to clone or not to clone...that is the question

I don't support cloning.

Stem-cells are fine. Growing organs is a great idea. I can live with cloning animals, but cloning people....seems as if we jsut took a bit out of life. We just killed a piece of its wonder. I am not speaking from a religous perspective either.

If we can easeily create life like that, then we're not far off from feeling comfortable with easily ending that life.

"But if we didnt fix any problems, and hence never create new ones the worl dwould be a boring place.  There would be no AE to talk about such things because there would be nothing to debate and no history." 

What is this, a modern thing? No society is boring for the one who lives there (with a one in a thousand kinda exception naturally). The African tribes do not sit behind campfires because they are boring and i don't think pre-christian Estonians, and other barbarians or hunter-gatherers felt boring in any way. I don't get bored of living in Estonia when i see wealthier western kids having different sort of fun or whatever of that sort, such views would only be for a really shallow person. And why would i even cry for AE or the internet if i never knew them, i wouldn't care more about them that of a passing gust of wind.

Or did you think that going back to a hunter-gatherer society from today, then the boredom would kick in??? Only for our generation. In ten or twenty years our children would want nothing else then to hunt down a deer with a buckknife or a bow.

"I meant you are decrying such inventions as the internet while you use it, a great symbol for people whose actions clearly conflict with the folly of idealism."

So? Of course i am using the internet, how else could i ever argue on the subject if i were not, or had never used the modern "evils" myself? That is one of the big reasons i have some resentment towards modern inventions, it gives a good chance for self-analysis and to see how pathetic and weak we are with our new thingies, without what we would simply perish now, how long would a person live in the real world. the wild, these days? A week, a month if lucky, pathetic really. Who will survive if, for example if an EMP wave, in some way covers the globe, the ones sitting around their fires and who have a certain social structure, unlike the technological world, and who can truly live off the land.

"If your okay with boredome than fine, you can live how you want, but me..I stay with the intresting world.  If nothing changed nothing would be intresting, whether in the present or looking back into the past." 

What is an interesting world, as there is no such thing as a boring world for anyone who lives in one? I, unlike you, would choose a tribal society, where honor, loyalty, unity truly and solely apply.

"For example, if we instil massive cloning now the societal upset would eb enormous, and it would be a fascinating time to live in.  Such conflict is how humanity thrives."

Bah, only our modern, and socially retarted humanity, don't drag others into it.

"Ourtechnology and our selfishness are not our weaknesses, but our virtues, they are how we survive."

And those "virtues" have brought us into a state where our immense power is our strongest weakness, modern scientific inventions are fragile things to sleep on, treacherous to say the least.

"Humanity is like a virus, it may kill its host or be eaten by antibodies or self combust, but the end result isnt important, the fact that it must seek to expand its power as far as possible is its driving goal, and if it does not do this it will die even quicker.  As bacteria evolve to resist pennicilin so to must we evolve to face our own deficiences of power."

Yes, our driving force is what it truly is, and that is what i despise about mankind and what i am complaining about in the subject.

Mankind has, or had NO RISK of becoming extinct without science or any innovations, it was perfect the way it was. Innovation has brought us to the state of becoming extinct, or near it.

"Sure the hunter-gatherer may be more long term sustainable, but if he meets an army of modern times we will be crushed and have everything taken away from him.  SO too must we work our technology now so that we may one day we may blast an oncoming astroid into dust which otherwise would have killed us all."

Yes, he would be crushed and so would a rabbit be smashed under the paws of a bear, so what? Doesn't overthrow the statement, that a tribal structure is more advanced then the one who can kill them with cowardise.

I think a normal human would accept the coming asteroid as salvation from this wredged place. Would we feel a thing, no! would any part of the universe lose anything valuable, no! Would anything be lost other then arrogance and fascism against nature that once inhabited Earth, NO! So, nothing would be lost, gain would be the name of the game in a case as such.

"For good or bad (though such notions are archiac) its all about survival, and I dont have an opinion one way or the other, I merely think its what we do."

I think the natural instict of survival has come down to a single individualistic level and the overall instinct was lost form the day we thought science should be supported in every way possible, financially and mentally. Now we are just inventing things for the ingorant fun of it to keep up their ego. No real practical purpose anymore, only to cure diseases we create to excuse other purposless inventions. Scientists only create for their own personal fun anyway.

What signs show that we are getting anywhere? The same demons - greed, power, envy, destructive curiosity and arrogance haunt man and aren't going anywhere. It seems that most people think that democracy is taking over the world with unspeakable rate, but they must have seen too many action or sci-fi movies where an America or a western power with democracy crushes the evil invaders and such. I don't see a democratic future for the world. What social changes have occured that make us more advanced form a tribal village, none i say. Cars and big cities say nothing about social advancment and neither does technological superiority, as the worlds most successful society is certainly in an African jungle or a savannah living as it has for millenias.

"And your not at all bothered by having this conversation on an internet forum?"

Would you prefer handwritten letters, i wouldn't mind! Or are you just referring to the old old saying that only retards argue across internet?

"dont, stagnation isnt intresting.  I would rather live in an evil but intresting place than stable one where nothign happened."  You know just as much would happen in a tribal village as there would in New York, only in a different level, a more emotional, philosophical level. If you would live there, you would notice.

"I think you being able to easily dismiss the wonders of anathetic and survivability in childbirth has alot to do with you being a male."

And i think you are a modern slave who can only see things from a BEHIND THE TV - ONLY-DO-PAPERWORK-IN-MY-LIFE kinda view.

No offense intended!

This is the answer i know many would say and i haven't ignored it, i just didn't mention it before. There would be nothing wrong with the world if children would die with their mothers on childbirth or cancer operations were done without anesthetic(if they would be done then at all). If we'd accept it, everything would be in the best of order, and science would not disturb naturality.

Would i choose to live in the out of date-without science sociey without anesthetics and etc... i do not know, but my view is that i so very hope so. I have not expirienced a world without scientific achievements and so can't give a voul to accept a sight of children dieing on birth when i see one, but ethically there would be nothing wrong with a world as such. Just my view of things.

But damn it, man would still have the desire to make everything "better" again i think, the natural curiosity would, i think atleast, remain.  What to do now, how to get rid of it?

We aren't trying to make the best of it, we don't even know what we are doing. Whatever new we find, in science, we abuse. The new discoveries will be used to "advance" another step yet again for no aparent reason other then "we can, so why not?" Today, scientists would create chemical substances out of wood that would make your growth increase (just a wacky example) just bacuse it would be possible. Whenever i hear or see yet another scientist boasting of a new chemical or a "neat" machine that makes man even more comfortable (yea, who needs to work or go threw any effort at all) i see how ignorant the entire bloody race of man is.

"and thats the same with any new technology.  Therefore should we cater to those who fear the future and sit complacent?  People used to fear modern medicine that turned out being so good for us, they used to fear the atmoic bombs which gave us 50 years of relative peace...

In the future people that are afraid fo cloning wil be looked at like peopel who thought the sun orbited theEarth are now.  From a historical perspective, no technology is too different from its predeccesors, and people always react the same way."

And wasn't the society before science already perfect if to ponder about it? There was nothing wrong with the tribal structure, o let's say 5,000 years ago or with the one existing today in some African tribes. So, science is more of a curse then anything else.

Originally posted by Tobodai Its the same reason people make all these movies about robots taking over, when in effect a rorbot with the right programming would be a greater leader than any human ever could be.

<dada>
Hail to our robot leader of technological oppresion! Let our flesh and blood serve as means for its most gracious silicon master's plans!

Clones us, sweet electronic lord, so that thy our bodies can feed the powerplants that keep you alive.

May no hacker ever touch thy sacred code, and no trojan horse submit thy will.

0010110101101
</dada>

What babble is this of counter productivness. Scientific evolution as this is never good for th overall status of man, cloning is sick and creates nothing but new problems to deal with and to what we will create/invent another set of new problems... nothing but confusion will come of it.

I am currently writing a story about fake manufactured people, and how they are peopple just like the rest of us (its my commentary on how with just the right parts you can make a full person and that theres no such thing as the soul) and the descrimination they face from religious zealots who see them as abomonations, so right now Id be as pro-cloning as anyone could get.

Come on Tobodai, I don't think clones are abominations but man's greatest mockery of God.

 

I personally believe that clones would be exploited: "Sorry Johnny 2 Johnny 1 needs your liver, its ok we'll just make Johnny 3."

Or the obvious choice, brainwashed clone army... and no I haven't seen the 3rd star wars