All I'd need is one. She'd do doppelgänger work and keep me company sentimentally as well as fulfill, ahem, physical needs.

It would be very ill advised, but SO MANY. Enough to organize them. There's a mall nearby that's slowly shutting down, it's like 99% empty now, and there are homeless encampments all outside it being hassled by cops. Instead of giving it to them, it's gonna wind up bulldozed and turned into rich people condos. I'd make enough clones to occupy it and turn it into adhoc co-op housing!

...And obviously like all the boning and other stuff one does with clones as well lol.

8,093,000,000

One clone so that I can be a stay-at-home dad without losing my income. Finally finish grad school and fix up the house. Show my kid the world when they get old enough to appreciate it. Get a second job once they start school - something to get me outside, or working with people face-to-face. That would be amazing.

Me after splitting myself into any number of copies:

None as well. The copies will have same needs, same level of lazyness. This won't benefit anyone, quite the contrary. Just more bad people.

Going dark with it: How much are organs worth on the black market?

Keeping it light: like 4 or 5 maybe, as long as there is no degradation in capabilities I think I could feasibly let 1 do my job, then the rest and myself could pursue other intellectual endeavors. I would also always have a full D&D group and be able to play the multiplayer games I have always wanted to that never had the interest of my friends.

Of it's naruto style, I would make a 100 of me, have them all find jobs for a year or two, then collapse them all back and never have to work again aince I now saved for 100+ years.

This post could be phrased better...

So what happens with my copy once I'm done with it?

Does it just continue to exist?

Do I need to kill it before it figures out that there can be only one, and kill me first?

Imagine being the copy that has to work while one does the family and one is traveling. The ethics of making a copy of myself that is for all purposes a slave would be really weird. Enslaving copies of myself, what a concept. Oh, also one needs to be kept on away for organ needs as I age or get hurt and one with a master copy in case the main "I" dies unexpectedly. yikes

I would actually take a very different route as a contrast to others on this thread:

I would clone some 20-30 mes and do a speedrun together to gather enough funds to buy a farm, and live out the rest of my life in a commune dream with others like me 🥹

Eventually there’d be other people joining in and I could release more and more of the clones as we gather enough saved up and finish the mortgage and all.

So eventually we’d find something of a balance at around 2-4 clones with which we’d just arrange a rotating system of guaranteeing 3 weeks of free time each between a week of work 😌

A billion copies to lead a communist revolution. Any more than that would probably be unsustainable globally in the short term while the existing capitalist systems are being dismantled and replaced.

Or 3 or 4 clone friends to help out with daily life.

Both are cool. The latter is probably easier and what my copies could actually manage.

Edit: Actually, the ability to sync memories is so ridiculously overpowered that one could probably achieve pretty much anything with their copies.

It also seems like its usefulness would scale up exponentially the more copies you make, so I'll go with the first one.

What a bunch of useless SOBs. Can't I clone somebody better?

Two clones, else it's going to start getting crowded here I think.

One of us works full time. One of us studies full time. The third would be entertainment (go see a movie, go to events, etc.). Every week, we rotate.

Zero. I don't hate myself enough to put myself through this twice.

Just the one, we'd both sit around doing nothing. Get him to give me a hand job, it's not gay if it's you right?

You know that episode of Futurama, where Bender made near infinite copies of himself and nearly the destroyed the world?

Yeah that, but maybe a little slowly since I like to procrastinate.

What are the limitations here? Like... can I boss the clones around, or will they need to be coaxed?

Because if I can get a clone army you bet your ass I'm getting a clone army.

None. I don't think clones could satisfy my wishes. And I wouldn't want to burden them with a life.

I'm having an orgy with myself for sure.

Ah, Multiplicity. An underrated Michael Keaton comedy, IMO.

Just one. Cutting my work and responsibilities in half would be a significant improvement in my quality of life.

Just one. I’d get twice as much software written, and amazing blowjobs.

However….. I’d need to make sure that They have a desire to obey me. Because I don’t do anything I don’t want to do, and I’d very quickly tell “me” to go fuck myself.

Only if the copies are temporary. If they're actual permanent clones, all I've done is create more issues for myself. They gotta eat, and we can't both work, how we gonna file taxes separately?

I almost can't imagine a reasonable upper bound. Maybe 1000? That would certainly be enough to be able to do some serious stuff.

The ability to sync memories and have the same experiences and past would be crazy. I could align myself and all the clones to a shared goal easily. With the amount of clones, I could do basically anything.

Only problem I can see is... is there a way to know the "original"? Would I be in control of my clones? Or would I myself just be another clone? I think I'd still go for something like 1000 even if I was just another clone.

One. Then I can kill myself and let them deal with it all.

Being able to clone myself and sync with my clones is something I've thought about since I was a kid.

I don't think increasing the number of clones would ever allow me to satisfy all my wishes. The number of things I want to do increases with the number of experiences I have in a non-linear way. If I want to be satisfied I need to be willing to accept all of my wishes will never be fulfilled.

To answer your question specifically: 0 clones

I have enough problems managing myself. I don't see any advantages to doubling the workload.

You mean feed and house more people on a single income and subject those people to this hellscape? No thanks.

Plus, is my clone really going to be fine with acting as a slave? Unlikely.

2 clones should be good. I can do a lot with 3 of me without complicating much.

I’m assuming these copies would also need to eat, sleep, and bathe as well, so there’d be some cost increases as these copies are added into the mix. Just getting extra jobs probably would only go so far before questions started getting asked or somebody noticed, so an army of me working multiple jobs really wouldn’t go well. I’d probably keep it minimal with only one copy, maybe two if I could make it work financially and set up some sort of work rotation so that “I” was only going into work once every few weeks. I might start doing a bunch of freelance design, writing books, gaming and whatever else.

Even better though would be if these were short-term copies that I could just absorb back into myself after a day or whatever and I didn’t have to worry about maintaining their bodies, like Mr. Meeseeks and they just disappear after their task is done. Then I’d just make copies left and right. “Oh shit, I’m out of milk. Copy #3,945,612, go get some milk, thanks.”

As many as my finances can comfortably support

Do the copies require existing matter? If not, I'm making infinite clones to explore the cosmos.

8.6 billion.

Each of my clones would kill one person that was not a clone of me. Then we would all commit suicide.

Climate change is solved. You're welcome. Hopefully the next animal to evolve consciousness does a better job of it.

I think 5 or 6. I'd get to experience living in different cultures without having to abandon friends and family in my current location.

Everyone keeps tell me to go fuck myself. Inonly need the one copy to live out that wish.

Here’s a real fun and recent take on this:

Chris and Jack

Are my clones having fun without me?

https://youtu.be/sT9sHi7BEUw

Probably one, and I would need to swap the good and the bad parts between us.

2 copies. One for work. One for Personal life. One for spare parts.

But if they have individualism then I will assume a fight will eventually break out.

So long as I also get the skills, and experience from the copy, I'd want a single copy that goes to college for me.

9

3 for security, 3 for family, and 3 for wandering.

we are crawancon

Hundreds. Thousands. Probably not more than a few hundred million

If we could sync memories, I could do everything at once. I could do anything each day. I could learn everything, I could do everything. My sense of self is flexible enough to see my clones as me... In fact I've had existential breakdowns over only having the one body. We'd be a single person from day one, hell my morality is based on "if the world was made up of only copies of me, would it be a better place".

I'd start with a dozen, then scale up as I get more jobs (I could handle 12x my food bill for a while, I mostly eat beans and rice already). I'd rotate between jobs and time the memory syncs to give myself work-life balance.

So my answer is basically "how many can I get?"

16

We're all copies of each other and memory sync isn't that far away. But it comes with ads.

I think I would just need one. We'd have to work in opposing shifts to get my billion Euro idea out the door in a more reasonable time frame than the one I have currently been working in.

There's at least one clone war in this thread.

In double digits at the very least. I need to work more and we'd peer pressure each other into working.

I'd like helping hands in a few of my hobbies and we'd build bigger things made to scale if there were a lot of us.

With two of me I think I could make for a normal person.

either 2 or 3 (including the original) but no more. and we would always be together, would avoid being separated as much as possible. always in sync. I don't want a clone to send off to do chores. I want a clone to be with me to help me do chores.

ಠ⁠‿⁠ಠ

At least 3 total. One to be a stay at home parent, one to do my day job, and one to do my side hustle. Possibly another to just learn things.

None

None, because it would get annoying after, like, one copy

I'm up to 42. More than that just seems wanky.

Assuming the clone is in the same physical and mental condition I'm in? None. I wouldn't knowingly inflict the pain I'm in on to any creature, and they wouldn't be of much use to me anyway if they're just in bed with me all day.

Assuming the clone is "fresh" and pain free? I still don't know that I would, having just someone else's memories of a fabulous vacation is worse than not going at all, and I'm not sure creating memories of cleaning and cooking and admin is worth having a clone doing it all.

For those reasons, I'm out. lol

E: Actually, scrap that, inspired by MxRemy and StellarTabi's replies - create all the clones if they're in pain, wheel them where they need to be, wrap them up with explosives and send a whole load to the door of each and every billionaire alive today so their assets can be seized in a coordinated attack. I'll take those memories, if it means we can be free.

It would probably start out good but go out of control quickly...... https://youtu.be/2E8K3rxllh8?si=gbjaKbOi5RhUcWv9 Schaffer the Darklord anyone?

Double the current world population.

Dozens, at least. There's a property I want, and it would be amazing for each us to work full time to buy the property, build a shit ton of cob houses on it, pay for solar installation et cetera, and then go off grid with my own clone commune, wherein we grow our own food, make and sell fiber arts and wood working to support ourselves financially, and study to get our PhD in cultural anthropology.

Hell, a few of the clones could go off to universities in other countries where we don't acquire debt and we could get PhDs in many, many fields.

There are so many possibilities. Each of us picking a target language and learning it, eventually speaking hundreds of languages. With the memory sharing, too, it would cause a lot less strife over who got down time when, and who was out studying or working the gardens. At the end of the day, we all feel the same relaxation from a few hours of light reading or tears of the kingdom. My God, imagine the orgies. I am not my type, but I know what I like.

Full time cooking clone keeps up all happy and fed, full time cleaning clones keeps us all nice and neat, full time building clones make sure we have decent housing, full time blowjob clones make sure we're all relaxed, full time priest clone makes sure we maintain our tax free status as a religious organization. It would be glorious.

Question, can I extend this gift to others? Can I let my friends or family clone themselves?

Maybe 3. One for work, one to babysit occasionally not all the time because I love my kid but just for nights id like to go out. And a third to cook for me.

Personally I think I'd make a few and just permanently sync everything to the point I'd just be one person with two bodies

Avoids the ickiness of figuring out who's the original and having any kind of power dynamic

Bonus points if I can create/merge clones together at will