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If you got accidentally duplicated, do you think your copy would try and kill you? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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In media, there are sometimes stories where a person is cloned/duplicated (usually with identical memories) and the clone is murderous towards the original. Usually it's something like "I knew there could be only one of us, and you would do the same". Sometimes, they're able to work things out and can share a single public identity, or duplication gives one copy a chance to do go off and live a new life that they always wanted.

How would you and your duplicate get along? Assume you are living like you do today, in a society where duplication is unheard of and has no legal precedent.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

This post and the numerous replies affirming our clones wouldn't try to kill us makes me wonder, what is the basis for this trope? Is it just the assumption that any doppelganger must be evil? I wonder what the cultural origins are, would it be European fae?

Anyway, I'm pretty sure my clone would still try to kill me, but it'd be doing so out of kindness. I've always wanted to die on my feet in combat, and I've never wanted to live, so we'd kinda be fighting over who gets the privilege of death. Whichever one of us wins has to keep going, while the other gets released.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

I always felt like murderous clones are a bit different from evil twins.

From a sci-fi perspective, I've noticed that murderous clone stories tend to explore the following themes:

Whose life is more valid? Does an original have any more right to life than the clone? What aspects of life can never be split between two people with equal claim?
Would the murder ever matter, in the grand scheme of things? As far as society can tell, the world is exactly the same before you are cloned and after one of you kills the other.
Could the survivor ever be brought to justice? If the clone tried to kill you because they knew you would try to kill them, does that make it self defence or premeditated murder? Would any punishment would be a net loss for society, when compared before the clone appeared?
Could this "self destructive" impulse hide deeply inside even the nicest person? How much does a person love themselves? Can self-love even apply when the "self" is also external?