I'm not sure how many parents would be interested in rising a little Elon but I bet many more would love to raise clones of athletes and other entertainers. Offer kpop fangirls embryos of BTS members and you solve Korea's fertility problem.
"I'm not sure how many parents would be interested in rising a little Elon but I bet many more would love to raise clones of athletes and other entertainers."
I would say you are right on point. It's all the sadder for humanity. The inanity of the vast majority
The "inanity of the vast majority" is less of a problem if you have Brahmins who are both intelligent and wise, and if the "vast majority" looks up to such Brahmins as role models. A benevolent religion makes the "vast majority" less inane.
Then you are not that much of a realist. Look at what the Puritans accomplished in North America and compare it to what (most) Harvard students believe today. Making denial of reality a signal of high status can only be attributed to bad religion-design.
If we are going to clone very intelligent people couldn't we start off, not with Elon, but with someone who is both intelligent and amiable? I have abolutely no idea who is in the 'super-intelligent' category and who merely in the 'very intelligent' category but I'm thinking of some like Noah Carl or even yourself. Or could we dig up John von Neumann and clone him? After all, if they can rescue DNA from bodies that have been lying around for centuries and sometimes even milennia, surely they rescue some of his. Ah, but maybe he would have to give his consent...
Need someone to spearhead expensive technology who has some interest in this. Since Elon wants to prevent human extinction, cloning himself to speed up technology in this direction is a good motivator.
I know many here think you're joking, and while there certainly is cheekiness to this essay, I nonetheless am in complete agreement that clones of known geniuses would be tremendously beneficial for society as a whole, as well as the average intelligence levels of both the general and élite populations. I also think it'd be something that someday, regular people would jump to get in on the action of.
I'm sure there'd be horrible things that result from this. (Imagine the Michael Jackson clones.) But it'd still be an overall benefit to society, and it's high time someone jumped on it.
I see. I hadn't realised that it made a difference, though I suppose it's obvious when you think about it. I guess I was confusing DNA sequencing with cloning. Thanks for clarifying it.
100s of Musk clones impregnating 1000s of secretaries of average intelligence would perhaps make autism less prevalent, thereby improving the biological quality of the herd. Didn't Shockley attribute the increasing levels of mental illness in Appalachia to the migration of higher-IQ men to the big coastal cities?
If assortative mating produces high-IQ Aspies who don't breed, is it all that desirable? How many IQ points would one be willing to sacrifice for, say, the ability to get along with utterly boring normies?
I think dissortive mating is certainly worth investigating, and may well be the better reproductive option for high-Q spergs who can manage it, whether male or female. But any spawn of the Elon clones would absolutely be more autistic than any population average, no matter what mating practices the clones engaged in. It certainly wouldn't decrease autism on average.
There are many people* smarter than Musk, and with better judgement; but success like his doesn't come without genius, no matter how depraved the man nor how many dumb ideas he has. Vince McMahon is also a genius. As was Joseph Stalin.
I think we all have many people we'd rather clone than Elon. But making clones of people we already know not only have high I.Q.s, but whom we already know are geniuses, guarantees a circumvention of any regression to the mean. There's also many people out there worshipful enough of celebrities who would even go as far as to pay for their own celebrity clone babies, and the thing about celebrities is even many of the ones who are famous for being idiots -- Paris Hilton, Dane Cook, Kanye West -- are still noticeably above average intelligence. A reasonable level of clones in the population, particularly celebrity and genius clones, would be a major plus to both population-average and élite-average intelligence. We should welcome and encourage it.
Elon Musk is not a good candidate for cloning, and we certainly shouldn't want 100 clones exactly like him. His SpaceX company is largely a fraud, since it is highly unlikely to achieve its stated goals by the end of the century. Space colonization is unlikely to be successful, and it'd probably take 150-200 years for it to ever succeed, if ever (See: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BPXKWDVC). His car company also has many overstated goals (https://zerocontradictions.net/images/elon-musk-always-claims-a-year-away.png).
He also founded the Boring Company to kill High Speed Rail, thus holding back American energy independence, sustainable infrastructure, lower pollution, etc. The goal of preventing High Speed Rail adoption was so that he could make money selling cars. He's admitted to this and he's largely succeeded at it. He's stalled humanity's progress for his own success.
He also doesn't sound like the nicest person to know on a personal level, based on individual testimonies. He seems like one of those public figures who seems nice from the public's perspective, but not on a one-to-one perspective.
Creating 100 Elon Musk clones and having each of them have as many children and descendants would also dramatically reduce genetic diversity, and mostly not in a good way. A better policy to pursue is laissez-faire eugenics via reproduction licenses, since it would also solve the problem of overpopulation. https://zerocontradictions.net/faqs/eugenics#why-laissez-faire-is-best
Nevertheless, if anybody is going to be cloned, it should be someone who's less self-centered, smarter, and is okay with human progress that doesn't involve their name.
Since it's not clear, I neither like nor dislike Elon Musk. I'm only saying that he's overrated, and it's not a good idea to clone him because there are far better candidates available.
So far, his actions haven't positively changed most people's lives, certainly not more than some more notable living people. If you disagree with that, then you're delusional.
And if you think that he will cause the Earth to colonize Mars in our lifetimes, then you haven't done that math or considerations for just how expensive and nearly impossible that will be.
Elon Musk is already making boatloads of cash from SpaceX because they are the best company in the world at launching satellites, which are very useful.
I agree that that SpaceX is economical for launching satellites, and I never said that SpaceX is a complete waste. What I said is that trying to colonize Mars is a waste, since Humanity has more important priorities than colonizing Mars (e.g. colonizing Antarctica).
What you said is that Elon Musk hasn't positively changed most people's lives. Of course that's true of everyone alive; even ubiquitous innovations like the internet took decades to become widely adopted. As I said, SpaceX is a worthwhile company that provides value to its customers. I believe this is also true of Tesla.
As far as your other criticisms of Musk, you criticize him for
- building cars
- not advocating eugenics
- attempting to colonize Mars instead of instituting a single global government
In general you have highly idiosyncratic views and seem to dislike that Musk doesn't share or publicly advocate those views. Of course none of the other role models you cite such as Bill Gates, Tim Berners-Lee, etc., shares or publicly advocates those idiosyncratic views either.
There are not enough women who care about IQ. I only see one path forward for making either cloning or IVF + embryo selection for IQ popular in the future. CHINA HAS TO DO IT FIRST.
Yes, if China starts normalizing IVF + embryo selection for IQ, we in the West will freak out that they're producing geniuses and will start doing this also. Keep track of what Dr Jiankui He is doing. He did the the first gene edited baby.
> In fact, the harder question is: Why has no one done this already?
If anyone did, it would have been Jeffrey Epstein. He had the prerequisite ideology, resources, scientific access, and taboo-breaking personality. By reputation, he sired at least a thousand children as part of his personal devotion to genetic world domination. You might check into what types of research he was supporting.
Dolly the sheep was born in 1997. There's also no evidence she suffered from premature aging or any other clone-related health problems. She died of a normal sheep illness midway through a normal sheep lifespan, and birthed six lambs:
Either Epstein did have kids out there somewhere -- or clones, though I hope not -- and it's being kept quiet, or he just focused entirely on blackmailing rich people and indulging his personal hedonism before he could bother with the last phase of his project.
he should actually create genetically enhanced clones that are modified to have better health, longetivity and intelligence in order to maximize their productivity.
a good idea nobody seems to have talked about is taking mutations from neanderthals and editing them into humans, for instance neanderthals have genes involved in bone developement which could be used to increase cranial capacity and brain volume.
neanderthals were shorter, stockier and had larger brains than humans, they possesed brain volume mutations that arent present in humans.
Regulates skeletal development, including cranial bone structure, indirectly influencing brain growth.
• Neanderthal Connection: Differences in RUNX2 between Neanderthals and modern humans likely contributed to their distinct cranial morphology, allowing for a larger braincase
There are already cloned beings in this world, ones who don't know much about their childhood in Hawaii or in the Ghetto's of New York, or in their Neighborhood in the Ukraine. Genuis children are born everyday but it is thru their sodomization and manipulation by the elites of the world that they become evil geniuses that want to manipulate populations and do things that humanity should never do. While the power of placebo is strong the power of suggestion is stronger. I'm sure you could clone Elon but I don't think the Illuminati could ever make another one quite like Elon with all the sodomization in the world. He is a real piece of work for our end times and while an Electric car may have been banned and outlawed in the 40's it is now the hero and the pablum for our environmentalists who can't see the writing on the apocalyptic wall we are hitting in our globalized society of mass consumerism. Space X is just a fundraising tool and a shock and awe campaign to back up a faked moon landing while the real space travel technology is with held from the public. Beyond that I hate biological determinism is every shape and form and believe that our DNA is actually mutable and there is a superhuman out their and possible. Levitating and parting and walking on water. DNA isn't a miracle its a hell state that we are incarcerated in time with. A mother is a miracle, a clone is an abomination and so is Elon musk.
"Why spend time optimizing embryo selection if we can just take a genome we know is good and make more of them?"
Because with cloning, you get the good of an individual, but you also get the bad. With embryo selection (even more so with genetic enhancement), you can increase positive human traits and decrease negative traits, potentially to the limit.
Because even the smartest of humans can only acquire a relatively small amount of the totality of human information. John von Neumann, for all his achievements, never learned to draw nor to play a musical instrument; nor was he ever known to have written a novel, nor play, nor short story; and for all the languages he did know, he still only knew a small fraction of the world's total. While they would assuredly have many common interests, a group of Von Neumann clones could and would still expand to far more fields of information than one could ever manage.
It would absolutely be worth it to clone him, as well as Einstein and other such geniuses and celebrities. They'd be sure things. I certainly wouldn't want a world of only clones, but they'd be a welcome part of the human family all the same.
"While they would assuredly have many common interests, a group of Von Neumann clones could and would still expand to far more fields of information than one could ever manage."
Since I believe that human actions are strongly influenced by genetics, I disagree with your supposition. A true human clone would very much follow the life decisions of the original. Thereby making cloning redundant.
This is nonsense. Any clone of Von Neumann would also be coming along after the work of both his original and two-thirds a century of successive science and technological development had been carried out. Why wouldn't we wanna see what Von Neumann would've done with drones or the Internet or mRNA? Or for that matter, the integrated circuit? Not with ten-thousand lifetimes could you exhaust the Neumann clones' resourcefulness.
I'd also clone Archimedes and Newton if I had the option. Newton might well be doable given we still have his corpse, but Archimedes' tomb is sadly lost.
Because the actual John von Neumann was interested in everything from Chales Dickens to loud music to the history of the Byzantine empire. This is normal. Smart people are overwhelmingly interested in a wide variety of things, for which they only have a limited amount of time and resources to explore. Removing limits to that, as we would do with cloning, would mean the exploration and transformation of knowledge we never could've managed otherwise.
Why on Earth you feel an obligation to pooh-pooh our single most reliable known means of bringing more geniuses into the world is beyond me. I'm just thankful that people who matter will ignore your advice and that there are probably already clone genius babies out there in the world right now.
"Because the actual John von Neumann was interested in everything from Chales Dickens to loud music to the history of the Byzantine empire."
There are a million things he did not know or have an interest in.
When you clone someone, you clone the good and the bad.
"Why on Earth you feel an obligation to pooh-pooh our single most reliable known means of bringing more geniuses into the world is beyond me."
I in no way 'pooh-pooh' bringing more geniuses into the world, but a much better way is on the cusp: embryo selection and genetic enhancement. Genetic enhancement, in particular, has the potential to increase positive traits and limit negative traits.
I'm not sure how many parents would be interested in rising a little Elon but I bet many more would love to raise clones of athletes and other entertainers. Offer kpop fangirls embryos of BTS members and you solve Korea's fertility problem.
"I'm not sure how many parents would be interested in rising a little Elon but I bet many more would love to raise clones of athletes and other entertainers."
I would say you are right on point. It's all the sadder for humanity. The inanity of the vast majority
The "inanity of the vast majority" is less of a problem if you have Brahmins who are both intelligent and wise, and if the "vast majority" looks up to such Brahmins as role models. A benevolent religion makes the "vast majority" less inane.
"A benevolent religion makes the "vast majority" less inane."
Religion does nothing to curb inanity.
Then you are not that much of a realist. Look at what the Puritans accomplished in North America and compare it to what (most) Harvard students believe today. Making denial of reality a signal of high status can only be attributed to bad religion-design.
"Look at what the Puritans accomplished in North America and compare it to what (most) Harvard students believe today."
Puritans were the crazy bastards who hanged 'witches'. You choose a piss poor example.
Stop trolling me.
The Puritans were not the nicest people, but they built the US.
If we are going to clone very intelligent people couldn't we start off, not with Elon, but with someone who is both intelligent and amiable? I have abolutely no idea who is in the 'super-intelligent' category and who merely in the 'very intelligent' category but I'm thinking of some like Noah Carl or even yourself. Or could we dig up John von Neumann and clone him? After all, if they can rescue DNA from bodies that have been lying around for centuries and sometimes even milennia, surely they rescue some of his. Ah, but maybe he would have to give his consent...
Need someone to spearhead expensive technology who has some interest in this. Since Elon wants to prevent human extinction, cloning himself to speed up technology in this direction is a good motivator.
I know many here think you're joking, and while there certainly is cheekiness to this essay, I nonetheless am in complete agreement that clones of known geniuses would be tremendously beneficial for society as a whole, as well as the average intelligence levels of both the general and élite populations. I also think it'd be something that someday, regular people would jump to get in on the action of.
I'm sure there'd be horrible things that result from this. (Imagine the Michael Jackson clones.) But it'd still be an overall benefit to society, and it's high time someone jumped on it.
All JvN's cells are dead. Resurrecting him would be waaaaaay harder than cloning someone who is alive.
I see. I hadn't realised that it made a difference, though I suppose it's obvious when you think about it. I guess I was confusing DNA sequencing with cloning. Thanks for clarifying it.
Very likely genius correlates, among other things, with higher than average disagreeability.
Very likely true. Even so, I'd rather spend time with a dozen Einsteins or von Neumanns than a dozen Elon Musks. Still, beggars can't be choosers.
100s of Musk clones impregnating 1000s of secretaries of average intelligence would perhaps make autism less prevalent, thereby improving the biological quality of the herd. Didn't Shockley attribute the increasing levels of mental illness in Appalachia to the migration of higher-IQ men to the big coastal cities?
>Perhaps make autism less prevelant
>less
Is this supposed to be some kkind of joke? Or commentary on dissortive mating?
If assortative mating produces high-IQ Aspies who don't breed, is it all that desirable? How many IQ points would one be willing to sacrifice for, say, the ability to get along with utterly boring normies?
In any case, you may want to take a look at what
· Professor Shockley said in 1974: https://youtu.be/7JOIqkh2ms8&t=2180
· Professor Harpending wrote in 2012: https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/class-caste-and-genes
I think dissortive mating is certainly worth investigating, and may well be the better reproductive option for high-Q spergs who can manage it, whether male or female. But any spawn of the Elon clones would absolutely be more autistic than any population average, no matter what mating practices the clones engaged in. It certainly wouldn't decrease autism on average.
"Very likely true. Even so, I'd rather spend time with a dozen Einsteins or von Neumanns than a dozen Elon Musks."
Musk is nowhere near the level of Einstein or von Neumann.
"Arguably, Musk was much more successful on the reproductive front."
Agreed, but it is irrelevant. In general, those with lower cognitive ability have the highest birth rate.
In demographics, as with everything else, quality before quantity.
"If we are going to clone very intelligent people couldn't we start off, not with Elon, but with someone who is both intelligent and amiable?"
I don't consider Musk to be a genius. He is certainly well above average but not a genius.
Research into genetic enhancement is the way to ensure the ascent of humanity.
There are many people* smarter than Musk, and with better judgement; but success like his doesn't come without genius, no matter how depraved the man nor how many dumb ideas he has. Vince McMahon is also a genius. As was Joseph Stalin.
I think we all have many people we'd rather clone than Elon. But making clones of people we already know not only have high I.Q.s, but whom we already know are geniuses, guarantees a circumvention of any regression to the mean. There's also many people out there worshipful enough of celebrities who would even go as far as to pay for their own celebrity clone babies, and the thing about celebrities is even many of the ones who are famous for being idiots -- Paris Hilton, Dane Cook, Kanye West -- are still noticeably above average intelligence. A reasonable level of clones in the population, particularly celebrity and genius clones, would be a major plus to both population-average and élite-average intelligence. We should welcome and encourage it.
* In raw numbers, not population average.
Elon Musk is not a good candidate for cloning, and we certainly shouldn't want 100 clones exactly like him. His SpaceX company is largely a fraud, since it is highly unlikely to achieve its stated goals by the end of the century. Space colonization is unlikely to be successful, and it'd probably take 150-200 years for it to ever succeed, if ever (See: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BPXKWDVC). His car company also has many overstated goals (https://zerocontradictions.net/images/elon-musk-always-claims-a-year-away.png).
He also founded the Boring Company to kill High Speed Rail, thus holding back American energy independence, sustainable infrastructure, lower pollution, etc. The goal of preventing High Speed Rail adoption was so that he could make money selling cars. He's admitted to this and he's largely succeeded at it. He's stalled humanity's progress for his own success.
He also doesn't sound like the nicest person to know on a personal level, based on individual testimonies. He seems like one of those public figures who seems nice from the public's perspective, but not on a one-to-one perspective.
Creating 100 Elon Musk clones and having each of them have as many children and descendants would also dramatically reduce genetic diversity, and mostly not in a good way. A better policy to pursue is laissez-faire eugenics via reproduction licenses, since it would also solve the problem of overpopulation. https://zerocontradictions.net/faqs/eugenics#why-laissez-faire-is-best
Nevertheless, if anybody is going to be cloned, it should be someone who's less self-centered, smarter, and is okay with human progress that doesn't involve their name.
I've written a more in-depth critique on Elon Musk here: https://zerocontradictions.net/civilization/space-colonization#elon-musk-commentary
Lol
Since it's not clear, I neither like nor dislike Elon Musk. I'm only saying that he's overrated, and it's not a good idea to clone him because there are far better candidates available.
So far, his actions haven't positively changed most people's lives, certainly not more than some more notable living people. If you disagree with that, then you're delusional.
And if you think that he will cause the Earth to colonize Mars in our lifetimes, then you haven't done that math or considerations for just how expensive and nearly impossible that will be.
Elon Musk is already making boatloads of cash from SpaceX because they are the best company in the world at launching satellites, which are very useful.
I agree that that SpaceX is economical for launching satellites, and I never said that SpaceX is a complete waste. What I said is that trying to colonize Mars is a waste, since Humanity has more important priorities than colonizing Mars (e.g. colonizing Antarctica).
I've written my critique on Elon Musk here: https://zerocontradictions.net/civilization/space-colonization#elon-musk-commentary
What you said is that Elon Musk hasn't positively changed most people's lives. Of course that's true of everyone alive; even ubiquitous innovations like the internet took decades to become widely adopted. As I said, SpaceX is a worthwhile company that provides value to its customers. I believe this is also true of Tesla.
As far as your other criticisms of Musk, you criticize him for
- building cars
- not advocating eugenics
- attempting to colonize Mars instead of instituting a single global government
In general you have highly idiosyncratic views and seem to dislike that Musk doesn't share or publicly advocate those views. Of course none of the other role models you cite such as Bill Gates, Tim Berners-Lee, etc., shares or publicly advocates those idiosyncratic views either.
There used to be a sperm bank for nobel prize winners. It went out of business.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repository_for_Germinal_Choice
There are not enough women who care about IQ. I only see one path forward for making either cloning or IVF + embryo selection for IQ popular in the future. CHINA HAS TO DO IT FIRST.
Yes, if China starts normalizing IVF + embryo selection for IQ, we in the West will freak out that they're producing geniuses and will start doing this also. Keep track of what Dr Jiankui He is doing. He did the the first gene edited baby.
https://x.com/Jiankui_He
What makes you think no one has done this? It might not be the kind of thing one advertises.
I suspect it less likely we would wind up with an army of geniuses than something like the Tessier-Ashpool clan. 3Jane?
Sweet troll. Long term I'd be worried about a loss of genetic diversity
We survived Genghis Khan, it is not a real risk
> In fact, the harder question is: Why has no one done this already?
If anyone did, it would have been Jeffrey Epstein. He had the prerequisite ideology, resources, scientific access, and taboo-breaking personality. By reputation, he sired at least a thousand children as part of his personal devotion to genetic world domination. You might check into what types of research he was supporting.
We didn't have the technology then.
Dolly the sheep was born in 1997. There's also no evidence she suffered from premature aging or any other clone-related health problems. She died of a normal sheep illness midway through a normal sheep lifespan, and birthed six lambs:
https://web.archive.org/web/20211111151011/http://dolly.roslin.ed.ac.uk/facts/the-life-of-dolly/index.html
Dolly herself was also cloned at least four more times, and all four of her clones outlived her by several years:
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36893506
Either Epstein did have kids out there somewhere -- or clones, though I hope not -- and it's being kept quiet, or he just focused entirely on blackmailing rich people and indulging his personal hedonism before he could bother with the last phase of his project.
Could you take a look at this this guy claims to the debunk global IQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BiK6eAlt8Ec
People probably already have, but for a different purpose. A second set of donor organs ready to go that your body won't reject.
he should actually create genetically enhanced clones that are modified to have better health, longetivity and intelligence in order to maximize their productivity.
a good idea nobody seems to have talked about is taking mutations from neanderthals and editing them into humans, for instance neanderthals have genes involved in bone developement which could be used to increase cranial capacity and brain volume.
neanderthals were shorter, stockier and had larger brains than humans, they possesed brain volume mutations that arent present in humans.
Regulates skeletal development, including cranial bone structure, indirectly influencing brain growth.
• Neanderthal Connection: Differences in RUNX2 between Neanderthals and modern humans likely contributed to their distinct cranial morphology, allowing for a larger braincase
There are already cloned beings in this world, ones who don't know much about their childhood in Hawaii or in the Ghetto's of New York, or in their Neighborhood in the Ukraine. Genuis children are born everyday but it is thru their sodomization and manipulation by the elites of the world that they become evil geniuses that want to manipulate populations and do things that humanity should never do. While the power of placebo is strong the power of suggestion is stronger. I'm sure you could clone Elon but I don't think the Illuminati could ever make another one quite like Elon with all the sodomization in the world. He is a real piece of work for our end times and while an Electric car may have been banned and outlawed in the 40's it is now the hero and the pablum for our environmentalists who can't see the writing on the apocalyptic wall we are hitting in our globalized society of mass consumerism. Space X is just a fundraising tool and a shock and awe campaign to back up a faked moon landing while the real space travel technology is with held from the public. Beyond that I hate biological determinism is every shape and form and believe that our DNA is actually mutable and there is a superhuman out their and possible. Levitating and parting and walking on water. DNA isn't a miracle its a hell state that we are incarcerated in time with. A mother is a miracle, a clone is an abomination and so is Elon musk.
> Why has no one done this already?
How do we know someone hasn't?
Well, we've yet to see Megan Ellison with a baby bump. But there's other signs worth looking for.
I think the Musk clones would likely end in a clone war, all competing to be top dog. I'd rather see a Buffett clone. Just one or two, not thousands.
"Why spend time optimizing embryo selection if we can just take a genome we know is good and make more of them?"
Because with cloning, you get the good of an individual, but you also get the bad. With embryo selection (even more so with genetic enhancement), you can increase positive human traits and decrease negative traits, potentially to the limit.
You are spouting goofy shit.
Is there an advantage to cloning a human? A clone would act, look, and think like the original. Why do we need two of the same human?
Learning the genetics that produce positive human traits is better—Hurray for genetic enhancement.
Because even the smartest of humans can only acquire a relatively small amount of the totality of human information. John von Neumann, for all his achievements, never learned to draw nor to play a musical instrument; nor was he ever known to have written a novel, nor play, nor short story; and for all the languages he did know, he still only knew a small fraction of the world's total. While they would assuredly have many common interests, a group of Von Neumann clones could and would still expand to far more fields of information than one could ever manage.
It would absolutely be worth it to clone him, as well as Einstein and other such geniuses and celebrities. They'd be sure things. I certainly wouldn't want a world of only clones, but they'd be a welcome part of the human family all the same.
"While they would assuredly have many common interests, a group of Von Neumann clones could and would still expand to far more fields of information than one could ever manage."
Since I believe that human actions are strongly influenced by genetics, I disagree with your supposition. A true human clone would very much follow the life decisions of the original. Thereby making cloning redundant.
This is nonsense. Any clone of Von Neumann would also be coming along after the work of both his original and two-thirds a century of successive science and technological development had been carried out. Why wouldn't we wanna see what Von Neumann would've done with drones or the Internet or mRNA? Or for that matter, the integrated circuit? Not with ten-thousand lifetimes could you exhaust the Neumann clones' resourcefulness.
I'd also clone Archimedes and Newton if I had the option. Newton might well be doable given we still have his corpse, but Archimedes' tomb is sadly lost.
"Why wouldn't we wanna see what Von Neumann would've done with drones or the Internet or mRNA?"
What the hell makes you think he would have given a damn about those things? You speak of these people from the past as if they were omnipotent.
You live in a dream world.
Because the actual John von Neumann was interested in everything from Chales Dickens to loud music to the history of the Byzantine empire. This is normal. Smart people are overwhelmingly interested in a wide variety of things, for which they only have a limited amount of time and resources to explore. Removing limits to that, as we would do with cloning, would mean the exploration and transformation of knowledge we never could've managed otherwise.
Why on Earth you feel an obligation to pooh-pooh our single most reliable known means of bringing more geniuses into the world is beyond me. I'm just thankful that people who matter will ignore your advice and that there are probably already clone genius babies out there in the world right now.
"Because the actual John von Neumann was interested in everything from Chales Dickens to loud music to the history of the Byzantine empire."
There are a million things he did not know or have an interest in.
When you clone someone, you clone the good and the bad.
"Why on Earth you feel an obligation to pooh-pooh our single most reliable known means of bringing more geniuses into the world is beyond me."
I in no way 'pooh-pooh' bringing more geniuses into the world, but a much better way is on the cusp: embryo selection and genetic enhancement. Genetic enhancement, in particular, has the potential to increase positive traits and limit negative traits.
Cloning dead pets gives me Pet Sematary vibes.