I was reading about Mr. Epstein and his big science project. Here’s a guy who becomes interested in “Transhumanism” and thinks, “I wonder if there’s any way to change the arc of the human trajectory? To expand our capabilities beyond all known limits and finally preserve my precious penis for all eternity?”
This effort smacks of the same hubris.
Are you sure you aren’t reading from a Planet of the Apes sequel?
You’re missing the obvious business model: you get a monkey at your sweet 16 and it’s kept in a coma, ready and available for emergencies. If your parents really love you, you’ll get a whole troupe.
The risk-reward ratio you’re mentioning here needs to be amended. It’s (monkey)risk-(human)reward. IUCUC is strong in the USA and Europe, less so in China.
There’s a lot of potentially interesting science to discover along the way here that could apply to a lot of other areas of regenerative medicine and accelerate their progress. It isn’t like this research is going to be strictly silo’d and only applicable to itself.
Triads and cops are notoriously corruptible and unreliable. It’s just smrt planning to ensure you have a viable and obedient alternative for whom rule of law can be conveniently suspended, just in time for the gender imbalance demographic crisis to hit its worst point.
McDonald’s would do well to invest in this business. McHearts on every corner.
As an avid watcher of late 80s/early 90s British dystopian near-future sci-fi, I know that hybrids and chimeras aren’t the same things.
humonkey? hukey? monkman? moman?
If they’re there in the embryos, then the immune system learns early to accept them. That doesn’t work too well in reverse.
Just so: a chimera is an organism containing two genetically distinct sets of cells, while a hybrid is an organism with its own genetically (more or less) identical cells but derived from two distinct strains of ancestors by the usual sexual reproduction (e.g. the handsome fellow in my avatar, who is half domestic shorthair and half African serval.)
You should read Spares by Michael Marshall Smith
Thanks for digging those two out. I remember them from the time, but could not lay the synapses together to recall the names. Very apt in this context and, if still available, eminently watchable even today, I’ll bet.
Paul Di Filippo’s Ribofunk comes to mind. Lots of bio-punk human animal crossbreeds and weirdness all around. I think the story “Little Worker” is available on-line? Looks like it is available as a podcast? Note - very much rated R, maybe more X and very very much NSFW, so please be aware.
Ugh, just what we didn’t need…#TeamCaesar 
Oh yeah I heard about this…
Why not just use political prisoners?
Because political prisoners can be much more expensive to house and maintain than monkeys. This way, China gets to dispense with any pesky political prisoners without that guilty feeling of having wasted something.
/s (or is it?)
Why not say you’ve developed secret monkey tech and then just use prisoners if you’re going for broke morally? It’s a good point.
Obligs:
Because the recipients will still have to be immunosuppressed to prevent rejection.
If you grow the organs from the recipients’ stem cells then it’s a match – not foreign, no rejection.
