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Human clones priced at $50,000
A private consortium of scientists
plans to clone a human being within the next two years. They claim they will develop ethical guidelines to determine when to clone and not to clone. This assumes the scientists that develop a technology are able to limit society's use of that technology. It also assumes scientists are the best judges as to whether society is sufficiently mature to use a given technology sanely. Both questions seem debatable to me. What do you think?
First, they ignore you.
Then they laugh at you.
Then they fight you.
Then you win.
- Mahatma Ghandi
The world's human cloning community is approacing the third part.
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
I think I finally figured out the Catholic church's REAL problem with cloning;
A person who is cloned, when they find out their origin, how easily will they buy-into the thought that God made them? Right now, scientifically-minded religious people can rationalize it by saying, "Nature made me, nature is God's tool." But not if they were cloned. God made the original. But the clone is different.
How will clones think of themselves? Will they have a harder time accepting spiritual notions? Could they develop a psychological complex over the issue? What if the genetic donor was a terrible person? Will the clone feel predisposed towards that? What if the genetic donor has pictures posted of themself on the internet doing it with a goat? Can they sue the donor for posting what are for all intents and purposes, pictures of THEM?
There are just a lot of issues we "natural born" humans seem to be taking for granted here, that might just cause some emotional distress for the clone.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
but i have to wonder about all the health issues "dolly" the sheep suffered. premature aging, etc.
/usr/mp3s/britney/oops_i_did_it_again.mp3 &
if a clone has major health/lifespan issues, can they sue the researcher who created them for malpractice?
after all, they cannot possibly have signed a waiver or agreement prior to the dd...
small_dick@clone.factory bash> dd if=/dev/britney_spears of=/tmp/playtoy_001 count=1 &
small_dick@clone.factory bash> mpg123
small_dick@clone.factory bash>
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
My existence does not cause others to starve. In fact, because I'm gainfully employed, I make things that help others to eat. If one person can create a surplus, two people can create twice the surplus. A productive person that lives twice as long will contribute twice as much.
Destructive and lawless behavior makes people starve.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
And now, for $50K, she can become a mold.
Sadly, we men are obsolete. If we're ever to be needed again, they can just take some old genetic samples out of the freezer.
The thing that terrifies me about all the hype about cloning is that it reinforces the belief that clones are "manufactured" human beings, and do not have the same rights as "real" people. In the real world, clones don't melt into a puddle of green slime when they're killed... they are, by definition, as human as the donor from whose DNA they were fertilized.
MSK
Andrea Dworkin describes such a utopian future future of the "androgynous community" where the perceived "deviance" of sexualities disappear and we're all free to become what we already feel we are but repress.
Hooray! Now we can get rid of sex forever!
Thank you Andrea Dworkin!
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
Too bad it's still cheaper to do what Hitler did, which is make brothels for your SS troops.
Steps in cloning:
1) isolate a cell from the donor
2) remove the nucleus/genetic material from the cell
3) prepare a host egg by removing it's genetic material
4) insert the material from the first cell into the second
5) artificially inseminate the egg into a host mother or keep alive in a test tube
6) wait 9 months
The "old fashioned" method
1) find two members of the "superior" race of opposite
2) allow them to have some fun
3) while not pregnant goto 2
4) wait 9 months
It's certainly easier to obtain a new "genetically" superior human via the second method. Besides, either method requires that you wait at least 12-15 years before the new human is at all useful. You cannot out-populate other races using cloning... fools with these sorts of delusions will unfortunately turn to the methods which you were so kind to point out: genocide.
Doug
Venn ist das nurnstuck git und Slotermeyer? Ya! Beigerhund das oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
I think it's bogus.
There's a cult that's been promising to do this. I can't tell by the article whether Zavos is one of the culties.
If not, then it's certainly a promotional stunt.
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
As I recall one of the largest problems with cloning is that the age of genetic material which you use as a source remains in the formed clone. I.e. If you take cells or other material from a fifty year old man and make a baby with them then the baby is genetically fifty years old when created and likely to die at an early age.
It isn't as simple as it first appears.
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Advanced Biolab: $25,000
Tissue samples: $10,000
Lobbying congress to make it legal:$100,000
An endless supply of fresh CmdrTacos: Priceless
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Ummm.... Cloning = $50K + cost of having a baby. Why not just head to some third world country, deposit $100 and a bit of sperm, pay the normal cost of having a kid, and skip the $50K? More fun, eh? Or, just zip over to some such country and purchase/kidnap/etc. a "body" ready to use?
Luckily, I can't say it happens all the time, but if one were inclined towards slavery and such, there are much easier and cheaper ways to go about it. Heck, there are a lot of people here in the states that will do almost any kind of experiment for a six-pack, carton of cigs, and $20.
Stupid people will be persecuted to the fullest extent allowed by law.
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1. On requiring government approval and study of every new frontier of science prior to proceeding with commercial exploitation.
- Like I said, in an ideal world, we could do this, but we have lots of wackos in office, so things could be fought, fillibustered, and pork-barrelled to death. But it's still a good idea, rather than proceeding outside of the rule of law.
2. Women giving birth "the old fashioned way".
- not necessarily; for instance, something that could get a LOT of people's dander up, two gay men approach a woman to be a surrogate mother to twin clones of the gay men. . . I know that surrogate motherhood can be very complicated wrt emotional entanglements and such, but scenarios can arise where the birthing mother's role is trivial, and roughly equivalent to the "brewing vats" we know and love from Sci Fi B movies.
3. On corporations "owning" clones.
- you tell me to not be ridiculous; tell Amazon.com to not be ridiculous about 1-click shopping. I'm totally serious because they're totally ridiculous. This is why I firmly believe that we need a rock-solid legal foundation to build on before we go start cloning people willy-nilly.
4. On the past success of animal trials.
- the way I understand it, the animal trials do NOT indicate that there are no problems with this. 2% success rate isn't very convincing. Surely we'll overcome many of these problems, but as problems are overcome, new ones will arise (as it is with programming, once you get the GUI running, you can test the functionality of the engine, and as you fix GUI bugs, you discover previously hidden engine bugs), and who will be the guinea pigs when some fat pharmaceutical company bribes their way into government acceptance? The poor clonees. And when a clone gets sick, how will they be able to tell if they just acquired a "normal" illness, or if it is one caused by their unique origin - and who knows if the company that invented the process will have that information but keep it secret because it's proprietary? (and would expose them to legal action).
I'm not saying it should never be attempted, never be done. I'm just saying that maybe we have to think about this a WHOLE lot more than we have. Stupid Arnold Schwartzenegger movies don't help much.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
It is physically hazardous, and the risk is bourn by the clone, not by the person who decided to have a clone. Risks include many pre-birth failures to mature, deformity, possibly abnormal aging.
A child should be free to discover their own talents and weaknesses. This is much harder when someone else has taken your genes along the same path 40 years before. It is bad enough trying to live up to an illustrious parent without having identical genes. Imagine the angst of achieving little with the same genes as your famous clone parent. Note that this is different from identical twins, as they are the same age.
Why should any such risks be taken by the clone for the benefit (ego or whatever) of another person? What valid reasons can there be to inflict such risks, when a normal conception can always be done more safely and easily?
(One possibly valid reason could be if the individual has no viable germ cells - but still then only if the clone would be expected to be reproductively normal.)
(I'm not some unreasoning technophobe, but there were no highly moderated comments giving the anti-cloning viewpoint, so I am posting to increase balance.)
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
I also don't think that we should try to stop it; we will never know the true long-term consequences of this technology until we get there, and even though there are guaranteed to be some misteps, society will adapt and learn to live with human cloning as an accepted part of life. Society is not going to do something stupid and self-destructive simply because new technology gets involved. We learned to live with the Bomb, and with cable-TV, and we're still here.
One thing I don't understand is the wacked out predictions that people have made about this. A clone is every bit a person as its donor- slavery and "organ factories" should be non-issues because we already have the technology to create them, yet it isn't being done. After all, someone could use in-vitro fertilization to make an embryo, remove the to-be brain cells, then implant it and use the resulting human body, sans brain, for organs. We don't see it happening, though. Then there are the people who say that humanity will stop reproducing sexually because we can clone ourselves. Right... who really thinks that people will stop doing something that's highly pleasurable because they don't have to?
I think human cloning will only become commonplace if it provides a significant social advantage. If it does, questionable cloning practices will remain on the fringe, with all the other ethically questionable things.
--WH--
This makes perfect sense as a business proposition! It could be hugely profitable - do you have any idea how long the waiting lists for organs are? High-demand=high margins, = high profits.
The clones could be made using the transplant recipient's DNA, or possibly with the proper technological advances, the DNA could be altered ahead of time to produce tissue that's a close match. Whether this is legally considered murder (compared to shanghaiing someone in an alley and cutting out their kidney), depends on the laws of our theoretical impoverished third-world country. If we're talking about a freaked out religious fundamentalist government, they may be pretty easy to convince that a clone is not a human (the Taliban are already convinced that women aren't human).
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Mod me down accordingly...
Clones (We're All)
I'm a clone
I know it and I'm fine
I'm one and more are on the way
I'm two, doctor
Three's on the line
He'll take incubation another day
I'm all alone, so are we all
We're all clones
All are one and one are all
All are one and one are all
We destroyed the government
We're destroying time
No more problems on the way
I'm through doctor
We don't need your kind
The other ones
Ugly ones
Stupid boys
Wrong ones
I'm all alone, so are we all
We're all clones
All are one and one are all
All are one and one are all
Six is having problems
Adjusting to his clone status
Have to put him on a shelf
All day long we hear him crying so loud
I just wanna be myself
I just wanna be myself
I just wanna be myself
Be myself
Be myself
I'm all alone, so are we all
We destroyed the government
We're destroyed time
No more problems on the way
I'm through doctor
We don't need your kind
The other ones
Ugly ones
Stupid boys
Wrong ones
I'm all alone, so are we all
We're all clones
All are one and one are all
All are one and one are all
I'm all alone, so are we all
We're all clones
All are one and one are all
All are one and one are all
In the light of that, I'd say that theologians, philosophers, and religous authorities would be best off deciding such things.
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CAIMLAS
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
G.W. Bush v8 has announced his candidacy for President of the United States. The current president, G.W. Bush v7, has repeatedly called his opponent "nothing more than a feeble attempt at mimicing my stand on the key issues."
But seriously, $50,000 is a helluva lot of money to 99.99% of the world's population. So the rich now not only dominate in one life, but they get to perpetuate themselves infinitely?
If you think the Kennedys are a powerful political clan now, think about what they could be like with cloning at their disposal. Imagine the hiring policies of corporations who develop techniques to determine which particular clone donors make the best cloned workers. Think about the power not of death, but of life, misapplied.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
This makes no sense as a business proposition. The advantage of using clones as organ donors is that, if a person had a clone made, that clone would be a perfect match to its progenitor.
Such is not the case for general-purpose clones, which are no better than anyone else as organ donors for the public.
If some company just wanted to mass produce organ donors, they would find it vastly easier to just find a bunch of mothers in third world countries and pay them to get pregnant a lot. Or even easier than that, just go kill people as needed for organs. Why make babies when you can go murder fully grown humans for their parts?
These crazy anti-cloning ideas never have any real basis in logic. The real argument against cloning is just that it's a very spotty procedure that barely works in animals -- until techniques are much improved, it would likely be pretty ineffective in humans. If you get 30 stillbirths and nonviable fetuses per success (and countless more attempts that simply failed in the test tube) it's just going to be an unnecessary risk to the mother.
There's an enzyme called telomeraese that adds telomeres onto the end of chromosomes. It's normally active in germ-line cells (the cells that produce sperm), cancer cells, and stem cells, I think.
Even if this is a problem, there's a way around it.
The fact that you CAN do something may not mean it SHOULD be done, but it certainly does mean it WILL be done. The wisdom or lack of wisdom of scientists doesn't matter. The decision makers are business people, who are probably speculating right now on what form the cloning industry will take. Some thoughts...
Reproduction: My guess is that some people with the vanity and bucks may have themselves cloned in lieu of having randomly variant children. Then consider all the yuppies who would pay top dollar for the cells of the bright and beautiful. Gifted child, hah! We got Linus Pauling here. Most of us will stick with the old fashioned way.
Organ replacement: Growing an extra human body for spare parts will be far too expensive for the masses. Once the cloning scientists work out the mechanics, I believe they and the genome scientists will shoot for mass-produceable plug-and-play body parts and really good anti-rejection drugs. The organs will probably be grown in pigs, or some new animal engineered for the purpose. Like any other industry it will trend toward standardization, low cost, simplicity and maximum market. Do you want fries with those McKidneys?
Food: Speaking of fries, let's face it, somebody somewhere is gonna grow big juicy chunks of cholesterol-free, ozone-layer-friendly filet mignon in a tank. At first it will probably be popular in high-class restaurants in Japan, where it will enjoy daily massages before being harvested. When the price drops to cruising altitude we'll all be eating it and loving it. I'm buying stock in Soylent Corp. as soon as they IPO.
Wake up and smell the gravy!
According to Star Trek's timeline, I think the Eugenics wars headed by good 'ol Khan was started by this. If Ricardo Montalban gives up the dough, look out!
An *ideal* clone is just another copy of a human being. But we can't make those clones yet. The clones we know how to make have a one or two percent success rate -- meaning dozens of embryos are wasted before one goes to term. Many clones die early. And the ones that live, like Dolly the sheep, show some signs of premature aging as a result of shortened telomeres inherited from the original creature.
Right now, to get a human clone, you're going to put the surrogate mother through an average of 50 miscarriages, with a high possibility of infant death, only to create a human being who may suffer progeria and die before they're a teenager. We are not ready to start cloning human beings.
Once those technical problems are worked out, *then* we can talk about the psychological problems that the clone will go through, the sinister possibilities of cloning (like human organ banks), and the incredibly dangerous class inequity that will result when only the rich are able to clone themselves. But those worries, at least, are still a few years away.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
Unless the clones egg comes from your own mother, it's going to have different mitochondrial DNA than you, and certainly be LESS like you than an identical twin would be.
Thank you for making my point perfectly. The normal way of obtaining new human beings is infinitely easier, cheaper, and generally more pleasant.
Doug
Venn ist das nurnstuck git und Slotermeyer? Ya! Beigerhund das oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
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I see what you're after, but let me reduce your last statement to its logical conclusion.
Tonight, I could be making babies. Lots of 'em. Therefore, every woman I come into contact with and do not impregnate is as much murder as is abortion (of course leaving aside for purposes of this argument whether or not abortion is murder).
Hmm..."I'm sorry. I have to sleep with you or else it'll be like I'm killing our unborn child!" would be an interesting pickup line to employ.
I argue that intention is not relevant. If I "meant" to make a human and instead I made a dead body, that's not murder. To my mind, murder is defined as depriving a sentient being (or proto- or post-sentient being) of its sentience. (that means war is mass murder...not that I necessarily agree that it's always a crime...blah blah getting complicated...).
Hmm. There's a cogent argument in there somewhere.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
of course, that's assuming I could do as good a job of child-raising as her equally delightful parents ... And there you hit the nail on the head. Children are as much a product of their upbringing as their genetic makeup (IANAParent, but I have looked after other people's children).
If you clone a child to replace a child lost to illness or accident, and try to raise that child to *be* a replacement for the dead child, you are going to end up with a very very disturbed child very quickly.
Plus the whole idea of raising a child in a dead child's shoes creeps me out a bit.
I'm sorry to hear about your wife. Perhaps the cloning techniques would be much more useful if they could "naturally gene-splice" your DNA with your wife's (mimicking the chromosomal interchange in convention fertilisation)?
The previous line reads a bit cold-blooded, but is not meant in that way.
...in CYTEEN, is that so soon as a private consortium of scientists develops the ability to clone a human, they'll attempt to clone one of their own. Bring a dead genius back to life.
I'm not sure if that's how it will play out in real life, but in Cherryh's hands, it makes a damn good story.
hyacinthus.
If I piss everyone off and nobody wants to hang out with me, why the hell would I want to hang out with myself?
: )
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I believe one of the big controversies in the field of cloning at the moment is not the fact that exact genetic duplicates are being made, but rather that the science of cloning at the moment isn't exact. There have been a few reported incidents were clones died shortly after birth. As well, dolly the sheep had tolemeres (DNA counters that specifiy how many times more a cell can devide) as short as her mother, which may imply that if you were to have a clone, the two of you would expect to die about the same year (your clones life expectancy would be shortened by your current life span.) There are several other aspects of the science as yet undetermined.
Would it be ethical for a 50 year old woman to clone herself, only to find out 10 years later that her daughter had a life expectancy of 30?
And we don't know what the health concerns of a human using the latest flu medication will be, either, but there comes a time when you have to stop testing it on mice and move to the human trials. "We don't know" is, to me, not a reason not to do something - how will we ever find out, if we don't try it?
If most of the Christian Churches of the world find the issue spiritually troubling, I think it would be fair to acknowledge that others might find the issue a little less trivial than you do.
I didn't say it was trivial (although I do think it is). But spirituality is one of those things that are so personal and individualized, that you know what? we don't make laws about it. At least, not in the US, where the original poster and I, at least, live (well, half the time I live there). So discussing whether cloning should be allowed "for spiritual reasons" is spurious.
And you find the government studying the science before clearing it repugnant?
No, I find the idea of sitting around, waiting for the gov't to say "OK" repugnant. I find the thought of the government getting into the bioethics business equally repugnant. It is not up to the government to make moral/ethical decisions for us. They're not good at it, and it's not what we put them there for.
And no, since you keep alluding to it, I am not in any way connected to cloning research (I'm pretty sure there isn't an "industry" yet).
Cyclopatra
"We can't all, and some of us don't." -- Eeyore
"We can't all, and some of us don't." -- Eeyore
There's an even chance it would produce a democrat as well.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Messing with geneitc diversity is not at all adviseable. You are setting yourself up for a massive die-off when any one "bug" gets into the population, from hosting on the same genetic stock again, and again, and again, and again, and again...... until it mutates to the point that it adapts to you so well, that you're all toast. Choose wisely, and choose different to avoid catastrophe. Besides, the universe will become bored of football if everyone chose a child with the Joe Monatana genes, and they ALL would. Nerds and all those different would be sexy in the land of Barbie and Ken. Go see GATTACA.
I happen to agree with you that the opposition to cloning is grossly overblown. However, there are a few issues to consider which are legitimate which are at least cause for pause:
I wonder what legitimate purpose anybody would have for cloning themselves. The "spare parts" concept is the only good reason I can think of, and even that seems creepy. People who would want to clone themselves for fun (and who have the means to do so) would scare me even more.
Then again, traditional breeding merits equally great consideration (it is unfortunate that it rarely gets it).
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Free P2P Backup, Windows & Linux
absolutely!
genetically manipulating ourselves is the next step in human evolution. its our turn to evolve ourselves! As a first step i would like to take my genes and clone myself a beard. but not just any beard... a beard made from my very own dna beard. a perfectly groomed and intelligent beard with legs. i would name him louis and he would follow me everywhere i go. we would take long walks in the park, me and my beard and we would go swimming and drink large frothy dark beers out of tall frosted glasses.
my new best friend.
"Tension is the great integrity" -- R. Buckminster Fuller
The scientific community as a whole has an excellent ethics record when it comes to biotechnology (IP notwithstanding). During the 1970's, when the first genetic engineering experiments were taking place, scientists discovered means of introducing genes for antibiotic resistance into live bacteria. These experiments were carried out in "bio-reactors" with triple air locks and negative pressure seals. Even then, the scientific community realized that they were dealing with potentially epidemic-inducing technology, and they completely stopped all further recombitant DNA research for a period of 6 months.
During that freeze period, guidelines for safe DNA research were established, and special "research strains" of common bacteria were developed (E. Coli strains MM294 and GH5 being two prominent examples). These strains were disabled in half a dozen ways, including the removal of the slime layer that protects bacteria from digestive juices, as well as making the bacteria lycine-dependant (so that they are unable to synthesize proteins outside of the lab). Now, I use those very same strains in my high school Recombitant DNA class. I firmly believe that if the same sort of precaution and careful planning are taken with regards to cloning, we have nothing to fear.
Anonymous Luddite: "What do you think of the dehumanizing effects of the Internet?"
Andy Grove: "Not Much."
5) A body with no head has no sentience.
What about guy's that think with their crotch?!
"And like that
Just use CPRM on the cloning instructions and nobody will be able to clone unless you consider it ethical and let them. Of course, this will all be legal becaue you'd be the first to clone a human so you can patent it, right? It doesn't matter if everyone knows how to do it, you own the patent anyway... Then you can sue anyone who clones without your permission by breaking the coding!
The problem with capped Karma is it only goes down...
SIG: HUP
Ethical committees worldwide will argue against this, then those that do think its a good idea passing it will have enemies in the long run. Money talks as we all know and for those who are familiar or remember Pablo Escobar, the billionaire drug kingpin, as a scientist what would you say when he flashes a cold hard million bucks to have a clone of himself. If any remember he had paid millions to someone just to have plastic surgery to look like him.
Anyways aside from that I think you would have to have a big fscking ego to want a clone of yourself.
Think of the downfalls involved:
1) Your wife/girlfriend/ or husband/boyfriend will probably screw them to spite you afterwhich a court of law will decide [WHAT] in order to determine payment?
2) Your clone robs a bank while your a college grad and kills everyone in the bank. (your face, likely your prints)
Then the upsides:
1) Train your clone to be your slave. Work for you, go to school for you, etc., while you partay
2) Screw his girlfriend since you have the right, after all he is your clone.
Pimping ain't easy!
"When I was a Buddhist, it drove my parents and friends crazy, but when I am buddha, nobody is upset at all"
This is just another example of how society fears new things. Every time a new groundbreaking technology has been developed there have been double digit IQ types who have been afraid of it. Why? Because they don't understand it and it isn't something they have been exposed to.
Imagine if someone offered you a way of heating your home, cooking your food, and running your hot water heater. This method was cheap and easy to use however it had the nasty side effect of being based upon a highly explosive gas. Most people if asked this question would say "no way!" The problem is many of them are already using it, its called natural gas. You don't hear people complaining about it even though it is quite dangerous potentially. Why? Because they've grown up in a world that already uses natural gas and has learned to handle the risks involved.
Cloning, genetic engineering, gene therapy, etc, etc are new technologies. Their ultimate impact upon our world is not yet known. But this is true of any technology. Most of the people who are so scared of them are simply fearful for lack of knowing and lack of brain power, not because they posess some insight into what these technologies will mean to the world.
Human knowledge and human technology is increasing at an exponential rate. Genetic engineering provides us with a means to ensure that human intelligence can keep pace. This world is chock full of idiots. Anything we can do to raise the average IQ is a good thing. Of course these technologies can be misused, or used unwisely. That is the danger but it is a threat which must be faced because the potential gains are too great to ignore. If this technology can be used to make us all smarter then it seems to me that the potential misuse problem will be a self-correcting issue.
Lee Reynolds
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
For example.. growing up in a caring, stimulating environment will likely form a strong, creative, and well rounded person.
Conversely, growing up in a dark, sewage laden pit where passing primates hurl feces at you will produce a Slashdot troll, $cr|p+ k|dd|3, or possibly even a Republican.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
Some assumptions and conclusions:
1) It seems to me that creating an object with no 'soul' is not unethical.
2) All sentience is isolated to the brain.
3) Sentience is equivalent to a 'soul'.
4) It is not impossible to manipulate genes to produce a desired cellular mass.
5) A body with no head has no sentience.
6) It is possible to create a human body with no head.
7) These bodies will likely be derogatorily called 'organ factories'.
8) Organ factories are *not* unethical.
Therefore we should start creating organ factories in order to increase our human lifespans.
Dancin Santa
As Long as they don't clone Rosanne Barr, Jon Katz (sorry jon) or Barbera Striesand(sp?), they can Clone away!!!
Kids, you better be good, or your parents will have a replacement cloned... No one would ever be the wiser...
I am become Troll, destroyer of threads
While I agree that the many sociological gender distinctions present within our so-called 'civilization' are arbitrary and harmful, removing the physical gender barrier is not the solution.
Our society as a whole revolves around prejudice -- even we Geeks tend to prejudice ourselves, say, against Windows users if you're a Linux zealot. If you remove a *source* of prejudice (i.e. gender) without removing the societal programming that causes the behavior, new sources of prejudice will develop. We may, perhaps, become even more shallow, aligning ourselves on physical differences like hair or skin color -- something we are still struggling with.
I think our time is better spent working for gender equity than throwing away the biological division in gender.
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We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex—but Congress can. – Cullen Hightower
You don't see what the big deal is, I don't see what the big deal is, but I bet there's about 5 billion people who DO think it's a huge deal... I am sure they are trying to be as ethically cautious as possible initially, if only to get the world used to the idea. Once it is a proven technology, I am sure its applications will gradually become less restrictive.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
...gholas?
[From the article]
> injecting genetic material from the father
> into the mother's egg, which would then be
> implanted in her womb.
So does that make her an axlotl tank?
-Chris
...More Powerful than Otto Preminger...
It's not as though we're struggling to populate this planet. We're still having a lot of problems coping with regular reproduction -- the last thing we need is a new way to make people. Once we're good at controlling our sex urges, then maybe we can be trusted to control our scientific urges.
We can't even agree on what people make good parents -- who is going to parent young clones? Do we vote on it, and mysteriously elect George Bush? Do we use ebay? Or sell the clones to an American set of parents, kidnap them, and resell them to a higher bidder in the UK? Some parents don't seem to mind killing their regularly-conceived children if supporting them is too much work -- I imagine that it will be more difficult to invest your life in a clone.
-Paul Komarek
Cloning doesn't harm anyone, and it does not destroy any life. It creates life. So whats the problem? There would likely be very low demand anyway.
You know exactly what to do-
Your kiss, your fingers on my thigh-
You know exactly what to do-
Your kiss, your fingers on my thigh-
I think of little else but you.
MyopicProwls
MyopicProwls
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What in the world does "ethical" and "moral" mean?
It's just a self-serving philosophy that protects and serves the interests of human beings, and only human beings. It's a way for people to get along together in a civilized manner.
Being ethical/moral doesn't mean it's "right". There is no such thing as being "right". We kill animals for food and for fun, is that "ethical"?
So, is cloning un-ethical? Yes, it is not advantageous to current human survival. Why? Because it aims to perfect Homo Sapiens in many fantastic ways... Heath, height, ability, looks, strength, EVERYTHING! It has the potential to evolve us into a new species, which means today's "Homo Sapien" might not exist in 500 years from now.
But, evolution is about the survival of the fittest. All it takes is 1 successful breeding to get the ball rolling. And then... how are we to stop it? Who doesn't want to have better looking, smarter, taller, stronger, faster, healthier children?
Anything that seem cutting edge or ethically touchy like the subject of cloning was probably done 10 years ago in some US military lab. We shouldn't be surpsired that this is coming to the surface now. However, I think society as a whole needs to determine the restrictions to something like this BEFORE we let scientists race ahead and make potentially dangerous mistake. Scientists working for the Manhatten project thought there was a small chance that the nuclear explosion they were about to create might start a chain reaction and burn off most of the earth's atmosphere but they went ahead and did it anyways!!!
Sounds like a perfect recipe for lots of fuzzy "ethical/moral" rationalization to me...
Scientists are usually better judges that governments.
-jfedor
How about learing something about the immunology? Viruses mutate
much, much faster then humans evolve -- in terms of months of
years. Human response to viruses is mostly immunological: you
start getting it literally with your mothers milk and continue to
do so all your life, and all your life it adapts to the current
situation in the viruses gene pool. The thing you are describing can happen with rabbits infected by Australian scientists with a lethal virus -- 99% of the population dies, the resistent 1% survives and reproduces. I don't know whether you have noticed, but there are not many viruses that cause a 99% mortality of a human population -- not even Black Plague or Ebola. Not even HIV. Human evolution, even if it has not stopped, then it slowed down to the minimum -- at least in populations where the prereproductive mortality is less then 90%.
Speaking of immunology -- some food for thought to you. It is known, that viruses coming from other species can more easily infect humans with immunodeficiency, then adapt to the host organism and that way be more proficient in infecting healthy people. So, how about killing all people with immunodeficiency? They present a threat to human population, don't you think so? They would die very quickly anyway in a non-pharmateucised society, wouldn't they?
This example should warn you that talking about preserving human variability and returning to Nature's ways of dealing with things. Remember that "Nature's way" is killing 90% of your offspring and letting you live on average 30 years.
On the other hand -- you have a point, though no clue (that is, you arrive at some reasonable point using wrong, dangerous arguments). It is dangerous to overuse antibiotica -- because the germs evolve faster than we are able to synthetise new antibiotics. But that problem is, AFAIK, very specific to the U.S.A., where, as I heard, doctors prescribe antibiotics by just any infection (even viral, though viruses are not affected by antibiotics) -- just in case the patient would die and his family would have sued him, and to prevent longer absence in the job (antibiotic therapy usually *is* quicker). In Europe, the doctors are much less apt to prescribe antibiotics; and I have taken them once or twice during my whole life.
Best regards,
j.
Just what is the great danger of human cloning?
--
"They claim they will develop ethical guidelines to determine when to clone and not to clone. This assumes the scientists that develop a technology are able to limit society's use of that technology."
...
It also assumes that these so-called scientists who are fueled by either 1) research grants from corporations; or 2) the prospect of making huge amounts of money; are actually ethical at all, or that their ethics jive with the rest of the world which would not be making money from their monopoly on a wholly unique new field in scientific excess.
I would argue cloning for the sake of providing a child to a couple that can not have children: is not ethical at all -- If my opinion meant anything in the grand scheme of things. These so-called scientists should be arrested the day they succeed.
""The irony about it is that there are so many people that are attempting to do it, and they could be doing it even as we speak in their garages.
It is time for us to develop the package in a responsible manner, and make the package available to the world. I think I have faith in the world that they will handle it properly."
What this guy is saying - 'People can't be trusted to be responsible [with cloning], so we are going to jump on the bandwagon and be responsible; but don't worry about anything, because we have faith that everyone is responsible'.
If it sounds ludicrous the way I said it, then read his quotes again; he literally makes that exact catch-22 argument.
Ace
1 your clone will be much younger than you
2 your clone will develop its own personality
3 your clone will have similar capabilities as you and might actually enslave you. So if you are not a nice person, chances are that your clone will have a bad character as well.
4 as far as I know clones still need a mother to grow in. After the embryo has been implanted, development is exactly the same as with normal embryos. So there's absolutely no need to treat them any different than you would treat normal children.
So don't worry.
Jilles
1) Better scientists judge than polticians.
2) It's gonna happen ANYWAY, so deal with it.
People have the right to create life.
Pandora's Box.
it's all well and good to discuss the benefits and disadvantages of something like this...but we do not, and cannot, know the full implications of human cloning. I think it's ridiculous to believe sci-fi views on the matter. No one is going to clone an army of uber-villains. But it's also ridiculous to believe that this isn't going to have a substantial impact on our worlds' culture.
Take everything you know about life and reconsider. Mom, how are babies made? What is life, really? Do clones have the same rights as any other human? Will this create a new sub-class of humans? Most likely. Can scientists fully control cloning? And there are a thousand more unanswered and highly debatable questions that we have yet to ask ourselves.
I agree that this is going to happen whether we like it or not, but i can't agree that this is going to be a good thing. Scientists are notorious for the proliferation of evil based on a sort of relative amorality. It becomes easy to abdicate responsibility for such attrocities as nuclear weapons, the hydrogen bomb, the holocaust (you think Hitler knew the best way to gas jews?), the list goes on. "It wasn't me!" the scientists cry. "How was i to know that this was to be used in such and such a way?" In truth, we are all scientists in some way, and, conversly, scientists are all members of the human race. And i cannot see a reason to let anyone evade responsibility for happenings as a direct result of their own actions. "The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray"
The answer to the question of "should we clone?" is most certainly no. We simply do not know enough about ourselves to do this. Petty squabbles over Michael Jordan sneakers, Wars over extremely small plots of land, murder, rape, discrimination, theivery. I cannot tell you whether cloning is morally wrong. Frankly, i do not know the answer to that question myself. But, if you ask me if this society is ready for it...if you ask me if we are far enough along, not technologically, but socially...the answer is no.
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
Clones are people, two!
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Yeah, I'd rather see politicians and lawyers taking care of this stuff. They're much more ethical and are always looking out for everyone's best interests.
He said it would "develop guidelines with which the technology cannot be indiscriminately applied for anybody who wants to clone themselves".
sticks in my craw.
Why shouldn't anyone who wants to be able to clone themselves? What is everyone so afraid of with cloning? I'm not talking about grow-me-a-new-body cloning (ie, having a clone made for organ donation, etc), but about allowing cloning for anyone who wants to raise a clone of themselves, regardless of whether it's their only way to have children or not.
What is everyone so afraid of when it comes to cloning? If I want to have a child and can't find a man I consider suitable to be a father, why should I have to trust that sperm donors are going to be any better?
The closest thing to an argument against this that anyone has given me is whether parents can make the distinction between their clones and themselves. However, my mother certainly couldn't have had any more trouble recognising that I didn't exist to make up for her mistakes if I had been her clone. We don't place any restrictions on who can have children (regardless of whether we ought to; that's another argument entirely, and one I have a different opinion on depending on what day of the week it is). Why should we place restrictions on how someone can have them?
-Cyclopatra
"We can't all, and some of us don't." -- Eeyore
"We can't all, and some of us don't." -- Eeyore
what is interesting about this to me is that when these scientists talk, its clear that there are differences between cloning and natural conception. This is because the DNA is modified in adults and certain genes are turned on which affect the growth of the animals. The cloned animals are bigger at birth and I think eventually they may get bigger than the original too. This is an unknown dimension of cloning - the experience of the clone will be different because there are genetic differences between the donor and the clone. If this happens I guess we'll hear about how this effects life. sheep monkeys and cows can't talk about that stuff.
Second, the premise that there are certain problems that shouldn't be solved by certain people. If a couple are infertile, and it is possible to create a child via cloning, then by all means DO SO (providing you can afford the costs of the treatment).
Besides, as the failed 'Drug War' has so completely and utterly demonstrated, where there is demand, there will be supply (if it exists).
"Avast! Prepare for the rodgering!" THWACK! "Arrr.. me nards.."
Just to be the Devil's advocate: What exactly is the problem with cloning a human being? I mean, ethically, what's the big deal? "Playing God?" I think we've already gone well past that point (recombo DNA, GMO orgtanisms, synthetic polymers that can mimic DNA). Robert McKinnell, a fellow Minnesotan who I believe was the first to sucessfully clone a vertabrate (a frog) once commented that what you get if you clone a frog is a baby frog. What we got when we cloned a sheep was a lamb. And when a human is inevitably cloned, we will have a baby on our hands and the ethical issues of what we do with that person will be exactly the same as they are with any human being. What threat is it that to any of us beyond freaking us out? So Bill Gates could make ten million copies of himself. BFD. He'd be broke, someone would have to pay to deliver and raise 10 Million kids (remember, valid or not that $50K pricetag is just the beginning. Have you seen the way college costs are going?!), and it'd still be a drop in the bucket of the world population. Anyone have genuine (not ridiculously speculative or merely based on population - those arguments are just as valid against screwing as they are against cloning) why human cloning shouldn't be legal? (Bonus points if you can clone Robert McKinnell's objection to human cloning!)
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
I'm sorry; is this a biological fact?????
-- the most controversial site on the Web
Now that we have cloning (or are about to, in any event), it's clear that we need to remove some redundancy from the human species by abolishing gender. No longer is it necessary to have two separate beings for the purposes of propagating the species, so it's safe to do away with the separation between the sexes.
I don't advocate abolishing only men, and I don't advocate abolishing only women. We should abolish both, in one fell swoop.
Andrea Dworkin describes such a utopian future future of the "androgynous community" where the perceived "deviance" of sexualities disappear and we're all free to become what we already feel we are but repress. So many of the problems our society faces are because of these artificial attributes we assign to gender (which itself is completely artificial), but it's always been hard to get rid of gender before; the presence of biological "sexes" always breathed life into the outmoded and pernicious fact of gender.
Now that we can get rid of sexes altogether, we can finally slay the vile gender beast and realize Andrea Dworkin's vision. I'm tingling in anticipation.
Read the rest of this comment...
Thank you, finally someone with some respect for life and the power of God and the inherent respect that ought to be due. Too often are people bombarded with "respect belief" and "respect others right to choose" (to murder) and such without considering what is right. And this isn't one of those well what's right for me isn't right for all debates, anyone who goes down the track of arguing for atheism is in deep deep trouble. If someone wants to deny the existence of God without considering the infinite complexity of the world we live in and the perfection with which it operates (with the exception of human perversions (see above)) and then consider the probability that such a world complete with so many diverse organisms and relationships evolved from nothing with no guiding hand but that of chance, that's their problem - don't go spreading ignorance. People like that have either never been educated in the sciences or arts in order to understand the complexity and beauty of our being or have never taken a Probability course to understand the likelihood of this world just happening. think how many monkeys it would take banging on keyboards to develop not Shakespeare but the world and all its intricacies. It'd take a lot more monkeys than there have ever been and a lot more time than there has ever been. So anyway, there is a God, we shouldn't mess with him or his creations and that includes murdering the child he created for our sake, murdering the person who has given up just for the sake of his piffle pain (imagine that: how much does it take before your life has no meaning? I'd say life has meaning not in a being's level of pain but in his conscience and consciousness) and last but not least creating a man in our own image for our own satisfaction. To manipulate what we know about the workings of life to our own ends. This is just plain wrong.
You drive a hard bargain, but I guess this cloning business is just natural evolution. Fine, I'll sell my little sister for $10,000. Come on, that's cheaper than a good set of lungs now a days, a real steal! ;-)
;-)
Disclaimer: I'd never sell my little sister for her organs. But I'm sure we could arrange a time-share/rental agreement.
Information is the catalyst for revolution
Here's a kid who's developing years will be completely transparent to everyone: science, the media, and so on - our very own "Truman Show". I just don't know what all that would do to someone's mental health - going through life knowing that they were a successful science experiment.
I suppose one could make the comparison with the first test-tube baby --- whose name I can't recall, so I suppose that says something about the long-term impact of her situation in the media --- and hope that things turn out for the best. However, aside from the ethics of actually performing the cloning, there are the ethics of taking on the societal responsibilities after a clone has successfully been produced.
If you read the whole post, you'll find that I think there are places where the technology is useful and a reasonable application.
What I object to is the cloning of the entire being. I think THAT is where we should just not bother to go.
Have you compiled your kernel today??
"They claim they will develop ethical guidelines to determine when to clone and not to clone."
I imagine something like this in small black print:
*note- ethical guidlines may be waived for a $50,000 fee
-gerbik
This argument is morally corrupt in my mind.
I have the technology to build an H-bomb, and the material. So I go build one and use it.
I must have been ready!?!
Exchange the H-bomb for cloning. It's a simple argument, but I think/believe the technology you are talking about is JUST as influential.
Have you compiled your kernel today??
Are you trying to be sarcastic or just disturbing? "Po folks?" Being poor isn't a crime. Human rights aren't doled out based on how much money we have. Most poor people are working and trying as hard as they can to make ends meet. Very, very few are living off welfare and having as many kids as they can to get more money from the state. There are people like that but to use them as some kind of stereotype is terribly inaccurate. This kind of perception is created by politicians for their own gain, not because its true.
As for selective breeding my whole point is that genetic engineering makes that irrelevant. Take cystic fibrosis for example. The gene responsible for it has been known for some time now. There are genetic tests for the defective gene. I would recommend genetic tests for people who want to have children, but I would not agree with the idea that these tests should be used to prohibit anyone from having children, or that they be viewable by employers/insurance companies. It won't be too much longer before gene therapy will be used on conditions such as cystic fibrosis, hemophilia, etc. The step after that is detecting and correcting these genetic problems in unborn children.
I still think human stupidity should be eliminated because stupid people vote if for no other reason. Politicians do stupid things because they're trying to keep stupid people happy. But imagine if the people they had to keep happy were brighter and more aware of the implications of the issues at hand. Wouldn't that be better? Your comment about someone working at 7-11 is valid though. I don't know what to do about that. Actually come to think of it that problem doesn't really exist? Why? because the number of jobs which a person who isn't too bright can do are dwindling. Once upon a time manual labor was the backbone of the US economy whether you were talking about manufacturing or agriculture or mining or what have you. That isn't true today. Now we've got huge tractors and combines and robotic assembly lines and continuous miners. Jobs at which someone can earn a good living are becoming more and more technical and skilled all the time. For the most part our society has been able to keep up with this because of improvements in education, but that won't go on forever. How many people understand how modern technology works? For most people a computer is a genie, a magic box that is as mysterious as it is powerful. They're smart enough to use for word processing and web browsing, but few of us are smart enough to understand them well enough to program and design them.
If we don't do something to improve the average IQ of humanity then you'll simply have an aristocracy based upon intelligence. The beginnings of that are already appearent in our culture right now. Once upon a time ability was more or less evenly distributed. If you were poor and living on a farm someplace then how smart or determined you were usually didn't matter that much because your situation didn't provide you with any opportunities to utilize that intelligence or ability. This began to change after WW-II with the GI bill. Men who would otherwise never see the inside of a college classroom were going to college. It's continued from there with programs and grants and you name it to the point that just about anyone with the desire and ability to make something of themselves can do so. The end result of this is that our society is becoming something of a meritocracy. Not completely of course but close enough that it has an effect upon the types of people you're likely to find at different socio-economic strata. Throw in women's lib and you've got a pretty good formula for smart/able people meeting, marrying, and having smart/able children.
Jump forward a few generations and what do you have? A society where those born into high income families are also almost always born into high ability/intelligence families. The problem with this is that this class of people would have rights and freedoms that would be denied to others. They would control everything and the rest of the people would essentially be serfs.
I hate to think we've come all this way only to return to a world reminiscent of a dickens tale. I'd like to think that our future is a bright one.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
No, the real danger is that those with lots of money and power will never die.
I do not believe this will ever be the case. There is still the issue of telemere degeneration. Cells in the body are just going to kick the bucket in accordance with a bell-shaped distribution curve over time.
Beyond that, How do you reconsile the transplanting of one's defunct brain? Do it sectionally???
The biggest issue, however is that our general unhealthy lifestyle will catch up with us no matter how many transplants we utilitize? Are we to do a full-body capillary root-canal?
I see this as a sort of "second chance" on life.. A person in their 20's won't necessarily live a healthy life, and they, of course, pay for it in the 40's and beyond.. It might be possible to correct "some" of their geneticial defects and unspectacular life-style.
Beyond this, the growth of blood could be an enormous life-saver at hospitals.. Just think.. I'm not donating blood, but the DNA for the synthesis of blood (since the telemere's wouldn't allow an unlimited supply of blood to be synthesized from the same sample indefinately).
-Michael
-Michael
Would it be possible to clone the fingers of unidentified bodies for the purpose of crime investigation?
it's a rather discomforting thought: those that claim to be interested in knowledge only for the sake of knowledge will also make the determination of when and how that knowledge should be used. isn't that the best left to society (via religion, government, culture, etc.)?
to put it another way: would science have been the best guide for our use of atomic weapons? i seem to recall the common view of scientists at the time was that atomic weapons were a Bad Thing and should not be used (forgive me for generalizing...). and yet, the US government choose to use the weapons, thereby saving more lives in the long run.
granted, i respect the input of scientists and the data that they generate, but certainly not the opinions that accompany it.
my $0.02
--
A clone is a CHILD with genetic material taken from ONE source. Do you fear children?
If a genetic modification will enhance my child's life and chances of survival, then I will pursue such technology once it becomes available. If you want to tell me what sorts of advantages I can give my children, you'll receive the same sort of response I'd give anyone who told me how to raise my children: Eat shit and die. It's a primal, basic response, but quite appropriate.And you know something else? If growing a child in a vat turns out to be a better choice than 'natural' childbirth, then bring on the vats! "Happy decanting day, son!"
Research. Think. Dream. But don't imagine that you have any right to tell others how to live their lives, as long as their choices don't harm you directly. And try to come up with concrete problems rather than vague fears next time, eh?
"Avast! Prepare for the rodgering!" THWACK! "Arrr.. me nards.."
What's to get upset about? It's just a twist on in vitro fertilization, which people have been doing for a long time. I can see lots of reasons why people might want to do this (aside from the occasional case of narcissism).
I lost my wife before we had a chance to have children. It would be wonderful to have a daughter like her. She was a delightful person--the world could use another one like her (of course, that's assuming I could do as good a job of child-raising as her equally delightful parents). I am sure that there are parents who have lost children to accident or disease who feel the same way. Why roll the genetic dice again when you already had a winning throw?
The "unique identity" thing is a non-issue. After all, identical twins happen once in awhile, and they manage just fine. The fact that they are not genetically unique doesn't stop them from developing their own unique identities.
From a biological point of view, I suppose that we could get concerned about some kind of genetic monoculture. What if there is a fad for clones of some famous person, and everybody wants to have one? But clones are going to be a bit too costly for that to be an issue for quite a while. And face it, the one thing that we are *not* lacking on this globe is human genetic diversity. We can tolerate a lot of cloning while still having more genotypes in circulation than have ever before existed at one time.
I suppose there is the problem of the clone of the famous person growing up under the pressure of inflated expectations. Probably that clone of Einstein will decide to become a performance artist just to defy everybody's assumptions. But again, this isn't really any different from the problems faced every day by the sons and daughters of celebrities. It isn't easy, but they get by--occasionally, they even surpass their illustrious parents.
I think people are afraid of cloning, not because of any real threat of cloning itself, but because they perceive it as the leading edge of genetic modification, and that is indeed scary. At some point in the future, we are going to start changing our own genes. And the technology will soon be moving faster than our own generation time, which means that we will sooner or later introduce some sort of disastrous genetic "bug" that causes cancer, dementia, or worse, later in life. And it will be in a whole bunch of people before anybody realizes the problem. There will doubtless be tragedies to make thalidomide and diethylstilbesterol look like small potatoes. But it's not really cloning that is the leading edge--it is gene therapy. And that can't be stopped. Who is going to tell somebody that they aren't *allowed* to cure sickle cell? Or Huntington's Disease? But the concept of a genetic "disease" is unavoidably slippery. Once something becomes fixable, it automatically becomes a disease. Find a gene for perfect pitch? You've defined a "poor pitch perception" disease! Let's cure everybody!
I don't think it can be stopped. I don't even think it necessarily should be. Sometimes, you just have to weather the storm....
Indentical twins silly.
These clones will be less than identical,
because the clone will not grow up in the
same environment.
The current success rate is just 2% for mammals.
Work it out on Fido and Fluffy first.
Perhaps this new group needs to get a licensing agreement for one-cell ordering, errr.. I mean one-cell cloning.
=-=-=-=-=
"Do you hear the Slashdotters sing,
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Oh bother.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. There is a steep price to be paid. Almost none of you give it the slightest creedance.
History has taken us here before. Dr. Gatling invented the machine gun intent on ridding the world of warfare. Dr. Guillotin invented his blade intent on merciful execution. Heroin was invented to eliminate suffering. There is nothing new under the sun.
Human nature is the problem rather than technology. This is typical irresponsible use of intellectual accomplishment: no recognition that history consistently demonstrates a tendency toward self-annihilation. New technologies only amplify our depraved abilities. Somewhere soon, someone will do so with this. They will do it in a novel, nightmarish way. They will do it sooner than you think.
Blithely ignorant remarks in favor of this new Orwellian power are reminiscent of fools in every age who went down on the Titanics or exploded aboard the Challengers of their own times. They are inevitably hailed as heroes of progress, whose lives were sacrificed on the altar of technology to advance us to the next stage.
You are those idiots in "Independance Day" standing on top of the Interstate Bank Building in Los Angeles waving greeting placards in the face of your own destruction. You are the jackasses of every age who think just because it's never been done before is the perfect unassailable reason to go ahead and do it, consequences be damned.
Your moral sensibilities preclude any possibility of evil. For yours is the generation that thinks intellect equals virtue. As in "Jurassic Park" when the mathemetician warns, "You were so busy on whether you could, no one asked whether you should." You are a morally stunted generation comprehending nothing outside your science fiction-intoxicated imaginations. Bad just isn't possible, someone will make sure of that; just go for it.
You are those who will forge the Brave New World to come. You will be consumed by a monstrosity of your own making. And as it overtakes you, you will be those shaking their fists and cursing God for not stepping in to save you from yourselves. Your damnation is just.
The twins were astonishingly similar in habits
I herard about studies claiming that twins living together are more different that those separated early. They want to be different.
He or she will know exactly what they will look like later in life,
We will have cosmetic surgery as an everyday thing (I read it form William Gibson.)
what kinds of grades they're capable of in school, what kinds of jobs they'll be predisposed towards.
Jobs will be different, schools will be different.
They will be constantly compared to, well, themselves (about 20-30 years down the road). What if they don't live up to the standards already set by their parents,
The same thing for sexual reproduction.
Additionally, this kid will know what diseases or habits he/she will probably contract later in life,
And by then they will be curable.
Basically, this kid's whole future will already be known. Where's the excitement in that kind of life?
No, the environment will be quite different.
__
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
so, the people are, like, "Hey, stop talking and get out of our garage! We're trying to do it!"
hee hee!
You want corn? I give you corn.
I may be wrong, but I'm never uncertain.
OK so i am not at an expert on the field (if you are comments would be good). But here is what i am thinking, what happens when ppl. get to decide who to clone and how much to clone ? The idea would be (from what i recall about a discussion of this in Internation Times) that you have a kid, and you can at a later date get a clone of it... Now this in itself does not sound that bad right, but it does lead to the question that what happens when someone has a damn smart kid/a great soccer player/or ms. portman ? ? I mean if you think about it seriously you are going to be able to get rid of a lot of genetic fuck ups! This can then go along with the idea of being able to stop a birth of someone who might be born with a desease, hell just use a clone of a GOOD baby! This gets rid of the fact that you might have a kid thats not PERFECT! Damn, is it not natural for there to be differences/weaknesses in ppl... and is this mutation not essential ? ?
Then of course the artile mentions that ----"The effort will be to assist couples that have no other alternatives to reproduce and want to have their own biological child, not somebody else's eggs or sperm", Well sadly thats life and you ahve to live with it... i know a lot of couples that could not have kids and went with the idea of adoptions, and are doing fine.
Non-Deterministic Finite Automata
If they want a child, they should adopt. Yes, it sucks that they can't have their own, but there is likely a reason for it, and if their only option is to copy their current genetic makeup, they aren't really doing their offspring a favour. Much as we hate to think it, we are animals and the same sorts of rules of survival apply. Cloning is just asking for trouble and propogating the problem. It seems like there would be a much higher probability that this cloned child would not be able to have children of their own. And most importantly, as the article pointed out, the success rate is miniscule to the point of futility.
(This is not to mention the ethical considerations which are certainly pretty murky. I think it's pretty dumb to trust that all future scientists would use this ability in a humane/ethical manner.)
---
I hope you're not pretending to be evil while secretly being good. That would be dishonest.
Does little Johnny or Susie not have any "real" friends?
No problem!
They can clone themselves a new best friend in the
garage over the weekend with the Home Cloning Kit!
Now on sale at K-Mart for only $49,999.99!
- tokengeekgrrl
"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions