Friday, July 11, 2008

Buddies?

Who is a buddy?

A friend, a companion, a soul mate with whom you are comfortable. With whom you can laugh, cry, shout, yell and do anything to your heart’s fill. Well, we get so many mushy mushy emails everyday that describe buddies. Any definition that I give will possibly be totally inadequate.

Well, this is not what everybody seems to think. Last night, I received an email about bio-engineered buddies. So horrified was I after going through their website that I kept thinking for a long time if it was for real because all kinds of forwarded mails are doing their rounds on internet. And I kept wondering why 'this product' has not been banned. I was told later that the Customs departments of Qatar and Oman have not given passage to their packages. I wanted to post a picture from their website but then I couldn’t muster enough courage to do it.

The shock that I got on reaching their homepage is nothing as compared to the one that I received upon reading their FAQs. Their comparison to infants was something that snatched the beats out of my heart. We, the human beings, are admittedly the most intelligent organisms on earth. We can practically do anything. But do we really need to have these? Is it not a sample of our sheer crassness and callousness? Where is our aesthetic sense? Where is our quality of being human, whither humanity?

Or perhaps I am over-reacting? Maybe, but I had to share it with all of you.

Well, the manufacturers are able to market them means there are buyers who have placed orders. Or at least people are interested in buying these Genpets.

18 comments:

Monika said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Sudipta Chatterjee said...

That is absolutely disgusting!

I don't know what to say!

Monika said...

i find it very strange and amusing rather than anything else... i guess we are not far from the time we will create humans like this....

but on deeper inspection check this out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genpet

Fortunately, these are not living but just artificial pets made of latex and plastic

Pinku said...

Gawd!!!

those things look ugly, they look like malformed human embryo and they are sad...who would ever want them??

Only those with some imbalance in their top quarters.

Whats wrong with the dogs, cats, white mice, rabbits, etc etc that make for such lovely, cuddly fun pets and friends?

We human beings are seriously crossing all limits.

Sidhusaaheb said...

Thankfully, as the relevant wikipedia page points out, these are part of an elaborate hoax!

I sincerely hope that no genetic engineer will attempt such an awful experiment in reality.

Anonymous said...

These so-called Buddies may be in need of, in Sydney( Australia) and buyers may be able to spare time to take care of them,feed them once a week or so on.
Otherwise in the world of soft toys, plastic toys, battery-fitted
multiple choice toys for kids, there is hardly any need of such packed pets who have their own limitations as said on the Genpets' site.
Living pets are much more desirable than these Buddies.
Anyhow today every thing, which takes place on TV Ad,sells like a hot cake. Not to speak of poor buddies to be.
Is dunyian me sab chalta hai.
Aage aage dekho hota hai kia!

Dhindsa

Gazal said...

the down side of technology...i guess.

i never knew about this thing.

Mampi said...

Monika & SS - apart from the link you checked, I had also checked out http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/comments/4198/ which has two self contradictory statements. Plus do check the FAQ section of the main site, the link of which I had provided on the post.
If they are plastic, how come they are to be fed, how come they poop and stuff? My limited sense fails to understand. If they have a metabolism, they cannot be packaged. Do babies, cats, dogs come in neat packaging?

Sudipta, Pinku, Mama, Gazal - there are all sorts of uses/misuses of the extreme technology. Somehow the only thing that stuck me was, if you are in need of a living organism as a companion, adopt a baby and give it the love it needs. But perhaps people are not in need of giving love, they are in need of being control freaks. These weird creatures provide them with that opportunity.

Roy said...

I say: buddy is the person with whom one is allied in a struggle or cause.

Liked the title “What we obtain too cheap, We esteem too lightly.”

Anonymous said...

True! Disgusting it is, I mean go ahead any buy a dog, why this hybrid?

Anonymous said...

disgusting..i almost puked after seeing the website..i'm for real animals..people are getting sicker and sicker.

sukh

Anonymous said...

This is really disgusting! Rather say, misuse of technology. As you said, adopting a living being like an orphaned child or evening a pet is always the best option. This should be banned.

Mampi said...

Roy-Welcome to my blog. You're right about the buddy definition. Glad you liked my header words.

Maverick-Yup, so right.

Manasa and Sukh-something is wrong somewhere, isnt it? Priorities are less humane perhaps.

PARRY said...

I dont think you should worry or take it so seriously.These are latex toys which go one step ahead than other mechanical battery dominated ones by being bio engineered and closely resembling artificial human babies (or embroys) but still they are non living.
You have a point when you speak of its buyers but I find the pervasive practice of killing of animals(who could have been our Pets or Buddies!) for our non veg diet far more repulsive and offensive than the use of these Genpets.

Gurinderjit Singh (Guri@Khalsa.com) said...

playground -> tv -> VCR -> Cable -> dvd -> XBOX -> Bio-engineered -> What next?

Ramanujam said...

Are you sure the website isn't an elaborate hoax?

Roop Rai said...

it is a hoax, lovely. rather a spoof.

http://www.snopes.com/critters/crusader/genpets.asp

you must do another post about it now :D :D. the artist dude who made these genpets is just trying to raise questions that you raised about extent of bio-engineering. this is the way he chose to do it. i quite liked his style though. nothing like a spoof website as such to catch attention of people. good on him. :)

Mama - Mia said...

its indeed disgusting!

just looking at it made my flrsh crawl! to think someone would these things as pes is unreal!

LOVED your blog!

cheers!

abha