The priestly class is now composed of scientists and business executives. In Blade Runner the Tyrell Corporation is literally a pyramid whereas The Sixth Day settles for top floor in a tall imposing building. Finally, at the base of the Indo-European pyramid are the workers who keep everything running, the shopping malls humming. I'm grateful to have learned three things about cloning from The Sixth Day. First, I never thought seriously about immortality in terms of sequential clones though I had thought about the extension of life through tissue regeneration and growth through genetic engineering.
Sequential cloning is clever.
Next, cloned humans are cloned humans-if they don't learn from their experience in one lifetime, they won't learn in a second or third cloned lifetime. Finally, it became suddenly obvious that a person and their clone might be best friends. Empathy and cooperation could be a breeze between a person and their clone. Of course, with two selves it would be necessary, as Arnold discovered, to distinguish the original from the copy and to work through the inevitable jealousy and competitiveness. I suppose they decided that a strategic avoidance of jealousy and envy was preferable to the potential gain of a first rate companion.