You know those sci-fi teleporters like in Star Trek where you disappear from one location then instantaneously reappear in another location? Do you trust that they are safe to use?
To fully understand my question, you need to understand the safety concerns regarding teleporters as explained in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQHBAdShgYI
spoiler
I wouldn’t, because the person that reappears aint me, its a fucking clone. Teleporters are murder machines. Star Trek is a silent massacre!
If there’s an actual stream of the same matter, where did Riker 2 come from?
Thousands of usenet, IRC, BBS, forum, and reddit posts have gone back and forth on that since that episode first aired. Canon is that the transporter disassembles and reassembles and that the transport consists of, among other things, a matter stream. But also the technobabble in the episode suggests that the transporter recreated at least one of them without an extra riker worth of matter.
Replicators also require base materials to synthesize meals out of.