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There is the image of the dystopian ruler who has armies full of cloned, modified, thoughtless soldiers. Let's see how realistic that is: - Despot rulers who

There is the image of the dystopian ruler who has armies full of cloned, modified, thoughtless soldiers. 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.

Terr_ 3y ago
I'd counter with: 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
- inglor_cz 3y ago
  "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." 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.
  - mcny 3y ago
    > 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?
  - pbmonster 3y ago
    > it would still be advantageous for authoritarian countries to produce kids in vitro and just assign them forcibly to parents 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.
    - inglor_cz 3y ago
      Currently, yes, but research with regard to artificial wombs is well underway. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02901-1 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.
  - Terr_ 3y ago
    > Authoritarian countries actually understand the problem and spend a lot of money on indoctrination of youth. 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.
- sam_goody 3y ago
  > 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. 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)
  - Terr_ 3y ago
    > The Spartan Agoge existed 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-part-i-spartan-school/ https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-p...
dkdbejwi383 3y ago
> cloned, modified, thoughtless soldiers just simple men, trying to make their way in the universe
geraneum 3y ago
This seems too expensive compared to more conventional ways of making “clones”. Just a few ingredients (some form of religion) and you have a mindless group, which might not look alike, but think _too much_ alike, won’t think critically, are obedient and are under your command.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
alan-hn 3y ago
None of what you just described is medical research nor is any of it out of the question with normal inbred monkey lines. Not sure why cloning is the one thing that would make that possible instead of just breeding monkeys
Kim_Bruning 3y ago
I think most (early) human clones would be female, and raised like normal kids, possibly with no one knowing any better. 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.

Terr_ 3y ago

I'd counter with: 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

inglor_cz 3y ago
"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." 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.
- mcny 3y ago
  > 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?
- pbmonster 3y ago
  > it would still be advantageous for authoritarian countries to produce kids in vitro and just assign them forcibly to parents 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.
  - inglor_cz 3y ago
    Currently, yes, but research with regard to artificial wombs is well underway. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02901-1 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.
- Terr_ 3y ago
  > Authoritarian countries actually understand the problem and spend a lot of money on indoctrination of youth. 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.
sam_goody 3y ago
> 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. 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)
- Terr_ 3y ago
  > The Spartan Agoge existed 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-part-i-spartan-school/ https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-p...

dkdbejwi383 3y ago

> cloned, modified, thoughtless soldiers just simple men, trying to make their way in the universe

geraneum 3y ago

This seems too expensive compared to more conventional ways of making “clones”. Just a few ingredients (some form of religion) and you have a mindless group, which might not look alike, but think _too much_ alike, won’t think critically, are obedient and are under your command.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

alan-hn 3y ago

None of what you just described is medical research nor is any of it out of the question with normal inbred monkey lines. Not sure why cloning is the one thing that would make that possible instead of just breeding monkeys

Kim_Bruning 3y ago

I think most (early) human clones would be female, and raised like normal kids, possibly with no one knowing any better. 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.