13 points

Well that’s some cursed knowledge right there.

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2 points
*

I figured this out while thinking about Red Dwarf. Canonically, Lister is his own father. How can his DNA remain stable across all the time loops if he’s saturated his own ancestry with himself? This is the answer. It was a 1 in 2^42 chance the first time, but after that, the time loop preserves the coincidence and Lister ends up his own clone every time. He gets all his own DNA from himself every time, and then he just has to get the same DNA from his mum every time. The science is sound. It’s tremendously unlikely, but in the infinity of the universe it had to happen eventually, assuming an infinite supply of time travellers banging their own mums.

You can also apply this logic to Futurama, Star Trek, and any other science fiction show with a grandfather paradox.

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44 points

It’s unlikely to have ever happened.

2^42 is 25 times the total number of people ever born in all of history.

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28 points

…i think it’s quite a bit more than that

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9 points
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Deleted by creator
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2 points

I made a typo and used 177 b.

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2 points

getting correct within a factor of 2 after a 42-fold exponentiation would be amazingly good mental math

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3 points

I had to check the math and I was surprised that 2^42 is “only” 4.4 trillion. Thought it would be a lot greater like there are less atoms in the universe similar to the uniqueness of a shuffled deck of cards.

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5 points

Also, twins aren’t identical copies either. Different fingerprint etc.

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5 points

Fingerprints aren’t genetically coded, and clones wouldn’t have the same fingerprints, either.

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-1 points
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I typically associate “clone” with “an exact copy”, with the same exact molecular layout and even thoughts. So a literal exact copy. Clones on a DNA basis, so something possible for years, would indeed be different in some details.

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24 points

google chromosome crossing over

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7 points

Yea the number is way higher than that

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6 points

Holy genetic diversity

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3 points

You mean googol?

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59 points

People tend to shit on clones, but who else can come up with a large enough army to defend the Republic?

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15 points

At 1/2^42 odds, you’re unlikely to have a large enough army to man a V Wing, much less defend the Republic

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For me, the main issue with cloning is that it inherently assumes that the cloned organism is way better than any potential organism you could get the ol’ fashioned way. Like eg. people cloning their old pets are literally saying that their old pet was perfect and any other puppy/kitty couldn’t match them.

Though it’s a nice strategy to get a bunch of soldiers quickly

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5 points

Not even the Republic, it would appear.

The Confederacy of Independent Systems has far more BattleDroids than your Republic has Clones.

Defeat of the Republic is inevitable.

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3 points

Yes but battle droids can’t improvise!

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16 points

Untrue, chromosomes also get shuffled during crossover

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1 point
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