Considering pederasty was extremely common in upper class ancient Greek society, it's clear that most men have the capacity to enjoy and pursue romantic or sexual acts with other men. The low percentage in von Neumann's time is the result of cultural practices rather than inherent personal preferences, so it stands to reason that von Neumann's self-identification is also likely to be due to cultural practices rather than innate preferences.

I would roughly model the percentage of queerness or non-queerness as a social acceptability threshold situation. Von Neumann's desire to express queerness (loud enough for us to notice) wasn't as strong as that of the 1% of the population that still expressed it (loud enough for us to notice), but we don't have any evidence of whether he was 10th percentile or 80th. Likewise, we don't know if von Neumann's resistance to being queer is 1st percentile or 100th, because he wasn't pressured into queerness at all.

If we assume that all von Neumann clones have exactly the same gender/sexual identity as him, then all we know is that they won't be in the 1% that would want to be queer (loud enough for us to notice) even if they were raised in early 20th century Europe. Beyond that, we can only guess randomly, and so the chance of a von Neumann clone being queer is the chance of anyone from the clone's culture being queer minus 1%. All clones in the same culture would be either queer or non-queer, but we don't know which.

If we assume that gender and sexual identity are completely uncorrelated between clones (which seems extreme, given twin studies show correlation), then our best guess will be what is normal in the clone's society, and so the chance of a von Neumann clone being queer is the chance of anyone from the clone's culture being queer. Clones from the same culture would be randomly queer or non-queer, but the base rate would be determined by the culture.

The odds of any clone being queer is almost certainly between these numbers. The odds of any clone responding to a survey as being queer is therefore almost certainly between the percentage of people from their culture that identify as queer in a survey and that percentage minus 1. If von Neumann clones are decanted across different cultures, the responses will depend on how those cultural differences average out.

Currently in the US, 28% of gen z identifies as lgbt+ compared to 6% of millennials and 2% of gen x, and ancient Greece shows that a gayness rate of 80% or more is very possible. It's hard to extrapolate how the percentage will change 76 years from now and in what conditions, if any, von Neumann would be cloned, but a high percentage seems plausible if current trends towards normalization of non-cishet lifestyles continue.

@dph121 ancient greek pederasty is evidence that most men have the capacity to pursue romantic or sexual acts with boys. And it is to my understanding that they considered themselves straight. It's similar to how, in America a few decades ago, men who have sex with other men are still straight as long as they are topping - but bottoming puts you in a third gender / effeminate role.

I do agree that that relationship & gender identities change over time. perhaps by the time von neumann wakes up, lgbtq+ will no longer be the labels that queer people actually use

@dph121 it would be surprising if the behavioral genetics of ancient greek aristocrats were the same as 20th century Hungarian jews. The Greeks were engaged in a massive program of selective breeding in the form of parents arranging marriages for their kids to form political alliances, practicing infanticide, etc.

@JonathanRay in particular the arranged marriage thing probably reduces the fertility penalty of a propensity towards homosexuality, and increases the frequency of those genes if they have any pleiotropic upside.

@dph121 The Greeks are an exception, not the rule. The fact that you have to point to a 2400-year-old society in fact suggests that the practice originates from a specific cultural milieu, rather than being culturally suppressed the last 2.5 millennia.

@MichaelWheatley You miss the point. I'm saying that the cultural milieu determines the percentage of the population that enjoys homosexual acts and that percentage can vary between <1% and >75% depending on the culture. 5th-4th century BCE Athenian culture possibly gave us the highest percentage in human history so far, but that doesn't make it an exception, that makes it an extreme case of the general trend.

@JonathanRay Do you have evidence of behavioral genetics being different across human cultures? As far as I'm aware all humans have basically the same genetic psychology. Also infanticide wasn't common outside of the Spartan aristocracy, and arranged marriages didn't lead to homosexual aristocratic culture in Christian Europe, Japan, or India, which have a longer recorded history of arranged marriage than the Athenian citizenship in the 5th century BCE.

@dph121 Genes always vary between groups, so prior for a nonzero genetic contribution should be high. Aristocratic men in a lot of times and places have been considered effeminate relative to commoners and this was probably partly genetic. They lived in a very different environment than commoners which entails different selection effects which can produce some results over a few centuries. But European aristocrats until ~200ya had a very religious culture that repressed homosexuality, unlike the Greeks. Culture probably accounts for 60-90% of the variance in rates of homosexuality, but not 100%.

A market on whether the condition happens at all

lol I got a notification about this market right after visiting JvN's grave

i think 50% of people are trans, that only makes sense. it only makes sense that 50% of people like the same gender as them. its obvious that this would resolve over 70%

@JamieCrom Can't tell if this is troll comment or serious.

@MattP the only chance this resolves less than 70% is when the bigoted behavior and backwards ideas about sex and gender from 80 years ago, it doesnt even make sense to identify lgbtq+ anymore, its just common sense. imagine calling yourself a civil rights advocate today lol

Even if 50% of people are trans, that does not mean that 50% of John von Neumann clones are trans. I expect the gender of identical twins or clones to be positively correlated with each other. This of course raises the unanswerable question of how the original John von Neuman would identify in 2100.

@Yev Note that this does not necessarily resolve in 2100: it resolves as soon as more than 1,000 such persons exist. This means (barring any clandestine research efforts) no sooner than 2042, but not necessarily 2100.

@JamieCrom By then, ephebophilia will be included in the LGBTQ+ category, and the majority of straight men are (non-exclusive) ephebophiles, so this market should be like 90%

well, being trans is positively correlated with IQ

@Sinclair I believe this to be true based on my own anecdata, but do you know of any well-controlled studies on this?

@JoyVoid This market should hopefully avoid this issue: