a cure for cancer.
The choice only seems controversial because none of you are dying yet. Once you're dying then the answer becomes more clear.
Still would do it. And so would most ppl.
Most people would kill to save their own lives.
So would most people.
Many parents would kill other people to save their own children too.
The correct terminology is not self defense. It's slaughter for self gain. That's just a truth you're not willing to face. I accept the reality of the dark side of human nature.
I'm pointing out that to kill a clone for your own benefit, you have to have a clone on hand you're willing to kill. This is radically different than the unexpected "me or you" situation that you keep conflating it with.
If you would with premeditation create and enslave a clone of yourself you would do it to someone else too! You have no better justification or right over either entity compared to the other. What you're admitting to is powerfully fringe, even freak. I still reject your implicit argument that these are comparable, and the explicit one that most people would do this. It is monstrous, whatever you tell yourself about the rest of us.
I'm not reading anything else about this from you. This is sick.
Indeed the survival stats for cloning are abysmal.
For human miscarriage rates, remember it depends heavily on how far along the pregnancy is:
70% of conceptions lead to miscarriage
50% of implantations lead to miscarriage
30% of aggressively confirmed pregnancies lead to miscarriage
15% of typical confirmed pregnancies lead to miscarriageIn general, IACUC exists to review protocols that use animals. The burden of proof is on the scientist to prove that work cannot be done by cell lines, and sometimes it results in less animals or redesign to use cell lines. If you do end up using animals, you have to prove make sure your protocol is taking proper care of them. This includes pain meds, heating pads, post surgery care, etc.
They are not a rubber stamp committee, I have seen labs shut down over discovered animal abuse and put on pretty extreme probationary measures at major institutions.
It was in fashion in the 2010s to move animal experimentation especially for non rat/mouse stuff to China through partnerships.
AMA if you've any IACUC/animal experimentation questions, I worked in that field for ~10y.
Strangely IACUC as a concept was formed closely after the Penn primate experiment video leak... IACUC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_Animal_Care_and_... Penn primate experiments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unnecessary_Fuss
2. I don’t see anything wrong with that. I would have preferred to be born without inheriting neurological disfunctions common in my family.
If we understand that gene "xyxyyyxx" controls the colour of the eyes, and "xyxyyyxx-y" turns them blue. You could inject that code just before the eyes have been been developed.
2. How is it natural for a child not to have parents? The psychologically repercussions of are unfair and upsetting.
Not including many ethical problems and environmental issues.
Who's going to look after them? Care for them, live with them? Or is it - "here's your blankie, welcome to life, good luck"?
If folk found out you were a clone you would be an outcast.
We have freakouts over folks who wish to have biological changes, identifying genders and the like. Why would a clone be more accepted?
But it rubs me somewhat wrong when you write as if all clones would have had that done to them. Ok, I suppose it's likely, but it's not the same thing. Maybe we should find a more specific term like "custom clone" or just "custom people".
Itterated embryo selection need not be so immoral in practice. It also only requires the ability to detect genes for traits, not the ability to modify genes. Thats good since the former is easier than the latter.