Friday five, but no Nawlins update
Still no Nawlins update, but I promise I’ll get to it — with pictures — once work and life slows down a bit.
For now, yet another late-night writing exercise, two weeks worth of the Friday Five…
First off, last week’s. Which bears doing because it’s about something really interesting to think about. And timely.
- How do you feel about the technology advancements of cloning people and animals?
I believe that the eventual end goal–not goal, perhaps, but end POINT–of medical research in general is the ability to fix everything. To re-create dehabilitated humanity as perfectly as possible. To know as much about how bodies work as we can. Scientific experimentation is about re-creation, about modelling and probability and controlled observation. The technology behind cloning is replication, the same kind of replication that allows CSI techs to grow miniscule DNA samples into information they can use. The same technology that allows for synthetic blood, for advanced pharmaceuticals. And the fact of the matter is that someone somewhere (many someones, really) will be interested in it, whether individuals or society as a whole are or not. And eventually one of those people will have enough money or technology or power to get it done. So I think we’d better figure out how we want to do it and how we’re going to handle it before it’s too late to do anything at all about it.
- If this technology became readily available to all, how do you think this will affect the future of our race?
I don’t think it would be the end of the world. I mean, it could be–rise of the clones or what have you–but I think that has a lot less to do with the pure technology and a lot more to do with how society deals with it. I don’t really see all that much difference between genetically engineering the perfect cloned baby and, say, re-engineering your body with plastic surgery. It’s all about using technology to get what we want. Whether or not individuals choose to use it is pure social engineering. Breast augmentation appeals to two types of people. Those with damaged/absent breasts (masectomy, accident or injury, deformity), and those with the perception of inadequare breasts. AND (for both) a surrounding environment that approves of augmentation. Choosing the path of artificial physical change doesn’t usually mean you can pretend it’s natural. It’s not the same and for some time–indefinately, I’d argue– will be identifiable as artificial. This goes for boob jobs and babies. You think people won’t notice when scrawny, four-brown-eyed brunettes with terrible skin, teeth, and genetic profiles are strolling around with blonde-haired blue-eyed Adonises with perfect teeth and strong
immune systems? They will.And THAT, my friends–not the technology, but the social implications of it–is what could affect the future of our race.
Problem is, it’s not going to happen overnight. It will be a gradual climb. It won’t be penicillan springing up accidentally in a petri dish. Sure, one good ‘eureka’ may put us over the top, or solve the last remaining riddle in a long series of questions… but we’ll inch ever closer. We’re already moving that direction every time an IVF couple has selective abortion. Every time a over-40 woman has amniocentesis. Every time a child born too young is saved, or an organ is transplanted. We’re changing the destiny of the meat we exist in. That is all.
- If your much loved pet died and cloning was available, would you elect to have your pet cloned? What about family and friends?
I do indeed love my cat, but when she dies I will get a new cat–a different cat–and I will experience all the joy of discovery and development all
over again. It would be weird to have the same pet, over and over. Same deal with people — it would change the memories and joys of the first person
in weird ways, and reduce the autonomy — the “realness” of the second. There’d be all sorts of bizarre moments, the constant feeling of deja vu, the possible disappointment if things didn’t turn out quite right the second time. Also, the unintentional comparisons. People don’t like to be measured up that way.Also, I just can’t see it happening. I wouldn’t want to clone my parents because then I’d have to raise my own *parents*. Which just seems weird.
I wouldn’t want to clone my spouse–same reason. You’d have to raise your… baby… husband, and I think anyone could see where that one is definitely NOT headed. The one area where cloning would seem at least somewhat rational would be to clone a deceased child. And I think that’s what would pretty much happen.Although I do have to say the idea of it interests me, if for no other reason than the fact that it would answer a lot of questions vis a vis nature
vs. nurture. - Would your family have your consent to be cloned? Why or why not?
I’d prefer they didn’t. Like DNR, it should be the sort of thing that people could choose or not choose for themselves. I would totally sign the paperwork to prohibit full-body human cloning of myself. Now, if they can clone just body parts, and I have a particularly healthy SOMEthing… go right ahead. Hope it works out well for ya.
The sticky wicket in this will be minor children, whose parents have medical authority firmly established. Which will, as I mentioned, be the most popular use. I can see an argument that replicating a child constitutes child endangerment, but I’m not sure I’d buy it. Though I think this issue would end up much like abortion.
- If you had the authority to clone any person no longer alive, who would it be any why?
The problem here is that I don’t think cloned beings will necessarily be anything like their identical twins. For one thing, they will grow up in a
completely different time, with totally different social, technological, and moral edicts. They won’t have the same family or friends. I suppose you could try to keep things similar, but it seems to me like that would cause cloned individuals a lot of conflict. Would anyone really like to have this other person who had lived their life before dictating who they were? What they did? And even if you do say yes, what would you have thought of this at, say, 15? When–if you were anything like me–the first things you wanted were the things you were told you shouldn’t have?So I can’t think of anyone I would truly want to clone. It’s not like you could copy Capone and he’d tell you where he hid the money. The New Capone would only know what you know–what he could read in the history books. And if you cloned Da Vinci or Plath, we’d just medicate them like crazy, and
half of what made them THEM and their art what it was… would be gone. Who’s to say cloning anyone wouldn’t doom them to difference, if only by our very dedicated sense of self-determinism?
Now, this week’s. On a topic slightly more… banal. Ok, incredibly more banal? Like… National Geographic to Britney N Kevin: Chaotic banal.
- What do you wear to bed?
Boring stuff. T-shirts, pajamas. If you’d asked what kind of nightwear I owned, you might have gotten a racier answer. But noone really wears that shit.
- What side of the bed do you sleep on?
The top, of course.
- Do you sleep with a stuffed animal?
No, I sleep with a real animal.
- Blanket/bed hog?
Mmmm… both, or so I’ve been told. But in my bed, there isn’t such a thing as too many blankets, so there should be plenty to go around.
- Do you make your bed everyday?
Nope. My bed gets made when I change sheets, and occasionally when we have company. But only occasionally. Usually it’s just a big sleigh-shaped pile of sheets, blankets, pillows, and cat, so it’s kind of hard to tell the difference between made and unmade.