2d ago

If you got accidentally duplicated, do you think your copy would try and kill you?

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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Nah I’m pretty chill so imagine clone me would also be chill.

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.
- 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?

So I've been thinking about this and I think it mostly depends on if my wife was also duplicated. If so, I could see the 4 of us living together and pooling resources. Possibly even working out some shenanigans to double dip or get out of some things. However, I can't see my wife or myself being cool with an arrangement where a duplicate and I share my wife. I don't know if I'd kill The other me over it but, I could see us coming to blows over it.

A friend who thinks exactly the same as I do and can get excited at the same ideas? Hell yeah, we'd be inseparable. I have so many projects that would be much easier done with two people. Also, free gym buddy/trainer. My partner would be into it as well for a multitude of reasons. The only trouble would be living space.
I can't think of anything worthwhile we can do as a single legal entity so first thing we'd do is probably acquire a new legal identity so we can legally work and be taxed separately and just generally participate in society. It would be pretty easy to prove that we're genetically identical and therefore are identical twins born at the same time at the same place to the same parents. Everything else can be chalked up to clerical error. The people in charge of this aren't paid enough to care and dig any further than that.

No actually we would probably be really sweet to each other and understanding. I am not naturally very competitive or hostile.

I also would bang the clone.

I’d finally have a reliable coop gaming partner. Neither of us would squander that truly priceless gift.
- Also, you can just work either double the time or half each.

She and I would definitely be fucking tbh.
Other than that, finally, enough time in the day to work on hobbies. One clone works, the other hobbys, and alternate every now and again.
- But... you don't need a clone to do that. Just find anyone who wants to live with you and work 50%.
  
  The likelihood of me waking up with a clone is higher than the likelihood of me finding someone I want to live with

Is it narcissistic to think that having a clone would be awesome as hell?

I think my duplicate and I would take turns working versus staying at home to get things done, like putting together that cat tower/rope-bridge I've (we've) been holding off on

Oh god, two of me! 😂
I think she'd keep telling me dumb jokes while trying to compete with me in drawing, and late at night she'd send me goofy memes that I'd laugh at.

No, we would work together on tasks. I would walk to work while Other Me would take my car and get errands done. Or to change things up a little, Other Me could walk to work and I would run errands.
Hell, Other Me could play my online games and make progress while I'm at work. I've been meaning to level up my Black Mage in FFXIV, but life has kept me busy.
In the evenings, we would have to clearly explain to each other what we did that day and who we interacted with. Otherwise we risk diverging into two different people.

hell no, we'd start an onlyfans.

Probably spend the first couple of days fucking and then figure out what happens next after that.
- Ooh boy 😂

I'd give him the keys, the passwords, and wish him good luck with my life. BUH BEYE!
- If he's you and you want to be free of your life and wish it could be someone else's problem then your duplicate is just going to run a mile and thank their lucky stars for this break.

Nah, We would become buddies. We would pretend to be twins in public. We'd split the work, I'd go one week and he'd go the other. We'd play Soulcalibur and Tekken and since we'd both be equally bad it wouldn't be frustrating.
- It would be hard to alternate work if its a professional role. You would have to do like update sessions and it would make more work for both of you relative to pay.
  
  Like the twins in “Moving” with Richard Pryor.
  
  Or work together and do the job in half the time and enjoy the rest

I'm pretty nice. I think it'd take some more intense circumstances like in Dark Matter before I or a copy of me wanted to kill anyone. I wonder if I'd be ok with taking turns for time with loved ones.

I don't think I'd kill me. I think it would be cool for one of us to commit a brazen crime in broad daylight whilst also having a rock-solid alibi. I couldn't have killed that person; I was giving a speech to 100 people at the time who can all testify for me. Give detectives etc a real head-scratcher when all the evidence points towards me being the culprit but I was also undeniably somewhere else.
- I'm picturing me and my duplicate having a fight that devolved into us actually trying to kill each other over this because honestly, I'd rather shoot a man.....no scratch that, I'd rather BE shot than give a speech in front of a significant number of people.
  
  Even better then, your speech would be so memorably bad that people would be even more certain it was you and you couldn't have been elsewhere.

I'm one of the copies and I'm more charming than the original that I killed.

Hopefully my clone murders me so he's the one that has to go to work

I wouldn't feel compelled to kill my clone, so I don't think my clone would feel compelled to kill me either.

We'd get along fine, but feeding two people on one salary will definitely be annoying (my job has a non-competition clause where I can't pick up a second job in the same field), and getting enough adhd meds for the both of us will be impossible due to strict regulations here.
One of us still could bring value to the household by being the designated bangmaid though
- I would trade meticulous handover notes fit in to the working week if it meant I could work one week on, one week off.
- you job barely pays enough to feed you AND and you have a noncompete?
  There is almost no way that's enforceable.
  
  Nono, it feeds me comfortably, I'm just really into saving up since I want to own an apartment one day and I'd definitely be annoyed at having to feed an extra person with no prior notice.

Too many people with twin fetishism to bother with murder.
- i've learned recently that there's a surprisingly large number of people that find me attractive despite my size and age; i would 100% create an only fans page with my duplicate to capitalize on this fact. lol
  
  Awww that's nice
  You could do it half way right now
  Maybe learn greenscreening

So far my identical twin has not killed me nor have I killed them, so I'd be safe probably.

I've seen so many TV shows, movies, even commercials where a clone or future self doesn't get along with his twin. I don't understand this. I think I'd get along swimmingly with myself. I mean what's better than spending time with someone who thinks like you do?

Anyone who has the thought: "yes i would kill clone me", you better watch your back, your clone thinks the same way you do.

I think we would get along well because I love people who laugh at my jokes and nobody laughs as hard at my jokes as I do, except maybe my wife, who after 12 years together still laughs harder than anyone I’ve ever met at my jokes.

Yes, cause I operate under Highlander Rules.

No. We would go camping and do cool stuff together. The only conflict I foresee is taking turns on the gaming PC, but we would be happy to work together to build a second one.

I’d roll the dice on just coming out publicly as two of the same guy. I’m pretty sure we’d spend like a year being minor celebrities and then everyone would stop caring.

Do we have the same personality? Because I don't see why it would escalate to murder. I don't like violence.
I think most likely is we'd take turns going to work, and one of us would always get to stay home and procrastinate on chores. For some people that probably wouldn't work as the duplicate would point out they have no obligation to their original, but I have a million siblings so an obsession with fairness has been hard-coded into my brain. We would work the exact same amount of hours and split all our sweets perfectly evenly.
I think the big downside is that I'd probably have to stop going to the gym. Alternating days would effectively halve my progress, and I'm not buying twice as much protein power.

lmao no, I'm way too lazy to try it, and also don't really have a reason to do something like that.
We'd probably just alternate going to work/uni. The extra free time sounds nice.

Finally, someone to guilt me into doing things

I would be the murderer and he would be securing our alibi.
- This could've been a great episode of columbo.

Isn't it weird how I can fap without a second thought, but the idea of having my clone give me a hand job disgusts me
- But what if you use a gloryhole?

Na I'm pretty chill. We'd just live and let live. I'd probably have to prove I'm the original which might be tricky but then the clone would leave and start a new life I guess, that's what I'd do so it's probably what my clone would do too.

Do his farts smell the same as mine? Then no, sorry dude you've gotta go live somewhere else.

If it's a perfect copy, without a doubt we'd try to kill each other as soon as the confusion of the situation wore off. We might not succeed, but we'd try.

One of us has to move out and it's not me

Oh no we'd be cool! Assuming we have the same brain, we can switch out and only work half as much. And eat half as much too I guess, but that's probably good lol
- Okay but hear me out here. What if you both worked the same job 75% of the time rather than 50? You're still working 25% less but, 25% of your pay is overtime which should be paying time and a half. It's still a pay cut but if you're both pooling your resources, probably not really noticeable.
  
  That is a solid plan, but I know me and other me would be too lazy for that lol.

- It's starting already!

Me and my clone will be allies. I don't know if we could get along well enough to cohabitate, but we would definitely help each other.

You wake up next to an Identical Clone...

More likely himself or we would be arguing about who should get to die.
- Sitcom where two clones are constantly foiling each others' suicide plans
  
  sorta a reverse spy vs spy.

Nope. There's a plan in place for that.
What? I do a lot of writing, this kind of idea isn't new, so I've thought about how it should work.

We'd both be dealing with too much existential dread to try and kill each other.

They might. But I wouldn't want that.

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