Suppose everyone is able to make their own clones, just like they are able to conceive kids. (I mean, theoretically, I do know how to make my own clone, it's an available technology, I just wish I had a passionate girlfriend, whom I get a long very well with, and who would like to commit to lab work at home, and be ready to explore this together, making a copy of ourselves at home, and growing them up as family).

Why? Strategic goals. If we want to survive for a long enough time to visit Andromeda galaxy, we need more thinking resources and multitasking. It would be fun to learn about ourselves, our natural tendencies. It would be safe to share parts of our bodies in case some damage occurs reducing risk to our deaths. While our clones would be different experientially, they could be great at thinking together, especially, if we love to chat and work about a variety of things. Assuming we are naturally intelligent, it would be great to have more of us, doing more, rather than having statistical regression to the mean, at least temporarily, until human longevity issue is resolved.

The idea addresses an ethical issue of acceptability of self-cloning. Society has norms for family life, and freedom to procreate. Having full and loving family is one of the essential things to human development. Provided the conditions of this idea are satisfied -- namely, there are two people of mutual love and common passion for science, who decide to have kids, and grow them up and educate them in the best of their (and common) interest, it may be much more acceptable to have clones.

The social acceptability of this kind of procreation strategy could be good for various students and scientists, who otherwise might not find it attractive to procreate (fearing the regression to the mean and wasted time to educate kids less inclined to learn), leaving the procreation business for the masses (like in the movie Idiocracy).
-- Inyuki, May 10 2019

Cloning per se doesn't need a couple, does it? So, the role of the couple in this idea would be ... to provide a conventional upbringing to the unconventionally conceived?

I'm not sure what you're hinting at with the commitment to home lab work. I mean, most of the work in bringing up children doesn't happen in a lab. Are you proposing to clone yourself on an industrial scale?

Also, if one of your motives for cloning is to preserve intelligence by avoiding reversion to the mean, then the implication for the person in the proposed "passionate girlfriend" role would be that you're cloning yourself, rather than procreating with her, because, ex hypothesi, her genes are more mean and less intelligent than yours. Can you see how she might take this amiss?
-- pertinax, May 11 2019


The village voting/selecting for the best couples for a cloning license?

I like the idea of cloning a village because that's the best one and will advance society (with a inspirational geographically separation). But if a society is going to pollute the random gene pool with a stream of consistency, it better be sanctioned by society itself. Because we always need that old, it's your own fault, chestnut.
-- wjt, May 11 2019


[pertinax]

// you're cloning yourself, rather than procreating with her

Well, "making a copy of ourselves" literally implies copying both.

Of course, since we would have only one womb, the process of copying may take a a few years. I think the risk of the event you pointed out (namely, "you're cloning yourself, rather than procreating with her") should be weighted in, and insured against.
-- Inyuki, May 11 2019



random, halfbakery