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Articles: Cloning: It's not just for livestock anymore!!! |
Posted by
Domkitten on Monday, January 27, 2003 - 05:28 AM PST
We’ve all heard about it, we’ve all thought about it, we’ve all seen it on Star Trek, or for the neophytes in Austin Powers movies. That’s right, it’s the human clone, and it’s back and better than ever. Or at least that is was the Raelians would like us to believe. Some think it signifies the end of the world, other just the insanity of a small group of people. However much we try to make it go away, cloning is hear to stay.
Let’s look at the facts. Has it been done? Yes, we can say for all certainly that we have at least cloned livestock and animals on several occasions, beginning with Dolly the sheep Dolly) there has been an awful lot of talk about human cloning and the implications. Congress got in such a huff about the possibility of clones that the House of Representatives banned human cloning outright (House Bans Cloning); an act that has not been put officially made into law yet.
The Pope (Pope), Pro-lifers (Lifers) and even respected scientists (Science) have spoken out condemning cloning. People have heated debates about cloning all the time, and frankly it’s hard to bring cloning in conversation without getting into heated and opinionated arguments on both sides of he debate.
The pros of possible clones are many from the ability for patients to essentially “heal themselves” to the advancement of research in disease control, prevention and cure. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to clone our way to cures for breast cancer, Alzheimer’s, and even obesity if it were possible? The cons, on the other hand seem to be mostly moral outrage and disgust about science gone made and the possibility of creating Frankensteins. It is a new technology, scientists are in essence trying to create life, and it is very probable that there are clones that end up on the proverbial floor (think Aliens: Resurrection when Ripely has to confront the failed attempts at herself.)
With all the talk in the news lately about the possible Raelian cloned humans there is an even larger debate about the ethics of cloned life. A trip to the Raelian website (Cloners) will give you information on possible ventures in cloning, including INSURACLONE™, OVULAID™ and CLONAPET™. INSURACLONE™ offers the most interesting possibilities. To quote:
“Available now!!!! Your cells preserved for a lifetime!!!!
• If you want to keep your genetic material safe while you are in good health.
• If you want to be cloned one day.
• If you want to make sure that when you need to, you can benefit from a new organ generation and transplant thanks to your own genetic repair kit, the INSURACLONE™ program is right for you”
Highly fascinating, saving your cells for those just in case emergencies like accidentally giving yourself lung cancer or being hit by a Mack truck.
Unfortunately the biggest drawback is that the Raelian movement, which has been around for years, is possibly wackier than Scientology. A group that believes that we are all descended from a higher Alien clone, and which also hopes that someday we can all travel again into the stars, is just as creepy as the Heaven’s Gate members who did away with themselves 1997 over fear of the impending millennium.
For the moment, personally, I don’t fear cloning. I don’t think it is the end of the world, and aside from the various avenues it will open up in genetic research I think it will come to be little more than a fertility therapy for the next few years. Currently the only way to clone a human is by making a baby. Realistically all babies are in some way a clone of their parents. A cloned baby is just that more so. A child still needs to be raised, and in the process of becoming an adult will no longer be the same as the person who donated the genetic material. In this way, I do not feel threatened yet by cloning.
When science makes the daunting step of actually bringing something into existence that is not only human, but adult, and with the full capability of recovering memories, then I will really start to worry. Regardless of the possibilities for expanding the mind and learning from the accumulated wisdom of lifetimes of experience, I think there does come that point were playing god gets out of hand. If it comes to that I will do my best to take myself and my genes with me.
Cloning is, in general, really creepy. When you get right down to it the thought of making an identical copy of you is just really disturbing. Could you imagine a hundred Pat Robertsons walking around, or even worse, several Jaleel Whites? I mean think about the endless possibilities to run into people you really dislike or never want to deal with. The high school geek who made millions marketing his computer software could have a Mini-me out there somewhere biting peoples ankles, it’s just downright scary.
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Cloning: It's not just for livestock anymore!!! | Login/Create an account | 37 Comments |
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Re: Cloning: It's not just for livestock anymore!!!
by Xaoswolf (Xaoswolfathotmaildotcom)
on Jan 27, 2003 - 09:10 AM
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I liked it so much better when UFO cults meant that a lot of stupid people got together and drank some poison and died. It meant that we lost between 100-1000 stupid people all at once. Now if the cults start cloning each other instead of suicide, the stupid quotient will be increased drasticly.
If you thought it was bad out before, wait until a few generations of second-rate clones start to be made for these morons.
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Re: Cloning: It's not just for livestock anymore!!! by Domkitten (domkittenish@spanking.com) on Jan 28, 2003 - 04:30 AM (User info | Send a Message) http:// | I don't know. I mean, until I actually see some real proof of a human clone, I'm just not convinced. Now if Raelianism becomes the most popular world religion, i'm heading for the ranch in Antartica. |
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Re: Cloning: It's not just for livestock anymore!!! by Xaoswolf (Xaoswolfathotmaildotcom) on Jan 28, 2003 - 10:16 AM (User info | Send a Message) http://Xaoswolf.tripod.com | I think that MTV should have another Celebrity Deathmatch, only with Xenu and Rael duking it out. Only to have Gahndi or someone come out and kick both their asses. |
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Re: Cloning: It's not just for livestock anymore!!! by feralucce on Feb 03, 2003 - 09:44 AM (User info | Send a Message) http://feralucce.vibechild.com | Well... the proof IS out there... the chances of two people naturally having the same genetic pattern is 1x10 to the 15th power against (except in the case of twins) and this woman and the baby are gentically idedntical... |
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Re: Cloning: It's not just for livestock anymore!!! by Meranda_Jade (Meranda@mymind.com) on Jan 29, 2003 - 12:01 AM (User info | Send a Message) | I agree, Bettie, the world as we know it is on its last legs....
Of cloning, though, if it could be as Robert Heinlein imagined it, it wouldn't be bad. The clones that are used to repair people are kept in stasis, while the clonse that are raised as people in their own right are free to become their own individual selves. It's a good way to do things. Personally, I like the idea of a frozen clone that could be mined to keep me immortal, and I like the idea of raising myself... the right way... it will never happen the right way though, it will be legislated to death, and end up being a bad thing for all. Nothing the government does makes sense.... |
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Re: Cloning: It's not just for livestock anymore!!! by bettie_x (strangersangel@hotmail.com) on Jan 29, 2003 - 01:16 PM (User info | Send a Message) http://bettie_x.tripod.com/ | Yes sir.
First off, there are enough cotton pickin fuckers on this ball as it is. Fertility treatments my ass...there is a REASON, GENETICALLY, that some people can't reproduce. I don't agree with fertility treatments, yes it's sad that people that want to have children can't, but there is a veritable SEA of unwanted children that would benifit from a good home.
Know why they don't GET homes? Egos. "I want my OWN child..." People don't want children, they want replicas of themselves, to propagate their gene pool.
Then throw cloning into the mess...now everyone can REALLY have little replicas of themselves. Of course there will be no genetic study of the individulas, no taking into account their health or proclivity to disease, so in essence, if cloning ever takes off further from where it is now, along with fertility treatments, we are literally breeding and GENETICALLY DESIGING weakness into the human species.
So in essence it is nothing more than bringing a frightening level of availability to indulge in the ever growing human ego, and dooming our species.
Besides, they can clone now, not that far off from being able to manipulate the genetic material to decide the baby's sex, hair color, eye color, height, weight, intelligence......sounds WAY too in line with Hitler's "Final Solution" ie: wiping inferiors off the face of the earth and make room for the "superrace".
Hitler dabbled with genetics too....to the point of arranging marriages of his intelligent, best looking and upstanding blond/blue eyed officers with equally "qualified" women, instructing them to have as many children as possible, so as to further the "master race".
On "mining bodies".....I don't like this either. I dont' like it any more than I like using animal organs in human transplants. Growing beings and keeping them in stasis is by far the worst form of slavery, very expensive, and highly unlikely. They are looking into ways of using genetic knowledge as it is to simply be able to inject "repair cells" into damaged or failing organs or tissues and then allow the body to mend itself. Creating life doomed to death is when our society finally reaches the brink, and does a swandive.
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Re: Cloning: It's not just for livestock anymore!!!
by Geist (tattooedslacker@yahoo.com)
on Jan 28, 2003 - 02:20 AM
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I really don't know what to think of it all... Kinda have mixed feelings about the whole cloning issues. I mean I understand that cloning could lead to a lot of medical breakthroughs, but the thought of clones of my younger brother running around this world terrifies me. We're still tryin to figure out what to do with the first one. Then again, just because your a clone of someone doesn't mean you'll be like them. I still belive that you're a product of your enviroment.
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Re: Cloning: It's not just for livestock anymore!!!
by Xaoswolf (Xaoswolfathotmaildotcom)
on Jan 28, 2003 - 10:14 AM
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Lets not forget that, well, as long as the aliens didn't come down and show them how, for every good clone that they produce, there are probably 29 babies who died due to various genetic defects.
At least, that's what the scientists who were cloning animals say.
I'd rather not have to see a new type of recycle bin being mad outside of the local Clone-Mart for all the dead babies.
*Remembers a flem strip which featured this*
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Re: Cloning: It's not just for livestock anymore!!! by Starlight (elenmea@hotmail.com) on Jan 29, 2003 - 02:38 AM (User info | Send a Message) http://www.geocities.com/nony_one/index.html | You've made an excellent point with that.
It's a perfect example of the scientist involved in the cloning experiments to try and say that the ends justify the means. In true practice, the ends rarely justify the means. |
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Clones for Slavery!!
by MorteAscendo (corpsmanwix@aol.com)
on Jan 28, 2003 - 09:09 PM
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Clone us, and put them to work. BUT! they might revolt. Ever played Star Control 2. The Androsynth. Human Clone slaves that revolted and left the planet. But hey, they worked for about 50 years. Whoo hooo. Make them mindless workers that have only one ambition in life: To Work. It could work. ;)
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Re: Clones for Slavery!! by Domkitten (domkittenish@spanking.com) on Jan 29, 2003 - 02:57 AM (User info | Send a Message) http:// | Okay, this may be uncooth, but hopefully not considered rude, but more as worship, but many if I could have a clone of sindel as my personal slave........oh the possibilities..... |
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Re: Cloning: It's not just for livestock anymore!!!
by Starlight (elenmea@hotmail.com)
on Jan 28, 2003 - 10:37 PM
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A time or two I've given to actually letting myself think on how I feel about the cloning issue. When I get down to it, I don't think I really want to chance having someone come along who would look like me, act like me, think like me, and possibly accuse me of being the clone. That would be one of the most helpless feeling situations that I can imagine.
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Re: Cloning: It's not just for livestock anymore!!! by Domkitten (domkittenish@spanking.com) on Jan 29, 2003 - 02:07 AM (User info | Send a Message) http:// | Well, the cloned you would probably also believe in aliens and would be trying to return to it's mother planet. |
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Re: Cloning: It's not just for livestock anymore!!! by Starlight (elenmea@hotmail.com) on Jan 29, 2003 - 02:44 AM (User info | Send a Message) http://www.geocities.com/nony_one/index.html | Well then that's possibly an okay scenario. As long as everyone realized it was the clone trying to return to it's mother planet. I've long since accepted my fate here on earth. I mean the mothership hasn't returned, and well they didn't answer the phone call. Oh wait...that's ET...not me. Oops. |
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Re: Cloning: It's not just for livestock anymore!!!
by Starlight (elenmea@hotmail.com)
on Jan 29, 2003 - 02:56 AM
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I don't think I have any real problems with cloning for specific organs, other than the actual brain itself. The only thing with doing such a thing as organ-specific cloning is that it's an end point. At least that's what I've been told by people who have proclaimed themselves to me to be "in the know" on the subject. Those people said that you have to first clone the entire being, and then you can work your way down to just an organ. If there is a way to circumvent all the trial an error "beings", then I see cloning organs, etc. or an arm, etc. as not so horrible of an idea. I'm just not for the whole cloning the entire being part.
By the way, aren't identical twins essentially naturally occuring clones? I do realize it's the same egg splitting, but at birth (save for those in utero memories) they are exactly the same genetically. The only thing that might change them physically is what happens to them after that. My point is that one twin doesn't claim to be the "real" person, and the other their duplicate. So where does that leave the created clone vs. the naturally occuring genetic duplicate and human rights?
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Re: Cloning: It's not just for livestock anymore!!! by feralucce on Jan 29, 2003 - 12:08 PM (User info | Send a Message) http://feralucce.vibechild.com | BUT... you can't just clone a single organ... you have to clone the entire thing... and when does it stop being meat and start being alive?
Clone n : a group of genetically identical cells or organisms derived from a single cell or individual by some kind of asexual reproduction
Twin n: One of two offspring born at the same birth.
I think that anaswers a lot |
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Re: Cloning: It's not just for livestock anymore!!! by Merry_Widow on Jan 29, 2003 - 05:33 PM (User info | Send a Message) | Actually, they are working on growing single organs as we speak. They have grown specific single body parts, both freely, and on host animals (they grew a human ear on the back of a mouse. Poor mouse).
As to when something stops being meat and starts being alive, it would depend on your beliefs. Is a person contained, in some part, in their liver? Or are we going to go for the grossly simplified "ghost in the machine" bit, where all indiviuality rests in the soul?
This is just all over the place in terms of beliefs and ethics, and there is no easy answer. |
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Re: Cloning: It's not just for livestock anymore!!! by feralucce on Feb 03, 2003 - 09:42 AM (User info | Send a Message) http://feralucce.vibechild.com | Actually, the ear on the back of a mouse... is a plastic developed to be organically disolvable... The plastic is laced with teh appropriate species stem cells and it is slowly converted to tissue...
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Re: Cloning: It's not just for livestock anymore!!! by bettie_x (strangersangel@hotmail.com) on Jan 29, 2003 - 01:32 PM (User info | Send a Message) http://bettie_x.tripod.com/ | It is a very good point, but the difference is that identical twins are naturally occuring, at a moment when the single egg cell divides spontaneously one time too many, due to a hormone or whatever. CLoning a full grown human is an excercise in the ego of the worst degree, and I fail to see how it would benifit the world at ALL. We'd just end up with more people. Great.
If we did clone, I don't see why they WOULDN'T have equal rights, but then again you never know. |
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Re: Cloning: It's not just for livestock anymore!!! by feralucce on Feb 03, 2003 - 09:49 AM (User info | Send a Message) http://feralucce.vibechild.com | Ok... they have full rights... to what? to whom? I am cloned... My clone commits a crime... DNA convicts one of us... I fry because of it... Does not sit well with me... especially sincee I am the only me...
I don't feel that a clone should have ful rights when I had to life through the shit the world had for me, and when the technology is perfected, he'll just pop out of the oven... |
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Re: Cloning: It's not just for livestock anymore!!! by Merry_Widow on Feb 03, 2003 - 12:25 PM (User info | Send a Message) | But the way cloning is proposed now, the clone won't just "pop out of the oven." They have to be born, just like anybody else. They would have an immediate disadvantage, in that say, if it were a clone of me, there would be a newborn out there with the cells of a 21 year old. They would age more quickly than a normal human. |
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Re: Cloning: It's not just for livestock anymore!!! by feralucce on Feb 05, 2003 - 12:08 PM (User info | Send a Message) http://feralucce.vibechild.com | no... with the genes of a 21 year old... the cells are all brand new, because cloning requires stem cells which are only created by an embryo
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Re: Cloning: It's not just for livestock anymore!!! by Meranda_Jade (Meranda@mymind.com) on Jan 29, 2003 - 03:09 PM (User info | Send a Message) | "My point is that one twin doesn't claim to be the "real" person, and the other their duplicate. "
My twin boys did for a long time. We'd ask one if he were a twin, and he'd emphatically say, "No!" and point to his brother and say that HE was the twin. We thought it was really funny. They both admit they're twins now, though... |
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Re: Cloning:A horrific thought
by Domkitten (domkittenish@spanking.com)
on Jan 30, 2003 - 12:56 AM
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What if they start cloning the irish. Maybe bettie is right and the world is about to end. Scariness...
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Re: Cloning:A horrific thought by Geist (tattooedslacker@yahoo.com) on Jan 30, 2003 - 02:36 AM (User info | Send a Message) http:// | We must stop them !!! I wouldn't be suprised at all to find out that the Irish are behind this dubious scientific endeavor. Just another means to further propogate their kind and in the process speed up their plans for domination. Although I'm not against the idea of cloning out-right, I think it should be governed and strictly used for the benefit of the pony species.... won't someone please think of the ponies..... |
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Re: Cloning:A horrific thought by Domkitten (domkittenish@spanking.com) on Feb 03, 2003 - 02:06 AM (User info | Send a Message) http:// | You know, Rael does sort of have an irish sound to it, doesn't it. I bet they are going to collect the genes of the non-irish and use them to create some kinda super bug that will eliminate all but the truly potato-stuffed and beer guzzingly. |
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Re: Cloning:A horrific thought by Geist (tattooedslacker@yahoo.com) on Feb 03, 2003 - 02:21 AM (User info | Send a Message) http:// | If it leaves the potato-stuffed and beer guzzling, then what are they gonna do about the germans ? maybe they are in on it with the irish... and if so i want to know why my family hasn't told me ! |
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Re: Cloning:A horrific thought by Domkitten (domkittenish@spanking.com) on Feb 05, 2003 - 02:13 AM (User info | Send a Message) http:// | I think the germans have been in it with the irish all along. That's the trick. See if the germans can enlist the irish, and , i suspect, the koreans (you should see them drink beer and eat french fries here) then their plan will be almost complete. |
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Re: Cloning:A horrific thought by Geist (tattooedslacker@yahoo.com) on Feb 05, 2003 - 02:17 AM (User info | Send a Message) http:// | Actually, I think the need to recruit (although not realy an ethnic group so to speak) the U.S. military... Just for their beer guzzling capacity. Plus that would give them a fully trained, albeit drunk, military force. |
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Re: Cloning:A horrific thought by Domkitten (domkittenish@spanking.com) on Feb 05, 2003 - 02:21 AM (User info | Send a Message) http:// | Man if beer were offered as part of the incentive I think that there might be to much interest to fast. The only problem is the real brass doesn't drink beer. Of course, the like whisky and whisky is irish. |
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Re: Cloning:Ooga Booga ! by Geist (tattooedslacker@yahoo.com) on Feb 05, 2003 - 02:31 AM (User info | Send a Message) http:// | You'd be suprised how many times I've seen those higher ranking that me that I work for out at the clubs with an Orion in hand. (japanese beer) Had one colonel I work for often drag me into one with him and buy my drinks for the rest of the night. good stuff good stuff. |
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