From: desiree@netcom.com (dmc)
Subject: Cloning as a way of life (was Re: Fake persons)
Summary: I won't grovel.  I'll beg though... Can I come over?
Organization: 1-800-Car-Club
Distribution: ba
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 19:22:31 GMT

Today, Charlie Hand, makes me giggle with an amusing and well-written
article:

>Now, let me get this straight. "Desiree Champaign" thinks
>"Charlie Hand" is a pseudo-name? Is it just me or is there
>something recursive about this?

	Oy!  It's just you.  It's a well known UseNet rumour that I do
not exist and my name is fake.  And it's Champagne -- I paid damn good
money for the name -- so please get it correct.  (Oh, since we have a
vote going on -- let's play, "guess Desiree's real name"...that should
provide amusement -- and I'll *actually* give anybody that can come up
with my *real* name a day with the LizardKid...) 

>No, I understand. She wonders if I am a pseudo-personality,
>a clone of another net.conversant in the group. Absolutely not. 
>I never fool around with cloning. Not after that last time.

	Yea, I don't fool around with clones either.  As sexual partners,
they're pretty dead.  

>I'll never forget it. I thought it would be great to have a
>clone. I figured I could send it to work for me, have it do the 
>laundry, that sort of thing. I even let it take care of my
>Usenet postings.

	Obviously you were inexperienced in the entire cloning game.
The technology just ain't up to snuff yet -- but we're working on it.
Duplicating the original with panache is tres difficult.  Hell,
just getting the hair right (at least in my case) is pretty damned 
hard.  But don't give up!  Breakthroughs are being made every day.
The reptilianchild is a pretty good clone, I think.  At least he's 
"passing" with some effectiveness.  Course he's a newer model with
very little mileage on him. More tests are being run everyday...

	But even in the older models, clones are very helpful in
day-to-day things -- talking on the phone (not as cost-effective as
an answering machine, but loads of fun with the sales dweebs or
bill collectors); going on the blind dates (my personal fave); 
or doing house/grunt work.  We've not been able to come up with an
effective model yet that can "pass" at work (bosses are generally
a form of clone themselves and are hep to the gig...), sexual
partners or driving any form of vehicle.

>There, under my name, I found post after post of the most vulgar,
>foul, and abusive tirades I have ever seen in my entire life. Several 
>posts were over a hundred lines of nothing but four-letter words.
>I was mortified. I left a brief post about having had too much
>coffee, changed my password, and went to work trying to repair my
>clone.

	Yet another case of a clone run amok. Happens all the time.
There are actual documented cases of this -- most are available under
the Freedom of Information Act as well.  I suggest that anybody
interested in cloning as a future way of life make the effort to
dig out the information.  And there are CloneCon's every other year.
The next will be held in 1994 in Nantucket.  The Con's are actually
very informative and fun!  Workshops are being planned for 
useful topics like -- clone programming:  table manners, vocabularies
and handwashing. 

>In the end there was nothing I could do. I finally had no choice but
>to get rid of him. On the pretense of a Sunday drive, I took him up
>to Big Sur. As he stood on the edge of the cliff, screaming endless
>profanities toward the ocean, I gently nudged him over the edge.
>I was free at last.

	Did you at least videotape the experience so that you can
sell it to Hollywood for a snuff film?  You gotta learn to recapture
costs from cloning.  

	I understand your negative experience with cloning -- but
don't give up.  Cloning has its definite rewards.  Being part of the
new wave is difficult, I know -- but just think, in thirty years
you'll be able to tell your little cloned-grandchild how the world used
to be...


Desiree

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