Cloning Isn't As Cool/Terrible As You Might Think

Listening to some people in my bio class today made me think that maybe I should post my rant on cloning. I've only ever said it out loud, usually when someone is doubting whether cloning is such a good idea. A lot of people seem to have problems with the idea of cloning humans. What is the problem? A twin is essentially a clone. In vitro fertilization is essentially cloning. No matter what the movies say babies cannot be grown in tanks of pink or yellow liquids. They need a mother. I don't believe any animals have been cloned without being born from a mother. I wish cloning was as awesome as it is in Star Wars, but it's not. I'm no professional, and I'm certainly not very educated on the subject, but to the best of my understanding to clone a human is actually really boring. The scientists take a dna molecule and then fertilize an egg with it or something. Then they need to plant it in a woman's uterus where it can continue to grow just like every other baby. Maybe people are aware of this when they say human cloning is wrong, and if they are I think they are crazy. If I suddenly found out that I was a clone of someone from the past I really don't think I would care. What's the big ethical dilemma? If we can drive cars and cut down tree to make useless shit and hunt animals to extinction then how could human cloning possibly be so wrong?

A seagull flew over me today and I had to ask myself, if birds were really good at aiming where they pooped would they be pooping on me all the time? I wonder if birds are even aware of where they poop. I always feel like they have some kind of superiority complex feeding animosity towards us ground-dwelling humans and it seems like they would be out to get us in whatever way they can. Whatever it is, I'm glad they either have bad aim or generally don't want to poop on us because life would be a lot grosser if they did.

I came up with an awesome idea last night just before going to bed. Dream betting. The premise is very simple. The participants decide on a particular subject together, generally one that is very bizarre and random. Then each participant tries to be the first person to dream about that particular subject. That person wins the bet and whatever was at stake, say $2 or something. Obviously the honour system is the key here since no one can know if you actually dreamed something or not. That's why low stakes are safer. Subjects could range widely, and there could also be multiple bets going at once, some with higher stakes if they seem more difficult to dream. I think the game would be tons of fun. I wanted to test myself to see if I could dream a bizarre subject on command so last night I focused on 'fighting an albino kangaroo' while lying in bed. Apparently I dream in irony now. Rather than fighting an albino kangaroo in my dream I dreamed about explaining dream betting to my mom, using the example of fighting an albino kangaroo. At least it was on my mind. Before each bet is made, rules should be established for what the acceptable conditions of dreaming the subject are. For example, if I merely observed an albino kangaroo or challenged an albino kangaroo to a fight but it declined these would not be bet winning conditions. I intend to start dream betting as soon as I find willing participants.

I also had a dream that I was in a video game with my brother. I guess it was a video game because we had objectives and stuff but we were doing everything in real life. We had hijacked or were going to hijack some important technology from UBC and were trying to stay ahead of the authorities, driving down a highway that was supposed to be around UBC but did not look much like it. It looked more like a generic racing game highway, or maybe Richmond. I don't really remember much else.

I figured out this morning that one of my dream collection strategies is that if I wake up without anything to remember I just go back to sleep and get some new dreams. I couldn't do it this morning at all because I had to get up early and leave, thus the lack of detailed dreams.

Lastly, Simon and Edgar, if you are reading this, please consider a trilogy because Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz are so good.