Clone Acceptance Markets

As a proud step-parent, I find it increasingly odd how many of you insist on the [standard kids-via-sex] “fifty percent solution.”  Ew!  What if [your kid] — heaven forbid — looks like you?  What if you’re both economists named Keynes?  But there’s more: the rest of your daughter looks just like the woman you chose to marry?  Yuck!!!!!  And so on.  Maybe you all think that fifty percent is great but one hundred percent is unacceptable, when it comes to the genes.  …  And I bet most of you don’t find it repugnant if a father wants a son rather than a daughter, but similarity of gender is pretty important too. …

[Notice] how quickly smart people will side with their Darwinian intuitions, and attack another smart person with intolerance, just because something feels icky to them.  It’s not so different from how some people find gay people, and also “what they do,” to be disgusting.

That is Tyler defending Bryan‘s desire to raise a clone of himself.   My initial reaction agrees with Tyler and Bryan.  On one side, the usual arguments for preferring to raise a genetically-related kid would seem to endorse clones as even better.   On the other side are the “ew, icky” feelings in many.   I don’t have those feelings, but I still accept that others having such feelings is relevant evidence.  So if I’m not going just assume my inarticulate feelings are wiser than those of others, how can I decide what to think here?  Bryan suggests a way out:

My prediction: Once a few thousand cloned humans are walking the earth, sneering at clones and people who want them will become as gauche as sneering at IVF babies and people who want them.

If Bryan’s prediction is true, that seems strong support for his case.  So I’ll strongly support creating a prediction market on this topic, and will agree with Bryan if market prices support him.