[ExI] Ethics of cloning famous people

[Adrian Tymes]

Given how much of any given famous person is due to nurture and opportunity
from environment, cloning famous people would in practice not bring much
more benefit to society than cloning random people - indeed,
quite possibly less benefit due to the baggage those clones would have from
being clones of famous people (and thus, pressured to grow in ways that
hinder them from being nearly the equal of their clone parent).

On Tue, Nov 26, 2024 at 11:27 PM Keith Henson via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> This is not a current concern, but it will be post-nanotechnology.
>
> How many of you would like to raise a clone of a famous person? A
> clone is not a copy of course, but they should have abilities and
> personality much like the original.  We can only do this when we have
> a DNA sample, but we should be able to get DNA for most of the
> interesting people in the last century or three.
>
> The furthest back might be Leonardo Da Vinci. He painted with the tips
> of his fingers.  Chances are good that his DNA could be recovered with
> nanotechnology.
>
> By the time this is possible, we should have gene editing.  An exact
> clone may not be ethical, for example Beethoven went deaf and died
> early, perhaps from genetic causes.
>
> Does anyone want to list the people they would like to see cloned?  My
> list would include:
>
> Albert Einstein
>
> Richard Feynman
>
> John von Neumann
>
> Alan Turing
>
> Feel free to add to this list.
>
> For authors, Robert A Heinlein, Arthur C. Clark, Isaac Asimov and the
> whole list at
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damon_Knight_Memorial_Grand_Master_Award#Grand_Masters
>
> Can you imagine a kindergarten class full of these and similar
>  clones?
>
> Keith
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