Had an interesting discussion with my daughter this morning. If you cloned Hitler he wouldn't be Hitler because he'd have different life experiences and different people around him etc. Brought us to the nature /nurture question. I mentioned that some psychology research now suggests that a lot more people that previously thought may have physiological conditions of the brain predisposing them to certain sociopathic behaviours and that is certain psychology traumas can then trigger the behaviour. So if you were able to trigger the Hitler clone you might recreate the personality. But she said we live in a different time, the Hitler clone would be different because he'd live in a time where his access to information is greater and thereby anyone's ability to be a single source of influence to manipulate him would be less effective, so even if you trigger that behaviour in the same way he'd be different, maybe still a bad person but different.
She's 14! These are the conversations we have at breakfast ?
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14 comments
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Watch the movie: "Boys from Brazil". An interesting attempt at dealing with this specific topic. A good movie.
xyz123
Level 7
May 5, 2018
1
Yep, I recalled the same movie/book. She might like it.
The clone would have the same genetic disposition to sociopathy/psychopathy, but the different circumstances that clone would experience would lead to a different outcome. He’d probably end up as an uber-capitalist; perhaps a banker!
PS: The incidence of psychopathy among business and commercial leaders is 4 times (ish) that incidence in the population generally.
KevinTwining
Level 7
May 5, 2018
1
It's the boards of the 12 conglomerates that put him in power with only 18% of the vote that should be analyzed . Up till then he was a brute but then he had control of the army much like trump has now. . Delusional people should be kept away from the levers of power. TOO LATE
markdevenish
Level 7
May 5, 2018
2
Hitler was a symptom of the time and place not the cause. If you could go back in time and kill Hitler as a child before he did anything bad well would that change anything else in germany would that fix germanys economy or rebuild the country's pride after ww1the nazi party wasn't one man the war the holocaust all of it probably would still happen but with someone else at the helm.
LeeMurray
Level 5
May 5, 2018
0
You make many valid points, yet think the person at the (popular view) top, simply by the intense focus on them, can alter some of the course of events.
Jews and other minorities have been handy targets for ages, for any underhanded, unscrupulous preacher or politician, so that might not have changed, but the methods the Nazis utilized might have been different.
The extreme cruelties, the utter insanity of that era might have lessened with a different leader.
Just thinking...
@njoy_life_2 or it could have been worse imagine germany but with competent leadership they had a serious technological advantage over the allies combine that with a leader who knew what he was doing i.e. rommel and well the outcome could have been entirely different. One person at the top regardless of how much they hate a group of people cannot make something like the holocaust happen unless a lot of other people are also up for it the course was set hitler just happened to be at the helm when it occurred I'm not defending Hitler by the way but I honestly think it was more than just one man that led germany down that path
@LeeMurray
So many variables...
My brain works in a "how can we fix it ?" mode, a lot of the time.
Trying to imagine a society that is stable, where no one felt the need to reign over another, to use or abuse them ...
Now how to get there from here... Perhaps, as in New England, it can't be done...
@njoy_life_2 you can't fix the nature of humanity if anything we are getting worse not so much a moral degradation but an apathy towards what happens to everything not directly connected with ones self or group. And utopian ideals while noble in their sentiment are utterly against the natural order there is prey and there are predators we have not removed ourslves that far from the natural order of things that we are somehow beyond baser instincts when in all actually most if not all human behavior is as a result of biological imperatives hardwired into the brain.
Perhaps this goes into why we don't have freewill after all. How do you know you'd conduct yourself in the same manner as you did before?
AustinSkepticus
Level 7
May 5, 2018
3
They made a movie about this. Seriously, "Boys from Brazil." It's about precisely that, except worse, it was a plot to clone several Hitlers in an effort to bring him back to power and restore the Reich. It sounds a little campy the way I'm describing it. Here's the Wiki: [en.wikipedia.org] Some big names starred. Anyway, I think that movie presupposes just what you're talking about. There's my weird angle. LOL!
IAMGROOT
Level 7
May 5, 2018
4
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