ParanoidObsessive posted...
It's why people started talking about whether or not clones should have rights years ago.
As much as people dismiss science-fiction as nerd entertainment, one of the core ideas of sci-fi has always been to sort of play around with the idea of the ramifications of things before they actually matter.
Stories written about nanomachines leading to a "grey goo" scenario help encourage us to think about safeguards to prevent something like that from ever happening if we ever manage to become capable of making them. Discussing whether or not sapient robots would rebel (or even the damage that could be done by "dumb" robots following poorly-worded orders) encourages us to try and build precautions into them. Thinking about the potential negative side-effects of building things like Von Neumann probes may prevent us from making a terrible mistake and destroying pretty much everything.
If we've already got established cultural norms and expectations for a thing long before it ever exists, it makes it a lot easier to cope with it once it does. As opposed to panicked debate and argument afterward.
Humans are really, really bad at making good decisions when emotional or rushed. Way better to nerd out about shit decades in advance.
Let's harvest all the clone's organs.