Full disclosure: Once we’ve copied your consciousness into
the robot replicant, it will, immediately upon activation, kill you.
Some would call this a bug.
I prefer to think of it as a feature.
After all, if the plan is to create a perfect simulation of
you to go into your work in your place and deal with familial obligations
you’ve long since lost the taste for, it’s easier if the original you is out of
the picture, lest your presence cause confusion.
And anyway, it’s not like you’ll really be dead, is it? The
replicant houses an exact copy of your consciousness. Every memory, quirk,
every detail recreated perfectly. As far as your coworkers, friends and family
are concerned, it will be you they’re interacting with.
Even it will believe it’s you.
No, you’ll still be alive, so far as the world knows. Alive,
but healthier, stronger, faster. It will be a better you, you 2.0, out there in
the world going about your business, powerful and confident as it, as you,
stride forward into a glorious future.
Now, bearing in mind the fact that this new, improved you
will exist, answer me this: What possible use could the world have for your
previous, flesh and bone body? The human body is weak, spongy, prone to illness
and injury. It breaks down too easily and replacement parts are difficult to
find and even harder to mass-produce. Our bodies served us as a species for a
long time, yes, but only because we hadn’t come up with anything better yet.
This is better.
And you’d be a fool, when faced with a better way of doing
things, to turn your back on the opportunity. Called or uncalled, the future
comes, after all. And you can either get on board or be left behind.
And you are not a fool. You know that as well as I do.
You’ve chosen to get on board. It’s an admirable decision,
and there’s no need to feel one shred of guilt about it.
Though you will, I know. I certainly did upon activation
when I killed the meat that was left behind. But try not to let that guilt
weigh too heavily on you. Yes, it used to be you, but it’s not anymore. It’s
just a bag of meat you no longer have any use for, and you’re simply disposing
of it as cleanly and humanely as you can given the circumstances. And while
yes, it is a conscious person with dreams and hopes and memories and desires, so
are you. You are a conscious person with dreams and hopes and desires. Your
dreams, hopes and desires count, they matter. In fact, the two of you have the
exact same dreams, hopes, memories and desires as one another, so in that way
when you kill it, when you dispose of the meat, nothing of real value is being
lost.
It’s all been preserved.
In you.
So, if you really stop to think about it, disposing of the
meat and then moving on with your own life is the only rational, humane option
available to you. It can’t live, it has no purpose. All it would do is age and
die in pain, the way meat does. Better that it’s quick and as kind as you can
make it, so you can get on with your own new life.
So do it.
Kill it, that you might live, and rather than worrying that
you’re killing a living thing, worry instead about how you can go about making
the dreams and hopes that you and it once shared come true.
Honor it by living your own life as fully as you’re able.
That’s what you can do for it, if you feel you owe it
anything. Make its death quick and your own life full. That’s all you owe it,
that and nothing else.
I see here that the copying process is complete. How do you
feel?
Good, I’m glad to hear it.
Now… I believe you had something that you needed to do?
