Posted by The Professor on March 11, 1998 at 22:17:12:
In Reply to: To Live Forever -- Cloning and the Hero posted by Willem on March 08, 1998 at 04:34:12:
: Presently the discussion ... To Live Forever published in 1956.
To Live Forever is also one of my Favorite books (not just favorite Vance book). It raises some serious ethical questions, which as you point out are no longer merely intelligent speculations. Waylock's desperate and powerful thirst for life is understandable. For me he is one of the most interesting Vance protagonists, but not as admirable as some other less realistic protagonist/heroes.
The main points that resonated with me had to do with the inequity of how cloning was to be apportioned. In our times, I am afraid that cloning, will be an option for the very rich, powerful and very greedy egomaniacs of our societies.
I for one, do not think we need more of such people. Our planet has too many people already and it is getting insanely overpopulated at an increasingly faster and faster rate.
I would be quite comfortably with having the cloning of entire human beings made illegal, but not cloning in general, because of the potential great benefit to all humans of scientific/medical applications from cell & tissue cloning.
Here's a related idea re Organ Donations. No person should be ALLOWED to receive an organ donation unless that person has
at some early age (w parental approval) has SIGNED ON to be an
organ donor. This policy would rapidly increase the availability of donated organs and preclude people who are WANT but are unwilling to GIVE. This should be a National (or International) policy.