From: Alexander 'Sasha' Chislenko (sasha1@netcom.com)
Date: Fri May 30 1997 - 01:17:07 MDT
It's so funny: while most humans are against cloning their physical bodies,
they find nothing wrong - and even encourage - cloning of their ideas,
value system, mindsets, etc., such as religious teachings, standardized
textbooks and languages, political consensus-building, or computers.
Even the arguments against biological cloning are not aimed against
repetition, they are trying to preserve the status quo. I am sure
the protesters against cloning would equally oppose artificial genetic
variations of any kind, even though their effect would be opposite to
cloning.
It is exactly these people who make me feel that I live in a land
of cloned mundanes; they have reasonably varied body shapes, but
frightingly similar collections of off-the-shelf motivations and
interests.
If I ever decide to raise one more child, I think I'd rather raise
a clone of myself. I would know him in advance much better than any
other child, and would be able to provide him with support, environment,
education and personal opportunities that I dreamed about so much when I
was young but never received - thus assuring, by the way, that he would
grow up much more different from me than the conservative people's
children are [intended to be] from their parents. Maybe, that's why
they wouldn't let me do it?
There are, of course, "natural clones" - the twins. I do not know
what part of the population have genetically identical twins, and I bet
neither do most of the people who don't want to see the same situations
created intentionally. "Whatever that number is, it is the ideal number,
don't increase it, don't change anything, my cloned mind can't handle
change, just leave things the way they are!"
---------------------------------------------------------------
Alexander Chislenko <http://www.lucifer.com/~sasha/home.html>
---------------------------------------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:44:27 MST