Re: Cloning is Here

From: Anders Sandberg (nv91-asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Mon Feb 24 1997 - 07:41:51 MST


On Sun, 23 Feb 1997, E. Shaun Russell wrote:

> 1) No matter what happens, the clone will be wholly different from the
> 'clonee' at the point of cloning. As I stated a few months back in my
> theory of consciousness, the clone and the clonee will be their own
> entities. Even in the most sheltered cases, the clone will at least have
> a different point of view as the clonee.

It ought to have; it will be an infant while the clonee is an adult.
Sorry, we haven't got the faintest idea yet about how to fast-grow a
clone body (nanotech *might* work).

Clones are just younger identical twins.

> 3) I wonder (in the advent that this technology becomes usable within a few
> decades) if there will be a prejudice or a fear towards clones. With the
> lack of tolerance and acceptance for many 'minority' groups today (however
> irrational it may be) such as gays and different races, it is possible that
> clones will be dubbed as 'abnormal' or --as I can envision religious groups
> protesting-- sacreligious and blasphemous. That would be unfortunate, in
> that it would be a regressive step.

Yes, prejudice is likely. On the other hand, it is hard to see if
somebody is cloned ("Yes, he does look a lot like his father did when he
was younger"). I seem to recall one of the stories in Flynn's _The
Nanotech Chronicles_ which dealt with a clone family and some prejudices
against it.

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