The same hubris behind "let's clone humans" brought climate change. And the development of AGI is a similar self-destruct bet. The extinction will be premised on those things being allowed, not on them being banned.

building on your thinking... what if humans are merely a point on an unfurling of intelligence/hacking, which will eventually reach its natural end, as all things do? just like the universe will as well; it couldn't foresee how its processes will yield its end

Sure, but what about it?

As the member of a species being extinct, I wouldn't like it and just "roll with it". Same way a race being told that they're there to serve, and if needed, be extinct to bring forward some other entity wouldn't.

Until we reach that "natural end" we shouldn't go "gently into that good night".

> we shouldn't go "gently into that good night

concur. the challenge in front of us (and always has been) to surf the waves we can find in this universe

We don't exactly know the nature of 'The Great Filter'.

But maybe we'll find out.

One of me is quite enough.

If you had a bioidentical braindead clone (ie. from a body farm), you could harvest it for new parts. You could replace failing organs, rejuvenate youth, and (with the technology to do so) perform a full head transplant to rid yourself of all cancers, cardiovascular damage, pulmonary damage, and other age-related injuries. You get a fresh immune system to boot.

Because it's bio-identical (ABO/Rh/HLA), no immunosuppressant is necessary and you can continue about a normal life.

Regenerative cloning should absolutely be a thing.

Sounds awful. Like my life of course and would be bummed if I fell over and died due to organ loss but OTOH I don't share the fondness for immortality or crippling fear of death that seems to affect many technologists. It seems just as natural that things should have ends as beginnings.

I don't fear death, but what I don't like are constant health problems when you get older. My grandma complained about her health problems constantly - it was so annoying.

There is also a strong influence of mindset here: there are people who are psychologically able to handle far more painful situation and still enjoy whatever satisfaction reachable to them, when other will lament all day along how sad they feel when they have best health and great social situation but can’t afford whatever luxury thing that might be above their current wallet.

To be clear, this is not to blame your grandparent. We all deal with situation with behavior that life forged into us. But if your opinion is that free will exists, then you should probably agree that there are ways to improve ourself.

Old people have measurably more health problems though, it does look uncomfortable. If there is an option to avoid that, it would be better.

Well, start take care of oneself, regular but not exaggerated physical exercices, good nutritional habits, sleeping enough each day and having balanced social interactions: these are all well known and documented.

Not ways to live to 200.

Well, brain and face diseases and cancers would still be a problem. "rejuvenate youth" is a magic phrase in there that promises a lot but doesn't actually mean much.

> "rejuvenate youth" is a magic phrase in there that promises a lot but doesn't actually mean much.

I disagree; though the phrase and its synonyms hides a lot of complexity — and I have to temper my optimism about research with the knowledge of millennia of snake oil — we'd recognise it if we saw it. (Unlike, say, "is this AI/animal conscious?", where we can't agree what the question means).

Would we? What all comes with "rejuvenate youth"? We have technology right now that makes one LOOK younger. Is it more than that? Where does it stop? Do our brains have to reverse their development so that the bits that don't fully congeal into our late 20's/early 30's are removed? Do we need to become impulsive, awkward, hormonal weirdos again? What's youth? 35? 25? 15? Does youth requiring scraping out all the plaque out of our arteries? Do we remove our scars? Do we get acne again?

A lot of what makes us us with all the wisdom of our age is also the bits that lead to the eventual breakdown and decay of our body. I think we'd need to lose ourselves to get our "youth" back. We're hoping for some magic where we keep all the good with none of the bad.

We've pretty much already done this with rats. The pop-sci summaries of the research I've seen (with all the caveats implied) say this improves cognition and memory, as well as general physical health and (because rats) fur colouration and quality.

Sadly, the usual problem is that rats aren't really very close to humans, merely closer than the other stuff we research with.

I assume none of that involves creating a braindead clone of the mouse?

Not that I heard, though it doesn't matter either way with regard to the specific issue I was critiquing.

Yeah, fair enough. The goal isn't necessarily magic. But I feel like the way to get there, at the moment, mostly is, especially with something like comparing a mouses lifespan against ours.

No cloning can produce what your body accumulates while interacting with enviroment. Lookup epygenetics.

Surely that is a good thing in this case?

It's not you that I'm particularly worried about. It's Bill Gates VII and Elon Musk XIV that I'm worried about.

I don't lose much sleep over it. They'd be too busy plotting the untimely demise of their other clones.

Not the worst people to have more of.

I strongly disagree with that.

That's got to be the mother of all false dichotomies.

Godwin aside, the point is valid. When I look at Musk? Sure, he's overrated, acts like a nerdy teenager who never grew up — "Rockets are cool! Sports cars are cool! I know, I'll put a sports car on a rocket!" — but even where I think he's surrounded himself with sycophants (IMO Boring Company, Neuralink, based purely on what I'm told by civil engineers and brain scientists) not really evil.

Misaligned and powerful, so an easy example of how an AI can go wrong; but you don't have to reach for Auschwitz or the Holodomor to find people much worse to clone than him.

As for Gates? The worst true thing I've heard about him was Internet Explorer. And possibly Clippy.

Maybe I misinterpreted your “I strongly disagree” comment. I thought you meant Musk and Gates are the worst people to be cloned.

Why not neither?

Aren't you embarrassed to field such peurile arguments? Really, that's an insult to everyone else's intelligence.

Ok, I'll invoke Godwin and end this comment subthread.