Scary Reaction to Cloning

Robin Hanson (hanson@hss.caltech.edu)
Fri, 7 Mar 1997 13:18:59 -0800 (PST)


Eugene Leitl fowards a message from Howard Olsen:

>Pandering to the worst reactionary authoritarian statist elements of
>the Millenium, Clinton seeks a "commission" { an Inquisition is more
>like it) to study human cloning.

Saw the head of this commission on CSPAN yesterday. He said they want
90 days to study the question. They will have lots of religious
leaders on the commission, but he said it was very hard to find
someone in favor of human cloning, but they'd try to dredge up
someone. If they publish an email address to send comments to, I hope
someone posts it here.

I am amazed and frightened by the strength of the reaction against
cloning. No concrete scenarios of anyone being harmed by cloning are
being put forward! All I've seen are complaints that people wanting
cloned kids must be selfish and/or weird. Everyone agrees on this and
disagrees how concerns for this should weigh against the potential for
medical research. I fear for the future of self-modification, at
least for a few decades.

Robin D. Hanson hanson@hss.caltech.edu http://hss.caltech.edu/~hanson/

P.S. Yes, this sort of thing is predicted as we approach a "Fourth Turning."