Stretching "abuse" to include "denying his or her unique identity and separateness from the parent" makes the term nearly meaningless.

Well, then, we disagree on this. Why do you think so many people end up hating their parents? The parent-child relationship is exceptionally sensitive, due to the almost total power that a parent has to define the terms and conditions of a child's life. In order that this relationship not be harmful — given the power aspect of the relationship, I think the term abusive is appropriate in this context — it is essential that the parent respect the child's individuality and separateness and, ultimately, the child's right to determine his or her own direction and fate. The parent has the right to attempt to steer and mold the child, of course, but there is a basic level of respect that I think is in danger of being violated if the parent is basically viewing the child as an extension of his or herself, rather than as a separate person whom one is privileged to raise and teach.

Hi Mark,

Abuse of a child includes actions like beatings, rape, mutilation, that sort of thing. Stretching "abuse" to include "denying his or her unique identity and separateness from the parent" makes the term nearly meaningless. You might as well redefine "abuse" to include any attempt by a parent to mold their child, which essentially all parents attempt to a greater or lesser extent. "Why can't you be more like your brother?" may be obnoxious, and it is indeed a denial of separate identity, but calling it abusive, lumping it in with parents who break their kid's bones, renders the term useless.

Would you respect the freedom to raise a child in an abusive way?

If "abuse" has been redefined to, say, include actions like persuading the kid to take math courses because previous family members had done well in math, then, yes, I would respect it.

The desire to replace a lost child with a genetically identical one would be perverse.

Mark, "perverse" is generally taken to mean something that is very clearly undesirable. You have repeated your labelling of this option, but I haven't seen you supply any reason for anyone else to believe your label. I don't see any particular attraction in this application (but, hey, I'm childfree, I don't see much attraction in kids in the first place), but I don't see anything particularly undesirable in this application either. What's the big deal???

Cloning is a trivial step beyond IVF,

It is a very nontrivial step beyond IVF.

merely creating an identical twin, which nature does anyway.

An "identical twin" of its parent. Nature does not do this.

you should get out of the habit of describing preferences that you don't happen to share as "perverse", "unnatural", and "abusive".

I stand by my characterizations of the real and hypothetical situations we discussed. Cloning is clearly unnatural, which doesn't by itself condemn the procedure, but does render it suspect. The desire to replace a lost child with a genetically identical one would be perverse. A person with a reason for wishing his or her child to be a genetically identical replica of his or herself, not to share genetic parentage with another, would be likely to impose an abusive relationship on that child, denying his or her unique identity and separateness from the parent.

You are showing no respect for other peoples' freedom.

Would you respect the freedom to raise a child in an abusive way?

To say "The fact that people want children strongly is not enough, if there is reason to ask what they want them for." is judgmental.

No, it is not in itself judgemental. It states only that there remains an unanswered question.

How would you like it if you had been compelled to justify siring a child, with some government employee having the power to decide yea or nay?

If I were a known child abuser, or if there were some other reason to expect that I would be an abusive parent, then I think this would be appropriate.

In a world with 6 billion of us, one could make a case that conceiving a new child by any means technologically assisted or not, should be tightly regulated. Would you like to live with that degree of social control?

I think that, in fact, the world is not (yet) so overpopulated as to justify such draconian measures, and we do not currently expect world population to overrun carrying capacity, given technological developments which I think you and I agree are to be expected. However, if that were not the case, if, in fact, the world were already overpopulated or clearly headed for overpopulation, then strict regulation of human fertility would be necessary, and I would support it.

Hi Mark

Thank you for seeing the analogy to IVF. Cloning is a trivial step beyond IVF, merely creating an identical twin, which nature does anyway.

Mark, you should get out of the habit of describing preferences that you don't happen to share as "perverse", "unnatural", and "abusive". You are showing no respect for other peoples' freedom.

To say "The fact that people want children strongly is not enough, if there is reason to ask what they want them for." is judgmental. How would you like it if you had been compelled to justify siring a child, with some government employee having the power to decide yea or nay? In a world with 6 billion of us, one could make a case that conceiving a new child by any means, technologically assisted or not, should be tightly regulated. Would you like to live with that degree of social control?

You can say that a clone would be comparable to an identical twin from the genetic point of view, but it would not be comparable from the point of view of its relationship to the cloner, who would assume the role of a parent.

If a person wishes to have a child, but is unwilling to share genetic parentage with another, and insists, in fact, on having a genetically identical copy of him/herself, it is reasonable for us to ask why, and personally, I can't think of any possible answer that does not suggest the high probability of an abusive relationship.

The fact that people want children strongly is not enough, if there is reason to ask what they want them for.

You cite the example of a couple wishing to replace a dying child. Imagine the position this would put the replacement child in: "I was created as a replacement for _____." The desire to do this is perverse, and suggests strongly that the couple involved should refrain from having further children until they have dealt with their grief caused by the irreversible loss of the first.

It is not just that cloning would likely lead to child abuse; cloning itself would be abusive. We don't know how the child will react to the information that he or she is an identical clone of his or her parent, or a replacement for some other highly valued person. You might try to compare this to IVF, and we may wonder how some children feel about having been created in such an "unnatural" way, but cloning would go far beyond this, creating issues of idividuality and one's right to a unique identity.

Furthermore, we don't know how healthy a cloned human would turn out to be (there have been problems with other cloned mammals, as you may know), and there is no compelling justification for human biological experimentation in this case.

I think most people understand all this, and that's why cloning bans were approved so rapidly.

Paul Somerson, in his column in the Ziff-Davis publication "Smart Business", remarks on the Turning Point ads: "The newest villain is the Internet itself. A bunch of chowderheads from the Turning Point Project are running full-page ads in The New York Times claiming that the whole computer revolution is the incarnation of evil, and a threat to democracy. Why? Because computers let employers measure workers' output better. Because chip makers use 'huge amounts of pure water.' Because while it's OK for catalog merchants to avoid out-of-state sales tax, greedy Internet merchants are somehow stealing money from sanitation workers. They even whine that Apple exploited Einstein and Gandhi in its ads, since such Think Different subjects didn't use computers! Get a life. By the way, these technology-haters ran a URL and an e-mail address at the end of their screed. "

Hi Mark, you wrote:

I strongly support the ban on human cloning, although I support the British proposal to permit cloning of embryos up to 2 weeks for stem-cell harvesting.

I see no compelling need for production of babies by cloning. I don't see how you could call this "creating a time-shifted identical twin." The cloner would not be a sibling, but a weird kind of parent, one clearly bent on creating a continuation of his/her own identity, rather than respecting the separateness of the child. The issue of child abuse arises at once.

Well, I call clones time-shifted identical twins because, if you look at them genetically (which is what all the fuss is about), they have the same relationship as identical twins. To contrast to other possibilities: This isn't genetic engineering, either curative or enhancing. All cloning does is to take an existing genotype and make another copy. In comparison with concerns about genetic engineering arms races (which in turn are minor compared to MNT's potential effects), its a nit.

Mark, you speculate on the motives of would-be cloners, then extrapolate from that speculation to an "issue of child abuse", then use the extrapolation of the speculation to strongly oppose the freedom to clone. In at least one case that I'd read of, a couple wanted to clone a child of theirs who had either died or was expected to die, not to clone either parent. The first stage in your chain of reasoning was wrong in this case.

Frankly, I personally see no use for cloning as a reproductive technology (being childfree myself, this applies to reproductive technologies in general). Nonetheless, I don't try to sit in judgement on those couples who do want to use it. Dr. Seed heard from several couples that wanted to try cloning. I see no reason to demand that they supply a "compelling need" for this technology. Leave them the freedom to make their own decisions!

Look, consider how we treat ordinary breeding. Never mind subtle psychological effects, roughly half of pregnancies aren't even planned by the parents. No genetic counseling, no avoidance of mutagens or teratogens in early pregnancy, no financial planning, nothing. Claiming that a cloned baby is going to be in a worse situation than that is bullshit. Cloning is at least as intrusive as in vitro fertilisation, which is a difficult, expensive, intrusive process. Any couple who goes through all that is at least highly motivated to get their baby, which is more than can be said for unplanned babies, which no one has proposed banning.

Have you got any better justifications for the cloning ban? As it stands, it still looks to me like a ludicrous failure for democratic control of technology: unfair, arbitrary, and irrationally fearful. If this is what we can expect from our political process, then it presents a strong argument that no control at all is indeed preferable in the vast majority of cases. Freedom is just as important as democracy. When someone proposes restricting a freedom, I want to see extremely compelling reasons before I would be willing to support it. Mark, remember that the next time someone wants to ban a technology, it might be a technology that you need or want.

The fact is that many people are unwilling to accept that there can be something beyond "our own humanity".

Neutron stars, for example. They are as human as any robot you might make.

the question of what is bad and what is good is subjective.

Yes, and we humans are the subjects. It would be nonsense to say that something bad for us was really good in some other way.

more species became extinct before man came into the world than have become extinct since. Assuming that this statement is true (and even if it isn't, it still illustrates the point), is it unnatural for a species to become extinct due to the competition from man? Not at all, that's evolution at work.

Is is not somewhat regrettable that so many species went extinct before we had a chance to see them? We might not like having tyrannosaurs running around our neighborhoods, but surely it would be nice if they still survived on some island somewhere. "Evolution" is not inherently good. Particularly not if it would mean never hearing birdsongs, picnicking in a field of wildflowers, or watching a mama black bear and her cub from a respectful distance.

If you had asked a neanderthal what he thought about losing out to this new-fangled homo sapiens, he would have probably been no happier than many homo sapiens are today about the possibility of losing out to the next evolutionary step.

You seem to think "the next evolutionary step" has already been programmed… by whom? Why do we have to "lose out" to our own creations?

Even if a democratic nation such as the U.S. voted to relinquish, we would have no real power to stop other nations from continuing.

We can try to set an example of responsibility in the use of technology, and negotiate international standards for safety and agreements for arms control. This has worked in the past. With the spread of democracy and communications, it should be easier to achieve in the future (though still not necessarily easy).

What is really hardest to overcome is not the hostility or greed of others, but the kind of perversity expressed in your post. Why are you so in love with heavy-metal negativism? You think this is a sophisticated worldview, but it is really quite ignorant and juvenile. Sorry to be so harsh, but I am hopeful that you will continue to think and learn about the issues you addressed in your post. At least you took the time to write.

Hi Jeff,

I only meant to suggest that opportunities for dialogue will arise, and that they should be taken, instead of saying, "Why waste time on those idiots," or some such statement which I think tends to reveal one's own limitations.

I strongly support the ban on human cloning, although I support the British proposal to permit cloning of embryos up to 2 weeks for stem-cell harvesting.

I see no compelling need for production of babies by cloning. I don't see how you could call this "creating a time-shifted identical twin." The cloner would not be a sibling, but a weird kind of parent, one clearly bent on creating a continuation of his/her own identity, rather than respecting the separateness of the child. The issue of child abuse arises at once.

Democratic control of technology, even at the expense of forgoing or delaying some opportunities, is better than no control at all. As one now in the process of becoming a parent, I am not willing to let anyone roll dice with our common future.

First, I'd like to mention that Tom Mc Kendree had prepared a thoughful submission about same ad

I certainly don't feel bad that someone else's submission was used. After submitting it, I thought to myself "maybe I was too harsh." My submission title was "Ad Says Nanotech = Super Tech = Super Evil." Since these comments are probably not expected to maintain quite as high a quality threshhold as original story submissions, I feel ok repeating what I originally submitted. This is only an approximation, based on an early draft.

[Before repeating my story submission, let me mention the somewhat related point that Michael Dertouzos, in his The Peopleís Computer column at Technology Review, has just published an essay wherein he argues that Bill Joy's relinquishment strategy is fundamentally misguided, because we cannot reason out the future effects of technology with sufficient accuracy to to determine a priori where they will lead us. Rather, we must live life, and adjust as things unfold.]

The Turning Point Project, a non-profit that runs various advertisements decrying corporations, pollution, etc., has run a new ad, "Techo-Utopianism." The ad itself is in a .pdf file. There are a couple of paragraphs each on "Human Eugenics" (using biotechnology on human genes), "Nanotechnology" and "Robotics."

The idea of altering human genes to provide more desirable traits is clearly intended to revolt the reader. Nanotechnology is summarized reasonably well (for the space), but they seem to fall for Bill Joy's perspective that critical thought about Nanotechnology largely started with Bill Joy. Robotics are summarized by referring to Hans Moravec on downloading and robots replacing homo sapiens. The tone approaches "Nothing important should ever occur until after it has received explicit political authorization, and technology should be scrapped if anyone can imagine how it might be dangerous." While a very useful listing of potentially dramatic future technologies, and pointer that "hey, this is important to think about," it unfortunately conveys divisive extremism with lines like "Bill Joy has recommended 'relinquishment' as far as eugenics, nanotechnology and robotics are concerned. Just say no? That's a good start."

The ad says near the end "Right now, the only hindrance to deployment of this new generation of technology is whether or not corporations can profit, or the military can make weapons." The major hindrance to deployment currently is obviously technical limitations. Admittedly there are people trying to overcome these limitations.

In a "What You Can Do!" section on the website, they say:

5. Write a letter to the Editor of the New York Times or your local newspaper. Refer them to the ad you saw. Tell them you support our advertisements and would like to see follow-up stories that assess new technologies such as human genetic engineering and nanotechnology.

Writing a letter to the editor calling for stories about future technology is probably a good idea. I would specifically mention Foresight as a first recourse for information on nanotechnology.

Finally, Ronald Bailey critically reviewed the ad.