Well here we go! I had this idea (Read, stolen blatantly from Charlie Brooker) to have ideas for topics randomly sent to me by people. Unfortunately I don't have masses of fans, followers or stalkers. Just you lot! Now I'm not any authority on anything, and most of what I say will usually be whatever is amusing to me. Of course there may be a few philosophical considerations and maybe some controversy but anyway, let's give this a go
Al quietly whispered into my ear "CLONING!!!" so that's a good as place as any to start!
Cloning (its official now, it’s underlined)
Ok... umh... Cloning? It’s just like photocopying for people right? That we haven’t got quite right and all the ink comes out smudged, except what’s smudged is your genes and your face comes out all melty. The first animal cloned was a sheep called dolly, which seems a bit redundant really. Sheep look alike already; surely they could have just grabbed the most similar looking sheep and plonked it next to the original dolly.
The real controversy with cloning is the horrible human cloning and its juicy bloody ethical issues. If I have a clone, is it me? Or is it a different person who looks like me? Can you clone a soul? These are all pertinent issues if it weren’t for the fact that TWINS ALREADY EXIST.
Nature makes clones already, they have different personalities due to their upbringing, just because one twin stabs a guy in the eye with a pie (sorry, was on rhyming binge) doesn’t mean that the other twin is instantly compelled too. I think the main complaint about cloning isn’t really from the ethics at all; it’s from Science-Fiction. People assume it will be like photocopying (like some retard said above) when in reality a clone would mature at the same rate a normally born human would and their personality would be develop due to all the social lessons and pressures that we grow up with, not including the social stigma that would involve being a clone (if you were one), plus I can’t really see clones being bullied without having their older model back them up or hundreds of their likenesses on their side.
Would clones be made in batches and used for cheap labour? Another sci-fi staple, you have thousands look-a-likes under the command of some dullard, but in reality, the uneducated masses do just as good as job and pay for themselves. If mass-production of people became a reality then I could see it happening, but... why? Why bother spending all that money when nature has given of plenty of idiots to do the job already.
Could you use clones for replacement bits like in “The Island”? Course you fucking could! And this would also remove the need for AA for any other chemical addiction groups because, well fuck it, get 8 new livers designed for your own body lined up and you could paint the town red in your own cloned blood. In fact why even bother transplanting new organs into an old body? Take your old brain out and attach it to your new 20 year old body and start hell raising again. In the Island the premise was that intelligent humans were being used as meat sacks for living organs to be harvested. But if we have the technology to clone perfect humans, accelerate the growth without repercussion, why can’t we just have the bits, or the new body ready without the ethically painful “life” thing in the way?
Can you clone the Soul? Bit of a religious question this one really, that matters on your perspective but I’ve already touched on this so why not? I don’t plan on getting into any massive religious debate on this one because that way leads to madness, slippers and standing on street corners yelling at pigeons about your big shoe.
Assuming I’m me looking at one person and their clone, I wouldn’t be able to see the soul, assuming it exists, so I’d have to guess of personality and other social traits to tell if it was my friend of the clone of my friend. It’s the nature vs. nurture debate and I very much side on the side of nurture, your past experiences and upbringing shapes you, not your genetic code. It’s possible some traits could be pasted down, like too much arse-scratching, but that would be due to a genetic fault with an itchy anus rather than an actual personality trait.
Whoo! That’s about all I can think of for now, I depending on my mood I may or may not come back to this. Sorry if this isn’t as funny as you may have expected and a bit more rambly, but that was the point of this exercise and I intend to continue with it!
Anyone got another idea for the next topic?
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