Human cloning.

[village midget]

Yoshpet

Taking advantage of clones for reaping organs or slavery is about as ethical as doing it to their naturally born counterparts.

They are still humans and they deserve the same civil rights that everyone is ensured.

this is interesting to me... clones are human because they are made up of human tissue and genetics and stuff.

who is a clone's parent though? part of the proccess which brings the clone into being is owned and patented by private companies...if GM crops are anything to go by these companies will stake an ownership of some kind in the clones they produce...

so does that mean that a clone is part human part object/property?

the civil rights for a clone would not, imo, be the same as that of a unique human.  

[magmayoshi]

village midget

maybe it's the answer to ***** make clone children with no independent minds just a preprogrammed set of variables to make them convincingly like real children...

although that would probably lead to some spin off abhorrent social practice like elite ***** with only real kids... sad

(on a separate tangent i have often thought that they ought to genetically engineer puppies and kittens which never age and simply expire/evaporate after a few months...it would solve a lot of christmas issues...)

Lmao that was just disturbing but grand XD

(Aging is what prevents you from dying horribly from cancer or other such things every day. Your kitten might start tumoring till it explodes, so really expect it days or weeks and call it expiring "Red Fun Time!", it would STILL solve the christmas issues, these self-inflating kittens! 3nodding )  

[magmayoshi]

village midget

who is a clone's parent though? part of the proccess which brings the clone into being is owned and patented by private companies...if GM crops are anything to go by these companies will stake an ownership of some kind in the clones they produce...

Yeah and having sex with a male clone would likely be considered theft because of the patents on the clones as well 3nodding  

[village midget]

magmayoshi

village midget

maybe it's the answer to ***** make clone children with no independent minds just a preprogrammed set of variables to make them convincingly like real children...

although that would probably lead to some spin off abhorrent social practice like elite ***** with only real kids... sad

(on a separate tangent i have often thought that they ought to genetically engineer puppies and kittens which never age and simply expire/evaporate after a few months...it would solve a lot of christmas issues...)

Lmao that was just disturbing but grand XD

(Aging is what prevents you from dying horribly from cancer or other such things every day. Your kitten might start tumoring till it explodes, so really expect it days or weeks and call it expiring "Red Fun Time!", it would STILL solve the christmas issues, these self-inflating kittens! 3nodding )

holy s**t! really? i never though of that...lol could give rise to a new sport...race against red fun time....place your bets on your pets haha *wonders how she got so cynical*  

[Fresnel]

Okay, here's an odd thought: Immortality through cloning. You grow a clone into his late teens, and freeze him/her. When you become old and your body is dying, brain transplant. An eternally healthy body should be able to support a brain indefinitely, right? You only die when they can't get you to the operating room or cryo stasis chamber fast enough, or you decide to die, or the doctor botches the job. Or, of course, if your brain gets damaged.

Or... whoa. Cloning brains for wetware computers.  

[magmayoshi]

village midget

magmayoshi

village midget

maybe it's the answer to ***** make clone children with no independent minds just a preprogrammed set of variables to make them convincingly like real children...

although that would probably lead to some spin off abhorrent social practice like elite ***** with only real kids... sad

(on a separate tangent i have often thought that they ought to genetically engineer puppies and kittens which never age and simply expire/evaporate after a few months...it would solve a lot of christmas issues...)

Lmao that was just disturbing but grand XD

(Aging is what prevents you from dying horribly from cancer or other such things every day. Your kitten might start tumoring till it explodes, so really expect it days or weeks and call it expiring "Red Fun Time!", it would STILL solve the christmas issues, these self-inflating kittens! 3nodding )

holy s**t! really? i never though of that...lol could give rise to a new sport...race against red fun time....place your bets on your pets haha *wonders how she got so cynical*

Yup 3nodding It's pretty much figured down to that it's balanced enough in enough aspects that you will either die from aging or cancer and tipping the scale of one effects the other =P
You mean sadistic? Because you aren't cynical XP Or at least you don't sound the part.  

[magmayoshi]

Fresnel

Okay, here's an odd thought: Immortality through cloning. You grow a clone into his late teens, and freeze him/her. When you become old and your body is dying, brain transplant. An eternally healthy body should be able to support a brain indefinitely, right? You only die when they can't get you to the operating room or cryo stasis chamber fast enough, or you decide to die, or the doctor botches the job. Or, of course, if your brain gets damaged.

That's rather impractical and since your braincells would gradually die off naturally from radiation and the like since they don't divide.
You'd live forever but you'd slowly grow retarded at best.  

[black_wing_angel]

Fresnel

Okay, here's an odd thought: Immortality through cloning. You grow a clone into his late teens, and freeze him/her. When you become old and your body is dying, brain transplant. An eternally healthy body should be able to support a brain indefinitely, right? You only die when they can't get you to the operating room or cryo stasis chamber fast enough, or you decide to die, or the doctor botches the job. Or, of course, if your brain gets damaged.

Or... whoa. Cloning brains for wetware computers.

The brain damage issue can be helped by titanium plating the skull. It'd take a HELL of an impact to do you in, then.  

[village midget]

black_wing_angel

Fresnel

Okay, here's an odd thought: Immortality through cloning. You grow a clone into his late teens, and freeze him/her. When you become old and your body is dying, brain transplant. An eternally healthy body should be able to support a brain indefinitely, right? You only die when they can't get you to the operating room or cryo stasis chamber fast enough, or you decide to die, or the doctor botches the job. Or, of course, if your brain gets damaged.

Or... whoa. Cloning brains for wetware computers.

The brain damage issue can be helped by titanium plating the skull. It'd take a HELL of an impact to do you in, then.

or a very large magnet...  

[village midget]

sorry think i am derailing the thread....so back to the op.

Silver Screen

Let's discuss artificially constructing human beings by any means.
I'm not talking about in-vitro fertilisation in general (or at all, really). I'm talking about genetically constructing/cloning a human being for the sole purpose of using them in the name of science - harvesting their organs, testing medicines on them, using them for other means of research, things like that.
I can imagine support for such a practice is relatively slim, but I want to hear what you guys have to say. Do you think this sort of utilitarianism is ethical? Do you think we should invest in such research? Why or why not?

isn't research which falls under the same ethical criteria already happening with stem cell research?

from what has already been said in the thread it's pretty obvious that cloning an entire functional and autonomous human is problematic if that human clone is to be raised, kept and culled for organ harvest like cattle.

i don't think there ought to be a problem with growing organs on their own though, and as far as i can tell stem cell research has led to breakthroughs in understanding of conditions like multiple schlerosis...so what is wrong with that?

people argue (just as they argue in abortion debates) that the stem cells are human etc and it is immoral and unnatural, but there is no individual consciousness at risk of damage...and people who already exist as complete humans could have their quality of life greatly improved.  

[Kuchen Fairy]

village midget

magmayoshi

Fresnel

magmayoshi

black_wing_angel

magmayoshi

black_wing_angel

AN INTERESTING QUESTION!

If you have sex with your clone, is that technically masturbation?

No but it does lead to a question pertaining to your sexuality if you claim to be straight.

Unless you have the clone engineered to be the opposite sex.

Then it's probably more like incest, though, huh?

can clones get pregnant/reproduce?

would it lead to a spate of retired married people cloning their partners so they could have sex with them in their twenties all over again?

would it be legal to have sex with your clone? would it be legal to have sex with anyone's clone? are the clones allowed to have sex with each other?

i think the bottom line is that these clones would have to have frontal lobe labotomies at birth, otherwise they will be nothing but trouble...

In essence they could but in all practical purposes I can imagine they'd be constructed to be sterile.

Quote:

stem cell research has led to breakthroughs in understanding of conditions like multiple schlerosis...so what is wrong with that?

I have a blood grudge against embryonic stem cells because they simply don't work. They've provided no benefits to anybody at all - there's not one documented case of them doing as they were supposed to, or doing anything beneficial at all. Oftentimes they actually result in cancer in the patient due to their rapid growth and lack of controllable...ness. Scientifically, there are better alternatives.

Furthermore I think it's a little strange that we grow embryos to destroy them. It's the first step on a path to doing the exact thing I mentioned - human cloning for organ harvesting. Again, the moral line keeps getting pushed back.

 

[Fresnel]

magmayoshi

Fresnel

Okay, here's an odd thought: Immortality through cloning. You grow a clone into his late teens, and freeze him/her. When you become old and your body is dying, brain transplant. An eternally healthy body should be able to support a brain indefinitely, right? You only die when they can't get you to the operating room or cryo stasis chamber fast enough, or you decide to die, or the doctor botches the job. Or, of course, if your brain gets damaged.

That's rather impractical and since your braincells would gradually die off naturally from radiation and the like since they don't divide.
You'd live forever but you'd slowly grow retarded at best.

What do the insanely rich care about impractical? You think a guy like Bill Gates would care if it was expensive for him to live forever?

Dunno about radiation though. It doesn't do a whole lot to your brain in one lifetime, so it's tough to predict what it'd do in ten or more. Though I suppose you'd still be suceptible to things like Alzheimer's.

Quote:

The brain damage issue can be helped by titanium plating the skull. It'd take a HELL of an impact to do you in, then.

Ehh... you shake the ketchup bottle, the ketchup still slops around.  

[black_wing_angel]

Fresnel

magmayoshi

Fresnel

Okay, here's an odd thought: Immortality through cloning. You grow a clone into his late teens, and freeze him/her. When you become old and your body is dying, brain transplant. An eternally healthy body should be able to support a brain indefinitely, right? You only die when they can't get you to the operating room or cryo stasis chamber fast enough, or you decide to die, or the doctor botches the job. Or, of course, if your brain gets damaged.

That's rather impractical and since your braincells would gradually die off naturally from radiation and the like since they don't divide.
You'd live forever but you'd slowly grow retarded at best.

What do the insanely rich care about impractical? You think a guy like Bill Gates would care if it was expensive for him to live forever?

Dunno about radiation though. It doesn't do a whole lot to your brain in one lifetime, so it's tough to predict what it'd do in ten or more. Though I suppose you'd still be suceptible to things like Alzheimer's.

Quote:

The brain damage issue can be helped by titanium plating the skull. It'd take a HELL of an impact to do you in, then.

Ehh... you shake the ketchup bottle, the ketchup still slops around.

Yes, but there's minimal risk of having your brain infiltrated by skull fragments, or of a bullet, really. You'd just have a ******** BRUTAL headache...  

[village midget]

Silver Screen

I have a blood grudge against embryonic stem cells because they simply don't work. They've provided no benefits to anybody at all - there's not one documented case of them doing as they were supposed to, or doing anything beneficial at all. Oftentimes they actually result in cancer in the patient due to their rapid growth and lack of controllable...ness. Scientifically, there are better alternatives.

i'm sure there was something in the news here about a possible treatment for ms....i will try to find it.

and if that's truly the case then what makes anyone think that cloning is the answer?

silver screen

Furthermore I think it's a little strange that we grow embryos to destroy them. It's the first step on a path to doing the exact thing I mentioned - human cloning for organ harvesting. Again, the moral line keeps getting pushed back.

which is what i meant when i said about ethical sameness between stem cell and clone...(although i am in the pro choice camp and don't view embryos as little people), if a clone's human rights are debatable that puts it in the same basket as embryos...and doesn't that swing the whole thing into a similar dilemma as abortion?