Science interfering with hobbyists??

A while back I was watching the news and there was a highlight on how people can clone their pets for $50000. So I did some research and found a company called Ginetics Clonings and Savings, located in Sanfrancisco Bay who already have a service available where you can clone your cat. http://www.savingsandclone.com/ Anyhow, They estimated that the price of cloning will soon become $20000 when technology improves(its currently $50000. Since technology is always improving, Im sure we can predict that somewhere along the line, they will figure out ways to clone reptiles and cloning will also become affordable to your average person. Speaking of affordable, what if some hobbyists in more desirable morph's (ie. Albino Spider Ball Pythons, Piebald Pythons, Albino Alligators etc..) were to take their animals and clone them?? I mean the prices of these herps are already over $20000, thats big profits if you clone and sell, isn't it??? If there is no law prohibiting people from cloning their animals, what will the future of us hobbyists become??? If cloning is legal, then scientists can also go into the lab and create hybrids of animals in the same genus(ie. make a hybrid of leopard geckos and fattail geckos, something that is impossible to create without using science). Creating new morphs will turn from years and years of breeding, to a simple "take your genes to the lab". Maybe Im just thinking worst case scenario but the thought that this is possible is quite alarming. What do you think???

If we're able to just clone what we want, the value of ALL reptiles will GREATly DEpreciate.

As it is, these $20,000 animals are so expensive BECAUSE they're desired, yet hard to find and hard to recreate. If you can just clone a new one, then they're no longer so rare, and, therefore, worth less.

Say, for example, Corn was extremely hard to find, but everyone wanted some (yeah, my sister was eating corn on the cob earlier)... So it's hard to find, highly desirable, so how much will people be willing to pay for it? a LOT. In our reality, though, it IS highly desirable, but it's easy to find, so no one needs to pay a lot for it, so no one does.

Or, how about that hypothetical, obscure rookie card that's worth $1,000,000 because there were only 100 of its kind made (not many at all, from what I understand). Collectors are willing to pay a LOT of money for those because they're so rare. Now, if someone went out and made 1,000,000 more genuine copies of it, it wouldn't be so hard to find, so it wouldn't be worth as much.

Does that make sense?!?!

~~Dusty Windom

My point exactly,
rarity will not exist.

Yeap..

And no one will make big bucks off it after the initial cloning spree.

~~Dusty Windom

So look at it this way: By the time my son is as old as I am now, he is 14 and I am 48 (another 34 years to go) cloning will have become so commonplace as to have almost wiped out natural breeding programs, and heck maybe natural breeding will have become legally restricted. That would be great because the by then extremely rare naturally bred herps would have prices that went through the stratosphere. That means my son will have enough money to buy me a nice stay in a retirement village where they have hot young nurses. Yee haaaaaa!

Welcome to real forum! Hey I want some updated pics of Brutus's nephew! Man what a patty! Hurry up and post some!

and heck maybe natural breeding will have become legally restricted

Man, lets hope not! *shivers*

~Crystal Light

I KNOW!!! I like the whole Natural Breeding thing!

Has anyone read the book, Brave New World? It's centered around this whole issues - except that it's HUMANS who are cloned. S*ex is okay, but having kids is disgusting.

WEIRD book. And, would you believe, in my senior class, I was the ONLY one who argued AGAINST that kind of society??!?? the ficitonal society didn't even allow Shakespeare!!! Not MY kind of place.



~~Dusty Windom

Well human cloning is a different story,
its banned but the government has legalized the cloning of stem cells, which are used to clone organs. I dont think they will ever legalize human cloning, that would just be anarchy. lol, those kids in your highschool probably didnt think about the effects of cloning on a macro scale.

Brave New World, now that's what I am talking about. Test tube babies, clones, Epsilon Morons and all other sorts of morphs! Man think of how much a natural born snake could bring in a society like that. Of course only the top echelon could afford the good stuff, but as long as they would be willing to pay for my retirement, oh man.......

Do you guys really still readbooks like Brave New World nowadays? That amazes me, great book, makes me want to visit Arizona.