WI: Dictator Attempts to Use Cloning to Preserve Himself in the 2000s

Vaporized

Banned
What if international media finds a dictator like Kim Jung Un, Gadaffi, Saddam Hussein, or similar used some of the first human cloning techniques to create a new body in the hopes of transferring consciousness before death? What is global reaction?
 
It is possible clone himself but problem is that clone would need prope education so he could be similar one. And another issue that clone wouldn't be adult. It just would begin from newborn baby like people normally so it would last quiet long before he would be ready replace dictator. It is quiet possible that dictator dies or is ousted before clone is adult.
 
I am not even sure that a safe human cloning is possible now (albeit it seems that the tech to do it the unsafe way has been around for quite a while, so this is not impossible). There's a lot of stuff about genetics and life in general we do not entirely understand now, and back in the 2000's we understood even less - epigenetics were in their infancy at best, for example.
There's more than a fair chance that the clone might have - issues, such as health problems in development.
However, if done publicly (and it would not be very easy to hide) it would likely cause major backlash.
More generally, what's the point? The clone (assuming he's healthy and reaches adulthood with a body and personality approaching normal, which I am not sure is likely) would share the parent's DNA, but would not be the same person any more than identical twins, who also share DNA, are the same - actually less, because of different developmental conditions.
 
Agreed, it would obviously be two different people. Without a "consciousness transfer" technology, there's no way it can be the same person or even something close to that.
 
Agreed, it would obviously be two different people. Without a "consciousness transfer" technology, there's no way it can be the same person or even something close to that.
Since "consciousness" is, to put it mildly, an extremely poorly understood phenomenon yet (we're not even entirely sure there is , strictly speaking, anything to actually understand about it) I'd suppose that any technology for its transfer, if possible at all, is quite far into the future.
 
Since "consciousness" is, to put it mildly, an extremely poorly understood phenomenon yet (we're not even entirely sure there is , strictly speaking, anything to actually understand about it) I'd suppose that any technology for its transfer, if possible at all, is quite far into the future.

Indeed it's very speculative
 
While cloning, even if far-fetched can be somehow be done, the ability to ''transfer consciousness'' is so far into the future that it is ASB for now. as Falecius said, perhaps there is no consciousness.
The inside of the mind, is one of the areas we have very little information about. What motivates a man, is it simple chemicals, or perhaps there a system to regulate thinking, both input & feedback. If so, if one copies this system, it is not the original. It could branched-off into a different person.
 

GeographyDude

Gone Fishin'
220px-TheBoysFromBrazil.jpg

image.jpg

A book and a 1978 movie in which,

yep, you guessed it,

Nazi scientists clone Adolph Hitler.

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The movie merely had its moments,

which means it wasn’t very good!

But even if it was, doesn’t mean any of us can’t do our own story well told, with pace, plausibility, and count.
 
As for the film itself...

It's one of those mid-to-late 70s potboilers with pretensions to sociopolitical relevance. Seemingly intelligent people actually did talk about world-leaders cloning themselves as a serious possibility, and the movie ties that in with the then-popular(and not entirely fictional) idea that South America was teeming with ex-Nazis.

My religion class in elementary school consisted largely of the middle-aged teacher babbling on about whatever topic came into his head that day, and one lesson he got into cloning, and about how it's something very evil dictators might undertake, giving Idi Amin as his example. A few weeks later, trying to sound smart, I mentioned this to my uncle, and was somewhat crestfallen when he suggested that the idea of Idi Amin cloning himself was ridiculous.
 
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While cloning, even if far-fetched can be somehow be done, the ability to ''transfer consciousness'' is so far into the future that it is ASB for now. as Falecius said, perhaps there is no consciousness.
The inside of the mind, is one of the areas we have very little information about. What motivates a man, is it simple chemicals, or perhaps there a system to regulate thinking, both input & feedback. If so, if one copies this system, it is not the original. It could branched-off into a different person.

 

Deleted member 94680

What if international media finds a dictator like Kim Jung Un, Gadaffi, Saddam Hussein, or similar used some of the first human cloning techniques to create a new body in the hopes of transferring consciousness before death? What is global reaction?

Given the fact the science required to successfully clone a viable human seems beyond what is considered possible, it would probably be regarded as a hoax. Many media outlets had their fingers burned regarding Hwang Woo-suk’s work.

As to the transference of consciousness, that’s more science fiction than even future science.
 

Grey Wolf

Gone Fishin'
Donor
I imagine it will be possible to create accelerated growth of a non-sentient clone at some point

It will also probably be possible to do a brain print onto a proto-brain

But what happens then?
The clone gains a personality but no underlying reason, so it decays?
It may have these memories and so on but decides to do things differently?
It might act as a four year old child with these memories and thoughts, unable to function as an adult?
 
I had the following post in 2018:

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With a research program to rival their famous nuclear program, North Korean scientists discover the secrets of human reproductive cloning--and so the country is ruled by a series of Kim Il Sung clones, each one proclaimed a reincarantion of the Eternal President of the DPRK.

(The first clone is born a few years before the original Kim Il Sung's death. His birth is not announced until scientists make sure there have been no catastrophic birth defects. Kim Jong Il refers to the clone as "father" and serves as regent during the clone's minority...)

Before you say this is ASB, remember that human reproductive cloning is not impossible or "magic"--non-human primates have already been cloned--and that the North Korean leadership would not be inhibited by the ethical objections to developing it that scientists in some other countries have. It may be ASB-ish but I insist that for North Korea it is not ASB. It could happen with a Manhattan Project-style program (helped by industrial espionage). In North Korea, of course, such programs take precedence over things like, say, food.

***

Despite my insistence that it was not really ASB, it was moved to the ASB forum--even though I had nothing about somehow transferring consciousness! If that was ASB, this is ASB on stilts...
 

GeographyDude

Gone Fishin'
My religion class in elementary school consisted largely of the middle-aged teacher babbling on about whatever topic came into his head that day, and one lesson he got into cloning, and about how it's something very evil dictators might undertake, giving Idi Amin as his example. A few weeks later, trying to sound smart, I mentioned this to my uncle, and was somewhat crestfallen when he suggested that the idea of Idi Amin cloning himself was ridiculous.
I think I’ve very much had this experience! :)

feeling Big, wanting to get credit for understanding something. And then being shot down in flames by some clueless adult!
 
What may be possible in the far future is a head transplant. Of course the brain would still be aging but a immortal wanna be dictator could be tempted to get a younger stronger body.

Of course it would be crazy dangerous, especially for third world doctors. And someone elderly would be unlikely to survive the operation. Max it extends a dictator’s life by a decade. I mean absolute max
 
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