Poll: Would you kill your clone?

[The Almighty Aardvark]

One day, through an arbitrary turn of circumstances you find yourself staring at your clone.

Your clone has all of your memories and is physically indistinguishable to you. You "know" that you are the original, well, as much as you can be certain of that, however because of the similarities between the two of you, you'll never be able to prove this to anyone you know. Let's also say that in this world, clones are not such an extraordinary happenstance (Let's say that 1 in 10 million people would have a clone) that you could make money off of it for the novelty of having a clone. The clone reality tv market is already fully saturated.

Would you kill your clone?

Before you instinctively answer no, think about what this clone would share with you. Memories, relationships, goals, aspirations, employment. Every relationship you'd have to give up or share. You might lose your job or career. Essentially you'd be either losing half of your life, or having to share it with yourself.

One other interesting issue is that your clone could be end up being far better off than you. You'd have a constant living reminder of what you could have had in life

EDIT: Just going to add an additional question in here to consider. A lot of people are just in university or high school and haven't built much of a life for themselves yet (myself included). If that's the case, would your answer change if you had a family, home, and career to consider?

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

You just watched The 6th Day (2000), didn't you? If you didn't, what are you waiting for?! It's got multiple Ahhhnolds!

Anywho...

I don't think I'd kill the clone. More likely I'd just try to keep it a secret from everyone but those closest to me, and work out some kind of deal with it. Something like I'll work one week, he'll get the week off. Then he'll work the next week, and I'll get the week off. And during times where we're both off, woohoo! I have a Co-Op partner for games that'll always be on the same page as me!

Real-Me and Clone-Me are gonna be total bros.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I think I'd just wait till he's asleep, knock him out, and tatoo 'NOT ARJAN' (my real name) on his forehead. That way I can be assured of a distinction while I bide my time to figure out what to do with him.

 

[scorptatious]

I think I'd just wait till he's asleep, knock him out, and tatoo 'NOT ARJAN' (my real name) on his forehead. That way I can be assured of a distinction while I bide my time to figure out what to do with him.

Good idea, I think I'd do that too.

OT: How would I know if I'm NOT the clone? What if I only think I'm not the clone and the supposed clone was mentally programmed to believe he was the clone? What if my entire life was a lie?? What if this whole site was just a fabrication of my delusional mind?! What if you guys are all just voices in my head?!?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

 

[Clowndoe]

It will be swift, with no quarter given nor asked for.

I can't let a monster like that live, and I know *it* feels the same way.

 

[newfoundsky]

The real question is, would the clone kill me?

Probably not. It's a clone of me and I love me.

 

[ClockworkPenguin]

No, it's not the clones fault. Also, clones are apparently fairly common, so it's not like we couldn't explain the situation to people.

Even if I wasn't single and jobless, I wouldn't. It's basically asking if I would murder someone who was competing with me for something. That the person shares my genes and memories and is only hours old, does not somehow make that shit acceptable.

I'd just flip a coin, or play a game of MtG or something to decide who gets to keep the old life, and then the me that lost would try and move on, and the me that won would help and support the losing me. I mean, I'd basically me my brother, so why wouldn't I. (Clones make pronouns hard when you don't know which one you'll be).

 

[Eamar]

No. In fact, I'd be tempted to give it my life and quietly start a new life elsewhere.

Seriously, there are so many things I'd like to do but don't because of how my family would react, etc. Plus I've always loved the idea of not being tied down by anything and not having to live up to anyone's expectations. If the clone could take on my current role so my friends and family still have "me" around, I'd be free to live like that.

At the very least we could negotiate some sort of timeshare arrangement.

EDIT: Or, if I did want to stick around and not have to share resources, I'd just act like she was my twin sister. Assuming we'd function as individuals from that point on, it doesn't seem too ridiculous - identical twins are genetically the same, and some do spend the majority of their time together when they're growing up. Admittedly it's nowhere near as extreme as the actual shared memories thing, but still.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I dunno, tough call. I don't want people confusing us or him taking up my identity. But if he truly is just like me, then he'd be as bummed about it as I would be, so we'd promptly work out some sort of remarkable physical difference just to be safe. But then where would he live? I don't want another flatmate. Even if it means endless hours of gaming co-op and time-wasting with useless discussions about pop culture.

I don't knooooow.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

Even if I wasn't single and jobless, I wouldn't. It's basically asking if I would murder someone who was competing with me for something. That the person shares my genes and memories and is only hours old, does not somehow make that shit acceptable.

That actually brings up an interesting question, can you equate it to murder if it's a clone of yourself? Particularly since its memories up to that point are pretty much identical to yours. If you want to kill it, there's a pretty damn good chance it wants to kill you. It's almost guaranteed that both of you would have decided that you'd rather one of you die than have to share your life.

Legally it would still probably be murder, but conceptually it seems closer to some kind of mix of self-defense and suicide.

 

[ClockworkPenguin]

Even if I wasn't single and jobless, I wouldn't. It's basically asking if I would murder someone who was competing with me for something. That the person shares my genes and memories and is only hours old, does not somehow make that shit acceptable.

That actually brings up an interesting question, can you equate it to murder if it's a clone of yourself? Particularly since its memories up to that point are pretty much identical to yours. If you want to kill it, there's a pretty damn good chance it wants to kill you. It's almost guaranteed that both of you would have decided that you'd rather one of you die than have to share your life.

Legally it would still probably be murder, but conceptually it seems closer to some kind of mix of self-defense and suicide.

It would be tough case to argue.

"It was preemptive self defense- that psycho wanted to kill me"
"How can you be sure?"
"Well, we're the same and I wanted to kill him".

A smart prosecutor could at least get you for attempted murder or something like that, arguing that you would have murdered him, if you weren't interrupted by him trying to murder you, causing you to kill him in self defense.

Thinking about it, it'd be smart to decide not to kill the clone merely from a self preservation point of view. Assuming similar thought processes, you decrease the chance of them killing you by deciding not to kill them and banking on them doing the same, thus deescalating the situation. 'Cos if it does come down to a struggle, it'd be a toss up since you are equally strong, fast, smart and skilled.

Since I'm not a determinist, I do also think that for people without strong feelings one way or the other to start with, it is possible for you and the clone to decide different things, so even if you do decide to kill them, you can't really know whether they where innocent or not.

The flipside is that even if you decide not to kill them, you don't know they wont kill you. If you are on the fence, I would recommend not killing them, but not turning your back to them either.

 

[Heronblade]

No way in hell, and I don't even have to check up on my ethical feelings on the matter before making that decision.

It would be an opportunity like no other to get some real traction on my life's goals going. In order to achieve half the crap I want to, I need a hell of a partner that I can rely on through thick and thin. In addition, my personal life is not currently in a state that I would significantly mind sharing it for whatever brief period will occur before we split off and go our separate ways in this sense.

 

[RobAlister]

If the clone is just like me then he already knows that I am worried that he'd try to kill me and take over my life. Immediately we'd both try to come up with a clever way to kill the other one. I can only hope that I come out of the battle alive.

 

[Scarim Coral]

No since "we" would have no desire to killed each other at all. In fact he would be the perfect solution in the whole work full time= less free time problem (one go to work while another get to play his games etc)! Granted the offset will be that we would be starving or had less money in the account due to having another person to pay food to eat.

I suppose the only difficuly I/ we would have is who will be kicked out (finally leave the nest first) if there is only room for one (there can be only one!)?

 

[dyre]

I'm in a reasonably good position right now in terms of career progress, and I've worked pretty hard for it. I also happen to be rather fond of my family and friends. No way am I letting some wannabe me take my life away. Thankfully I am in possession of all the legal documentation that proves my identity, but on the downside that gives me clone a very tempting excuse to kill me. After all, with only memories and no actual physical proof of identity of worldly assets, he'll never get the things he believes belong to him (my family, my friends, my worldly possessions and job, etc) unless he removes me out of the picture. And knowing me, I know there's no way my clone will just walk away peacefully. I have no intention of sharing my life, or allowing him to take it from me...it's kill or be killed.....

 

[McElroy]

The thought of a clone makes me drool. Twice the me. All the stuff we could do. We'd want people to mix us up. In terms of my situation in life, I'd definitely want that clone to appear now instead of too much later, though.

And if you do it with your clone, it still counts as masturbation, right?

 

[Caiphus]

If the clone was exactly like me, then I think we'd work it out. Maybe I'm naive and I overestimate my ability to negotiate, but I'm pretty sure my clone, if he's like me, isn't going to be evil and set out to steal my life if I explain stuff to him.

So no, I wouldn't kill him.

 

[Radoh]

I think I have a better question than that: Why would I kill my clone? So they have my memories and could ruin my life, but what reason would they have to do that? I'm me and I don't want to ruin my life, so why would they? They'd have just as much, if not more reason to maintain my life since they don't have their own to live, so ruining mine would only serve to ruin their's. Besides, Multiplayer bro for life and all the high fives I've ever wanted.

 

[lacktheknack]

Of course not.

I'm going to move out soon, he'd just have to find his own place and his own job. We'd be functionally separate, awkward family meetings aside.

Of course, this would have to wait until after my friend's birthday party.

The chaos.

The chaos.

Besides, wanting to kill your clone is dangerous, because by the same token...

 

[Basement Cat]

I definitely would not kill him!

Instead, I would give the poor vat brat a big, sympathetic hug for having to be me. No one should have to endure such horror... -_-