About human cloning

Post by **Vympel** » 2002-10-25 05:46am

Just saw a crap movie. The Sixth Day. With Ahnuuuuuld Schwarznegger.

But anyway- I know the religious objections but are there atheist objections to human cloning? Is it immoral to be dying from a debilitating disease and have your memories/self/whatever transferred over to a 'new copy' of your body, essentially conferring immortality?

Is this new body 'really you' (Sixth Day preaches that it's not, at least that's the impression I got from Robert Duvall's dying cloned wife in the film) or not?

And what the heck was Robert Duvall doing in this movie?

The guns were ok though. And those helicopter/jet thingies weren't bad either.

Post by **weemadando** » 2002-10-25 05:56am

My response to 6th Day. I want 2 hours of my life back. And all those braincells that commited suicide.

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2002-10-25 06:01am

weemadando wrote:My response to 6th Day. I want 2 hours of my life back. And all those braincells that commited suicide.

I second that!

And Vympel I have no 'qualms' with cloning a 'spare parts' kind of thing at all, but I am dubious as to the possibility of being able to transfer our memories over to another body, so I haven't really given it any though... I'm against it?

Post by **Vympel** » 2002-10-25 06:05am

Why is my name in bold ?

Let's just assume that what was depicted in this ... 'film' was accurate. For or against?

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2002-10-25 06:08am

Vympel your name was in bold, in order to get your attention

Ehhhh.... Against?

Post by **Vympel** » 2002-10-25 06:14am

For: Immortality!

Against: Yes, there is ... something ... wrong ... somehow .... yet I can't place my finger on it.

I can't decide. Which is why I posted the thread.

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2002-10-25 06:19am

Then I am clearly no help since I have the exact same questions/reservations as you do!

salm · Post by **salm** » 2002-10-25 08:09am

i think cloning is a good thing. i´d like to have a brainless clone of myself containing spare parts in case i have an accident and need a new liver for example.

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2002-10-25 08:29am

All for Human Parts Cloning, All for somone else voluntierring to be the first Imortal but I'd love to have that particular possible side benfit of cloning

Post by **Lagmonster** » 2002-10-25 10:06am

I'm all for cloning. At least, I like what it would lead to. I think that even if we NEVER use the technology that we should know how. Knowledge of how to effectively clone a human being would be an INCREDIBLE basis for development in other areas of medical and biological technology.

It's not the cloning itself that is important, it's the knowledge and ability and technology that we need. Same as for nukes. We have the ability to blow up cities with nuclear tech, but we can use what we've learned for study in radiology, power generation, space propulsion, even medicine.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 2002-10-25 10:10am

how about clones of Beautiful women than we can buy and make our loveslaves? i'd be up for that

Yogi · Post by **Yogi** » 2002-10-25 10:42am

1) Currently, we still suck at cloning. We should know more before we clone a human.

2) If at any point we clone a complete human, the clone MUST have ALL the rights of a "normal" human being.

3) Growing spare parts is a bit diffrent from cloning, but I completely accept that.

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2002-10-25 11:21am

My vision of spare parts isn't a human with no brain and therfore no rights, I mean just hook them (the spare parts) up to some kind of life support thing till they reach the required age, and then freeze them till their needed.

Tsyroc · Post by **Tsyroc** » 2002-10-25 11:55am

Vympel wrote:Just saw a crap movie. The Sixth Day. With Ahnuuuuuld Schwarznegger.

But anyway- I know the religious objections but are there atheist objections to human cloning? Is it immoral to be dying from a debilitating disease and have your memories/self/whatever transferred over to a 'new copy' of your body, essentially conferring immortality?

Is this new body 'really you' (Sixth Day preaches that it's not, at least that's the impression I got from Robert Duvall's dying cloned wife in the film) or not?

And what the heck was Robert Duvall doing in this movie?

The guns were ok though. And those helicopter/jet thingies weren't bad either.

Personally, I think the way they were making replacement clones essentially made them as copies of the original person. (I liked the scene where the bad guy was essentially being a dick to his dieing self).

As much as I would like to live for a very long time I don't like the idea of constant duplication of people like they were doing in the movie or even the crap they were doing in Freejack. My main reason against it is that you could end up with the same generation of leaders staying in power for multiple generations, continuing to run things with the same outmoded beliefs they did nearly a century ago. (Would you wan't Bush's cronies, to stick around for another 50 years instead of retiring or dying off?). Certainly we'd never get anywhere on the stupidity of marijuana or other drug laws.

Plus, I don't think people will suddenly stop having children, or even cut back.

Now it would be cool to see various sports stars from different generations competing while all are at the top of their game.

Zoink · Post by **Zoink** » 2002-10-25 01:36pm

Cloning doesn't equal immortality. The fact that nothing is stopping you from having both you and the clone living at the same time, kinda hints at the fact that the clone doesn't have your "consciousness". Its just a photocopy. Clone or not, when you die that’s it, end of story, no more input, <EOF>.

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2002-10-25 02:42pm

I didn't think The Sixth Day was totally bad, though it could have been a hell of a lot better.

I think that cloning is okay, as long as it doesn't create a fully sentient and aware human body. Which is then subsequently killed and harvested for parts. That would still be murder. I'm okay with making body parts and what not for transplants.

Cloning in the movie isn't a consciousness download. Like has been already mentioned it is just a photocopy. Therefore I don't really see the point to making exact clones with the memories, etc. of a human body.

Unless it involves sex.

C.S.Strowbridge · Post by **C.S.Strowbridge** » 2002-10-25 03:22pm

I have no problem with human cloning as long as one of two regulations are in effect.

1.) The clone is considered a separate human being with all the rights of any other human being.

2.) The 'clone' is no more than a body part. I.E. cloning a new liver.

Enlightenment · Post by **Enlightenment** » 2002-10-25 04:25pm

Not to piss all over a perfectly good rant thread, but you guys are conflating several different biotech issues here.

A human clone is not a collection of spare parts grown in a vat. A human clone is just a baby/child/adult, born in the conventional way, that happens to have the same genetic makeup as one person rather than the mixed genetic makeup of two people.

Spare parts grown in vats, personality transfer between bodies, uploading, and effective immortality are all entirely different branches of biotechnology and have very little if any connection to human cloning.

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Utsanomiko · Post by **Utsanomiko** » 2002-10-25 11:08pm

Enlightenment wrote:Not to piss all over a perfectly good rant thread, but you guys are conflating several different biotech issues here.

A human clone is not a collection of spare parts grown in a vat. A human clone is just a baby/child/adult, born in the conventional way, that happens to have the same genetic makeup as one person rather than the mixed genetic makeup of two people.

Spare parts grown in vats, personality transfer between bodies, uploading, and effective immortality are all entirely different branches of biotechnology and have very little if any connection to human cloning.

I think they more or less realize that, but are touching on all associated topics.

At least they aren't doing what the media was skwaking about in the late 90's about clones being exactly the same as the copy (personality, memories, etc), babbling on about new Hitlers, immortality, and being totally oblivious to the notion that clones are still human, should be considered real people, and that if they didn't have souls, then neither would identical twins.
(Didn't someone once say that news is considered an information source?

)

Icehawk · Post by **Icehawk** » 2002-10-26 12:48am

Im all for cloning in whatever form. Especially for replacement organs.

As far as I know the only objections that come are always from a blasted religious standpoint in some way or another and are, as usual, completely irrational and shouldn't be looked at seriously.

As for the whole human rights thing, of COURSE they are granted human rights as they ARE human. They are simply a genetic replication of another and that doesn't in anyway make them anyless human. I hate how fundies seem to take pleasure in making up false dillemas surrounding that.

The Dark · Post by **The Dark** » 2002-11-01 12:16am

I have no problem with cloning human beings once we get the science down to being more accurate and we ensure that human clones are LEGALLY equal to people who have genetic material from two parents. It currently takes too many failed embryos to create one successful clone for me to ethically support full human cloning. Using cells to create organs for transplants, however, I fully support. Even with the potential shortened telomere problem, replacing a liver with cirrhosis(I think I spelled that wrong) with a healthy liver cannot be immoral by my understanding.

Utsanomiko · Post by **Utsanomiko** » 2002-11-01 10:13am

That reminds me, why is it that in the US it's generally seen as okay (or at least legal) to 'throw away' embryos for abortions, but not for cloning? This is coming from someone with a generally pro-choice stance, so i'm just pondering over the general view on the subject.

The Dark · Post by **The Dark** » 2002-11-01 11:08am

Cause GW Bush is an idiot who has Billy Graham as his religious advisor. I have more of a problem with medically unnecessary abortions than I do with stem cell research and cloning.

Utsanomiko · Post by **Utsanomiko** » 2002-11-01 06:22pm

Cloning issues and legalized abortion have been around longer than 2000.

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