A cloning proposal

[The Manglement]

A stupid hypothetical scenario.

You get given the following proposal. A shadowy cabal has developed flawless cloning and memory duplication technology. They can, with your permission, create a perfect, seamless duplicate of you, and then copy all your memories over into it. For some complicated reason, they will need to painlessly euthanize you in order to create the clone. To pay for your inconvenience, they offer a very large sum of money, more than you would earn in 50 years at your current wage, and your clone would live in the lap of luxury for the rest of their life. If you wish, you could have your clone have no memory of its status as a clone, of the original you's existence, or your death.

Do you take the money? I know what I would do, 100% of the time, but I feel like other people might have other opinions, and the idea that there are people who think that way is weird and unsettling.

 

[IV 445]

I'm against cloning on principle. I just don't see how a copy can ever be as good as the original. If you have a portrait of the Mona Lisa, and you have the actual Mona Lisa next to it, then it still doesn't matter because one is a fake. Artificial memories are still artificial, in this case.

I just dont think that kind of life of secondhand-duplicate or being a "spare" is humane to somebody.

 

[RG 448]

Pretty sure I’d turn down the money I’d never get to spend either way.

 

[Hellbound Hellhound]

If I had to be euthanized in order for the clone to be created, then I would no longer be alive to benefit from it. The fact that my memories would live on in some other body would be meaningless to me, because I would be without them.

My instinct for self-preservation comes before any amount of money that somebody else could enjoy, and I don't believe it would be swayed by the fact that the person happened to be identical to me in every way.

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

That clone is not you, and you aren't taking the money, they are. Maybe if I were diagnosed with a terminal illness I'd accept, but otherwise that's no different than committing suicide so your spouse/children/whoever get a ton of money.

 

[Chaos Theorist]

It wouldnt be actually me would it through.

 

[ES 148]

This is why transhumanists sperging about brain uploading always makes me laugh. It's not you, dumbass, you're going to rot and die just the same.

 

[Pickle Inspector]

Even if it wasn’t for my death I’d be pretty suspicious of why someone is spending so much money on it, also:

 

[The Manglement]

This is why transhumanists sperging about brain uploading always makes me laugh. It's not you, dumbass, you're going to rot and die just the same.

I'm glad everyone here seems to be on the same page. I delved too greedily and too deep into some weird shit, and had to recalibrate my 'normal'.

If anyone's interested, it was Roko's Basilisk, the idea that at some point in the distant future a rogue superhuman AI might be able to simulate your brain patterns and torture your clone, and for some reason it is really important to take into account the well being of a clone of your brain that may or may not be created centuries after you die.

Euphorics, 'rationalists', and transhumanists are fucking weird.

 

[kinglordsupreme19]

The literature of personal identity in philosophy - whether you believe existence is rooted in the mental or the physical - is fairly rooted in the idea that something like this would be equivocal to suicide. Now it may lack the moral or social effects of suicide, but it would be a case of you - as in you, the seat of your present consciousness - ceasing.

So the question becomes one of 'would you choose suicide if you knew you would not negatively impact any others by doing so and were willing to create another being with your character, memories, and obligations?'

 

[DumbDosh]

Never take the risk of being the man in the box.

 

[BILLY MAYS]

Your clones are very impressive, you must be very proud.