If you could split yourself into a copy of yourself, how many copies would you make to satisfy all your wishes?
You can regularly sync your memories with your copies (either one way or both ways)
All I'd need is one. She'd do doppelgänger work and keep me company sentimentally as well as fulfill, ahem, physical needs.
Interesting idea but I would utterly hate a person like me.
The old saying about "you hate in others what reminds you of yourself" feels like it was written for me!
I really need someone to contrast my personality. I'd kick clone out within minutes.
Your clone is only a copy of you at first, the more it experiences, the more different it becomes. That's going to cause issues eventually. They may even start working against you.
The solution is The Prestige.
The clone only exists long enough to complete a task or fulfill a purpose, but then one of us (and we don't know which) is gonna get dropped through a trap door and drowned when we're done.
Nah, that's what you think. You'd be hate fucking yourself before the end of the day
Tangentially related, but I often think about if everyone on Earth were just like me, what kind of place would it be?
Yeah, I’d fuck myself too ;)
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Isaac Asimov singing "the Clone Song":
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It would be very ill advised, but SO MANY. Enough to organize them. There's a mall nearby that's slowly shutting down, it's like 99% empty now, and there are homeless encampments all outside it being hassled by cops. Instead of giving it to them, it's gonna wind up bulldozed and turned into rich people condos. I'd make enough clones to occupy it and turn it into adhoc co-op housing!
...And obviously like all the boning and other stuff one does with clones as well lol.
Enough to enact a meaningful change in your community? That's probably the best answer I've read in this thread
Fuck yeah. You rock.
One clone so that I can be a stay-at-home dad without losing my income. Finally finish grad school and fix up the house. Show my kid the world when they get old enough to appreciate it. Get a second job once they start school - something to get me outside, or working with people face-to-face. That would be amazing.
That sounds really nice. Nothing excessive, just meeting your needs
8,093,000,000
Andy Weir - The Egg:
Such a great short story. My first exposure to this was the Kursgesagt animated version:
Absolutely love this so much
Me after splitting myself into any number of copies:
None as well. The copies will have same needs, same level of lazyness. This won't benefit anyone, quite the contrary. Just more bad people.
But you could work as a team with common goals, and alleviate the strain of doing it all alone.
Blowjob centipede
take over the world
Nah, that sounds like work
Going dark with it: How much are organs worth on the black market?
Keeping it light: like 4 or 5 maybe, as long as there is no degradation in capabilities I think I could feasibly let 1 do my job, then the rest and myself could pursue other intellectual endeavors. I would also always have a full D&D group and be able to play the multiplayer games I have always wanted to that never had the interest of my friends.
DnD issue: memory sync.
You're just yourself playing yourself, and all copies know what all copies are thinking.
That's not a malfunction, it's a feature.
I always play wildly different characters in my campaigns and like to mix things up. The other players knowing what I am thinking just means that I don't have to communicate my hair brained schemes.
If you would be willing to sell the organs of your clones, it stands to reason that your clones would be willing to sell yours. I think you would likely be harvested first and then they would devolve into a game of organ harvesting Highlander as they all turned on each other.
A billion copies to lead a communist revolution. Any more than that would probably be unsustainable globally in the short term while the existing capitalist systems are being dismantled and replaced.
Or 3 or 4 clone friends to help out with daily life.
Both are cool. The latter is probably easier and what my copies could actually manage.
Edit: Actually, the ability to sync memories is so ridiculously overpowered that one could probably achieve pretty much anything with their copies.
It also seems like its usefulness would scale up exponentially the more copies you make, so I'll go with the first one.
I mean, with that ability you are basically a hivemind. And if playing Stellaris has taught me anything, it is that more pops are always good.
Of it's naruto style, I would make a 100 of me, have them all find jobs for a year or two, then collapse them all back and never have to work again aince I now saved for 100+ years.
The copies have no living expenses?
They do, but they will earn enough to save some, times 100 it's a lot
This post could be phrased better...
If you could split yourself into a copy of yourself... And why is it one?
So what happens with my copy once I'm done with it?
Does it just continue to exist?
Do I need to kill it before it figures out that there can be only one, and kill me first?
Reminds me of the episode from Rick and Morty
Which one lol.
There are multiple episodes which come to mind.
What a bunch of useless SOBs. Can't I clone somebody better?
Zero. I don't hate myself enough to put myself through this twice.
Hell, I’m sad and depressed too when I’m alone, but I manage to get the laundry done and keep the lights on.
You are mistaking not wanting to torture another human being and subject them to a miserable existence, with depression. I think you might also be confusing being sad and lonely with depression.
Imagine being the copy that has to work while one does the family and one is traveling. The ethics of making a copy of myself that is for all purposes a slave would be really weird. Enslaving copies of myself, what a concept. Oh, also one needs to be kept on away for organ needs as I age or get hurt and one with a master copy in case the main "I" dies unexpectedly. yikes
OP says you can sync memories both ways - easy solution is to just take turns.
The second season of Invincible touches on this with the Mauler Twins (which aren't actually twins, but instead one guy who clones himself and copies over his brain so there is always two of him around):
That's assuming your copies have individualism. Where I feel my copies would believe in the greater good. Almost all know the role they play to make my true version incredible.
And knowing myself well, one would absolutely rebel to have empathy for the "worker" versions, and find a middle ground. Maybe 4-day weekends and vacations once a year.
I would actually take a very different route as a contrast to others on this thread:
I would clone some 20-30 mes and do a speedrun together to gather enough funds to buy a farm, and live out the rest of my life in a commune dream with others like me 🥹
Eventually there’d be other people joining in and I could release more and more of the clones as we gather enough saved up and finish the mortgage and all.
So eventually we’d find something of a balance at around 2-4 clones with which we’d just arrange a rotating system of guaranteeing 3 weeks of free time each between a week of work 😌
Two clones, else it's going to start getting crowded here I think.
One of us works full time. One of us studies full time. The third would be entertainment (go see a movie, go to events, etc.). Every week, we rotate.
I'm not sure my income can support a full time student and full time layabout lol
If you're only working and studying 1/3 of the time how does each copy keep up with stuff at work and especially in the studies?
When they re-merge each week they share memories
I live near a few military bases, so enough to overrun the guardhouses and evict all the troops currently inside. I would need like 100,000 clones (one of the bases is pretty big).
Does the power clone any equipment I'm carrying? If yes then I can get a single military uniform and a box of ammo before I start - if not the initial attack will have to be a human wave that captures an armory at least.
Once I'm rolling I will unironically do the "enemy at the gates" thing by having twice as many clones as I have rifles. If the man in front of you dies, clone yourself and pick up his weapon!
Just one. I’d get twice as much software written, and amazing blowjobs.
However….. I’d need to make sure that They have a desire to obey me. Because I don’t do anything I don’t want to do, and I’d very quickly tell “me” to go fuck myself.
There's an interesting book that goes into these issues...
Kiln People is a 2002 science fiction novel by American writer David Brin
The novel takes place in a future in which people can create clay duplicates (called "dittos" or golems) of themselves. A ditto retains all of the archetype's memories up until the time of duplication. The duplicate lasts only about a day, and the original person (referred to in the book as an archie, from "archetype", or "rig", from "original") can then choose whether or not to upload the ditto's memories. Most dittos want to inload, so that their experience will be continuous with that of their archie.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiln_People
My wife and I joke about how we could really use a "grey" some days.
Damn that sounds like a fun read.
Everyone keeps tell me to go fuck myself. Inonly need the one copy to live out that wish.
You really need to work on your creativity - three, maybe four, copies would be much more fun.
Just the one, we'd both sit around doing nothing. Get him to give me a hand job, it's not gay if it's you right?
I'd be less concerned with gay and more concerned with doing your immediate family...
You know that episode of Futurama, where Bender made near infinite copies of himself and nearly the destroyed the world?
Yeah that, but maybe a little slowly since I like to procrastinate.
None. I don't think clones could satisfy my wishes. And I wouldn't want to burden them with a life.
Oh good. I was starting to think I was the only Eeyore in here.
I have enough problems managing myself. I don't see any advantages to doubling the workload.
Would you be able to manage yourself better if you could hold up a mirror to yourself? Maybe by having a clone judge you, as you judge yourself now, you might be more prone to change?
Nah, I'm getting old and crusty, I don't change easily without kicking and screaming. Plus I'd probably be annoyed as hell by my other self. I have my flaws, but I've learned to live with them - I just don't want those flaws to have twice the amplitude.
Two would be ideal.
Three would have greater benefits, greater complexity and problems.
Assume you could sync your memories after each day. What would you do with them?
One would go to work, the other would be a house-husband.
I love my work, just don't have enough time to stay home, keep the place clean and tidy, read my books, visit places and chill!
Ah, Multiplicity. An underrated Michael Keaton comedy, IMO.
My biggest cost is rent, we can all sleep in a big-ass ratking, boys love threesomes without the trouble of figuring out who the third will be, AFAIK food costs scale in my favor if I got a second job and a third me for hobbies. We could claim to be twins but also rotate who's running the of and faking vacation etc, produce higher quality content more often and charge more for it. and 4-100 mees for dumpster-diving/terrorism. Are there limits? Are the copies permanent? I'd like to replace the government of my country and the power seems OP as I could just copy up and annex everything in cartoonishly massive human waves.
You can reclaim your copies and spawn more whenever you want.
I know you want to enact change in your life, but isn't overthrowing the gov't a bit extreme? You have to remember that a good number of fascists voted for the status quo, and so will oppose you even more if you take the country by storm.
Why not enact change locally in your community first, and then see if people like what you're doing, and if so, try to spread that change, and essentially undermine the gov't and their fascist voters by showing them an easy alternative, and eventually shame them into doing the right thing, all without a single drop of blood.
Why not enact change locally in your community first
Then the government knows what I look like and will be able to plan around my existence. Most national security policies assume cartoonishly massive human waves coming out of nowhere are not possible. The element of surprise and the rush attack is key to victory. Revealing that I have this power without conquering the planet ensures instead that I get kidnapped and get experimented with in a secret bunker.
You mean feed and house more people on a single income and subject those people to this hellscape? No thanks.
Plus, is my clone really going to be fine with acting as a slave? Unlikely.
I was thinking something more along the lines of splitting the work equally, then synching memories after and then I have way more free tine (I'd unsplit for that).
Yeah, I was thinking something like "come home for lunch" and swap roles. Both work half the day, and both get half a day to do a few chores/errands each week and get some downtime to play/learn/explore/tinker. Then divide and conquer in the evening the same way; split parenting time and other-stuff time.
I considered that but it still increases costs plus my clone will also have the same hobbies that i already can't afford.
It would definitely be nice to split tasks but I'm just not sure it's worth it.
Unless they are also working which puts us back to square one.
I thought about this and sometimes I really appreciate having someone to offload executive function to (like a personal trainer). Maybe we could take turns.
I enjoy both acting like a leader, as well as not having to think and just doing what I'm told. But I don't enjoy, or am productive, when I have to both act as my own leader and follow my instructions. Splitting in 2 and aplitting those 2 roles would probably increase my productivity and happiness 10 fold.
I almost can't imagine a reasonable upper bound. Maybe 1000? That would certainly be enough to be able to do some serious stuff.
The ability to sync memories and have the same experiences and past would be crazy. I could align myself and all the clones to a shared goal easily. With the amount of clones, I could do basically anything.
Only problem I can see is... is there a way to know the "original"? Would I be in control of my clones? Or would I myself just be another clone? I think I'd still go for something like 1000 even if I was just another clone.
If you wanted to, you could tattoo each clone with a timestamp to know who was the true Alpha.
In terms of control, you could do the Naruto method of spawning a few clones for a given task, and then halting them (with a memory sync) before proceeding on to the next stage of your plan and spawning off new clones with your new memories.
1000 seems a bit excessive to be honest. I can imagine having 1 or 2 for leisure, 2 or 3 for work, 2 or 3 for hobby projects, maybe a max of 10 to make me happy.
The other 990 seems like you have visions of world domination
The other 990 seems like you have visions of world domination
I think I would need more than 1000 clones for that :P but definitely visions of some major influence. Why not if given that kind of power? I would try and make the world a better place.
What are the limitations here? Like... can I boss the clones around, or will they need to be coaxed?
Because if I can get a clone army you bet your ass I'm getting a clone army.
Just one. Cutting my work and responsibilities in half would be a significant improvement in my quality of life.
Not to mention having things done precisely the way I like. Reminds me of the black mirror "White Christmas" episode where they were creating digital clones to act as personal assistants.
Would you be able to live with yourself?
I've had worse roommates. I can make it work.
I'm having an orgy with myself for sure.
I’m assuming these copies would also need to eat, sleep, and bathe as well, so there’d be some cost increases as these copies are added into the mix. Just getting extra jobs probably would only go so far before questions started getting asked or somebody noticed, so an army of me working multiple jobs really wouldn’t go well. I’d probably keep it minimal with only one copy, maybe two if I could make it work financially and set up some sort of work rotation so that “I” was only going into work once every few weeks. I might start doing a bunch of freelance design, writing books, gaming and whatever else.
Even better though would be if these were short-term copies that I could just absorb back into myself after a day or whatever and I didn’t have to worry about maintaining their bodies, like Mr. Meeseeks and they just disappear after their task is done. Then I’d just make copies left and right. “Oh shit, I’m out of milk. Copy #3,945,612, go get some milk, thanks.”
If it were me, there's a risk I would gain weight as I just sit at home playing video games and watching TV while my copies did all the work and errands. So each new copy would be slightly chubbier than the last. I would have to make a real effort to stay active, maybe exercise while my copy is out doing stuff, or get into an outdoor sport.
Do the copies require existing matter? If not, I'm making infinite clones to explore the cosmos.
2 clones should be good. I can do a lot with 3 of me without complicating much.
Probably one, and I would need to swap the good and the bad parts between us.
Burdening your bad parts onto a version of yourself won't accomplish much if your memories sync regularly. I think you might need to defeat your demons another way
You only said memories can sync, not that they have to.
I'm not talking about memories, but duties.
Only if the copies are temporary. If they're actual permanent clones, all I've done is create more issues for myself. They gotta eat, and we can't both work, how we gonna file taxes separately?
You all have the same SSN, so taxes should be the same unless the gov't can prove you have clones
One. Then I can kill myself and let them deal with it all.
Then you're still one of the copies and now all copies have post traumatic stress disorder and clone suisyndrome, including you.
Don't you ruin this for me.
Being able to clone myself and sync with my clones is something I've thought about since I was a kid.
I don't think increasing the number of clones would ever allow me to satisfy all my wishes. The number of things I want to do increases with the number of experiences I have in a non-linear way. If I want to be satisfied I need to be willing to accept all of my wishes will never be fulfilled.
To answer your question specifically: 0 clones
Nice answer!
You see an exponential curve of interest, instead of an S-shaped curve? Your interests would likely develop rapidly at first yes, but even that will get boring with time and you might plateau at a small community of yourself with dwindling interests, slowly creeping back into single digits, and then finally yourself.
It wouldn't all be for nothing though, you would still have all the fruits and experiences of their/your labour.
The curve could definitely be S shaped, but it's hard to say.
I think that I would be really unhappy/bored in a world where I got to experience "everything" I wanted to do. In fact, just the idea of not having to make any trade offs/compromises is incredibly paralyzing to think about right now lol
If the clones don't allow me to live forever, eventually dying would be the most interesting thing for me to do because it would be the only "new" thing left to experience in my lifetime.
Here’s a real fun and recent take on this:
Chris and Jack
Are my clones having fun without me?
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That was brilliant
I think 5 or 6. I'd get to experience living in different cultures without having to abandon friends and family in my current location.
ಠ‿ಠ
As many as my finances can comfortably support
Assume a clone is free. You could take turns with a clone sleeping in your bed, or the couch, or the floor, or at your partner's, or crashing with a friend.
In that case then I’d start with one. Have them go to my job. And see how well they do at the job. Then get another one and have them do another job at a different site. Once I’m pulling in $200,000/year. I’d start traveling and see the world.
Since they are free. Then they don’t need food or water. Just need the heat for the house. Also need the electricity. As for clothing. Other then work clothes they can wear tshirts and jeans.
2 copies. One for work. One for Personal life. One for spare parts.
But if they have individualism then I will assume a fight will eventually break out.
I'd say two hundred to be on the safe side. Have each clone specialize in different skills that would be beneficial in a grand adventure. Have some infiltrate white nationalist groups, government positions, etc. Giving my clones their own identity would be important, so many would need to undergo plastic surgery and build fake identities. I would also have many clones assist with organizing unions and creating revolutionary organizations, though I would tell nobody of the Hestia Legion, as to avoid the eyes of the powers that be.
Have others learn martial arts, visit shooting ranges, chemistry labs, and fab shops to learn how to build tools to further Our aims.
Others, including Hestia Prime, would form a "think tank" of sorts, where we'd take all the information from the hivemind and prepare the revolution.
8.6 billion.
Each of my clones would kill one person that was not a clone of me. Then we would all commit suicide.
Climate change is solved. You're welcome. Hopefully the next animal to evolve consciousness does a better job of it.
A lot. It would be quite a few just to fully get into the hobbies I have, and quite a lot more to pursue all the things I'd like to learn.
Double digits or triple digits?
I could think of a few dozen on the top of my head, but I imagine it's one of those things that as the collective "me"s got used to it, we could probably all use an extra hand and it would quickly get into the hundreds
I think I would just need one. We'd have to work in opposing shifts to get my billion Euro idea out the door in a more reasonable time frame than the one I have currently been working in.
that seems fair. One could implement the backend, and the other the front end, and still share one mind at the end of the day