>"Oh Obi-Wan, you were a great assistance to my father during the Clone
>Wars...."
>Amazing how that darn science fiction seems to predict future
>developments! <VBG!>
Heh. Well remembered. (or have you just been to see the re-released
trilogy?)
>As you mention, I doubt it would stop at twins; how about identical
>villages of people?
Exactly. Although from an experimental pov keeping them together migth
defeat the point.
>Seriously, if people are bred the way strains of lab mice are produced,
>then we may have only seen the beginning of our problems. The resources
>of the planet, poorly distributed and allocated as they are, would be
>pushed past breakdown by cloning.
In the situation we're talking about i.e. experimental cloning, then the
bills would be covered by the lab concerned. Lab mice are produced in
huge quantities *because* they're cheap.
>Even if the quality of the human race
>was improved as a result (which is a dubious proposal)
You reckon? I differ but don't have time at the moment to get into that
particular debate.
>, someone is going
>to have to RAISE and FEED and TEACH all these clones how to be human.
The lab will do what they can afford, I should imagine.
>Now imagine that a group decides how the ideal human is constructed
>(Shades of Hitler's Master Race!) and clones a few hundred thousand or so
>of them.
The Boys from Brazil (Ira Levin?). More literary predictions.
>Many thousands of potential parents will have to be found to
>raise these clones as their own children; will they be volunteers or
>conscriptees? The forced sterilization of people (widely practiced by the
>Chinese on the Tibetans) would be small in comparison. Would
>intermarriage among clones be forbidden?
It seems you've jumped from my original proposition re: lab research to
a more widespread usage. Again, unfortunately I don't have time to
indulge (I can see some directions the argument might go and it would
get too much for me very quickly. And that's just the directions *I* can
see. I'm sure the list would surprise me with a couple of dozen others).
>I am not preaching banning the research;
Whew. For one horrible moment I thought the luddites had come for me.
>I am preaching thinking through
>the consequences of unleashing yet another experiment before executing
>it.
Sound advice with *any* new technology.
-- Martz martz@martz.demon.co.ukFor my public key, <mailto:m.traynor@ic.ac.uk> with 'Send public key' as subject an automated reply will follow.
No more random quotes.