Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 31st May 2026
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Here's a LWer suggesting the key to life extension is to grow unconscious clones of yourself and when your current body becomes too old, just pop your brain into the clone
please enjoy picking apart this idea, b/c so far the LW commentariat aren't interested
tiny little problem of spinal cord attachment, surely It Will Be Solved
. at least they didn't throw nanobots at iti guess that immortal oligarch class is a 100% ethical thing for them
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Here's a LWer suggesting the key to life extension is to grow unconscious clones of yourself and when your current body becomes too old, just pop your brain into the clone
please enjoy picking apart this idea, b/c so far the LW commentariat aren't interested
Huh, I got dĆ©jĆ vu and yeah there's this story from a couple months back! https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/03/30/1134780/r3-bio-brainless-human-clones-full-body-replacement-john-schloendorn-aging-longevity/
MIT Technology Review found no evidence that R3 has cloned anyone, or even any animal bigger than a rodent. What we did find were documents, additional meeting agendas, and other sources outlining a technical road map for what R3 called ābody replacement cloningā in a 2023 letter to supporters. That road map involved improvements to the cloning process and genetic wiring diagrams for how to create animals without complete brains.
Please don't let this be the next bubble.
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Want to wade into the sandy surf of the abyss? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid.
Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful youāll near-instantly regret.
Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.
If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cutānāpaste it into its own post ā thereās no quota for posting and the bar really isnāt that high.
The post Xitter web has spawned so many āesotericā right wing freaks, but thereās no appropriate sneer-space for them. Iām talking redscare-ish, reality challenged āculture criticsā who write about everything but understand nothing. Iām talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. Theyāre inescapable at this point, yet I donāt see them mocked (as much as they should be)
Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldnāt be surgeons because they didnāt believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I canāt escape them, I would love to sneer at them.
(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this.)
I thought this interview with Prof. Michael I. Jordan was worth listening to, he's bringing down the hype a bit: Intelligence is collective, not artificial ā Prof. Michael I. Jordan (UC Berkeley / Inria).
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Want to wade into the sandy surf of the abyss? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid.
Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful youāll near-instantly regret.
Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.
If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cutānāpaste it into its own post ā thereās no quota for posting and the bar really isnāt that high.
The post Xitter web has spawned so many āesotericā right wing freaks, but thereās no appropriate sneer-space for them. Iām talking redscare-ish, reality challenged āculture criticsā who write about everything but understand nothing. Iām talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. Theyāre inescapable at this point, yet I donāt see them mocked (as much as they should be)
Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldnāt be surgeons because they didnāt believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I canāt escape them, I would love to sneer at them.
(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this.)
I don't even know what to say here. Cool scam I guess
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Generally conspiracy theorists aren't interested in actual things that cause real problems, I think. Air polution and global warming being deliberate decisions by elites who don't care about killing millions, for example. It has to be some wild take like PokƩmon child sacrifice or something, so you get to feel like you spotted the secret truth.
But if you want to see some actual apocalyptic conspiracy against "AI", as in it is literally the manifestation of the body of the Beast and the voice of demons etc., check out Paul Kingsnorth's substack. This is a burned-out environmental activist who radicalised anti-immigration with Brexit, started pushing a narrative of hobbit pastoralism as a justification for racism, and converted to Christianity with that fervour you only find in converts.
He sounds like a fun guy to talk to at parties! /s
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Here's a LWer suggesting the key to life extension is to grow unconscious clones of yourself and when your current body becomes too old, just pop your brain into the clone
please enjoy picking apart this idea, b/c so far the LW commentariat aren't interested
Oh here's a comment, sounds pretty reasonable actually
Doesn't work because aging affects the brain as well and many deadly diseases originate in brain: insults (sic!), Alzheimer and brain cancers. Add risks of the transfer itself and the uncertainty when it should be done: too early for healthy aged person and and too late for one with cancer of any type (risks of metastases). All together it gives less than 10 years increase of of medium life expectancy.
back to the "upload smooth pristine brain onto the computer" drawing board we go!
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Here's a LWer suggesting the key to life extension is to grow unconscious clones of yourself and when your current body becomes too old, just pop your brain into the clone
please enjoy picking apart this idea, b/c so far the LW commentariat aren't interested
Imagine it like this: a baby version of yourself with only enough of a brain structure to be alive in case you ever need a new kidney or liver.
Or, alternatively, he has speculated, you might one day get your brain placed into a younger clone. That could be a way to gain a second lifespan through a still hypothetical procedure known as a body transplant.
The fuller context of R3ās proposals, as well as activities of another stealth startup with related goals, have not previously been reported. Theyāve been kept secret by a circle of extreme life-extension proponents who fear that their plans for immortality could be derailed by clickbait headlines and public backlash.
And thatās because the idea can sound like something straight from a creepy science fiction film. One person who heard R3ās clone presentation, and spoke on the condition of anonymity, was left reeling by its implications and shaken by Schloendornās enthusiastic delivery. The briefing, this person said, was like a āclose encounter of the third kindā with āDr. Strangelove.ā
A key inspiration for Schloendorn is a birth defect in which children are born missing most of their cortical hemispheres; heās shown people medical scans of these kidsā nearly empty skulls as evidence that a body can live without much of a brain.
And heās talked about how to grow a clone. Since artificial wombs donāt exist yet, brainless bodies canāt be grown in a lab. So heās said the first batch of brainless clones would have to be carried by women paid to do the job. In the future, though, one brainless clone could give birth to another.
Last Monday, the same day it announced itself to the world in Wired, R3 sent us a sweeping disavowal of our findings. It said Schloendorn ānever made any statement regarding hypothetical ānon-sentient human clonesā [that] would be carried by surrogates.ā The most overarching of these challenges was its insistence that āany allegations of intent or conspiracy to create human clones or humans with brain damage are categorically false.ā
My 'no conspiracy to create humans with brain damage' shirt is making people ask a lot of questions
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Here's a LWer suggesting the key to life extension is to grow unconscious clones of yourself and when your current body becomes too old, just pop your brain into the clone
please enjoy picking apart this idea, b/c so far the LW commentariat aren't interested
I think I saw this movie on TV at 2am. And it sucked
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I think I saw this movie on TV at 2am. And it sucked
Ah yes, Parts: The Clonus Horror (1979), The Island (2005) and probably at least one direct-to-DVD sequel to Universal Soldier
(1992), who even keeps track of those -
Here's a LWer suggesting the key to life extension is to grow unconscious clones of yourself and when your current body becomes too old, just pop your brain into the clone
please enjoy picking apart this idea, b/c so far the LW commentariat aren't interested
So they think consciousness is entirely in the brain š«
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