I would draw the line at cloning...

If there's one thing where cloning is justified, it's with human organs. Transplants from other people are a crude stopgap solution until we are able to clone replacements from our own cells.

I would say serious ethical issues should be raised at whole body clones / crazy hybrids, but I'm not going to draw a hard limit on any of those.

That was more a commentary on the disgusting state of the class-based health care system we are headed for in the US, and not necessarily the technology that enabled it. There is no reason cloned organs would have to be eternally expensive, unless one company owns the technology and creates an artificially scarce market. Hell, if we could save even 50% of the people who die languishing for a transplant, the organs would pay for themselves before too long, both in reduced inpatient care and reduced costs on society related to premature death.

So repeat after me: medical advances, good; corporate greed, bad.

Seriously? IT people are the only shining stars amidst a mass of worthless humanity? IT people have hobbies, Users have Snookie. Do you actually converse with any users in a way that may allow you to find out about their strengths, passions, and desires? You may be surprised to find out there are a lot of people out there who are every bit as talented in what they do as you are in what you do. You may even discover that acting like an actual human being around them lets you develop a rapport and in turn makes it more likely that they will listen when you explain to them what they are doing wrong with their computers.

Oftentimes when I meet IT people they almost invariable are low talent hacks who have an insufferably high opinion of themselves. They believe that the work they are doing is far more important than the work that the stupid lusers who just happen to be creating, marketing, or selling the product that keeps the IT person employed.

I, like many on here, have been granted the gift of a mind that wraps itself around technology pretty easy. Even with that said there are probably thousands of people on here who are more talented in the ways of IT than I am. I am not so sure that there are many who do a better job than I do though. I speak to the users. I try to find a common ground, feel out the best way to explain things to them, and teach them how to use their devices. It is amazing how quickly you can pique their interest when you approach them without your nose way up in the air.

I am not saying that there are not hopeless causes. Some people have brains that are simply void of curiosity. They are a blight to competent IT people, Auto mechanics, doctors, accountants, engineers, and shop machine operators. For the rest, let us stop pretending that the way IT people feel about them isn't a huge part of the problem.

From a purely utilitarian standpoint, if someone dies then you need to replace them. Skilled workers cost a huge amount to train - hundreds of thousands of dollars to take a baby and turn it into someone capable of contributing to society. A few thousand dollars to repair an existing skilled human is cheap by comparison.

On the subject of entitlement, I hope you won't be taking any antibiotics or antivirals under the same logic - 100 years ago, if you had a virus or bacterial infection that your body couldn't fight off, you died. Dying of trivially curable pneumonia isn't premature, it's natural.