Cloning pets...

Was this "announced" in The Onion?

I agree with you that a cloned animal, though genetically identical, would have an entirely different personality. Also, some aspects of the individual are determined by environmental influences.

The moral question is somewhat misdirected, however, in my opinion. The real issue is the entire complex of frivolous things that rich people are permitted to spend their money on while the poor go hungry or homeless and have no medical care, the environment deteriorates, and cute furry animals suffer.

The question should be: Should we, as a society, permit the wealthy to do as they like with their money, or should we take it from them to use in socially beneficial ways?

The woman who cloned her cat probably would not have used that $50,000 to rescue homeless cats and dogs. She probably would have spent it on some other frivolous whim, which she has a perfect right to do under a capitalist morality.

Sadly, in America, this discussion cannot even be held without accusations of "communism."

 

Evan: Nobody in the history of the world has ever gotten rich by hard work. Great wealth comes from crime. Or from inheriting the proceeds of crime. The hardest-working people are the poorest.

I fully support the right of any person to spend earned money any way they like. Money that comes without work is another matter entirely. Curiously, the U.S. government taxes unearned income at a lower rate than earned income.

G.B. Shaw once quipped that the only thing wrong with Christianity was that it had never been tried. The same may be said of communism. Especially since the first communist was Jesus. A communist society is a voluntary arrangement, without a coercive government, in which everyone works according to ability, and everyone receives according to need. Since this is a utopian ideal, it seems unlikely ever to happen.

But I see no reason why people should be allowed to receive tens or hundreds of millions of dollars a year while others work two full-time jobs for less than it costs to house and feed a family.

 

While I understand this woman's desire to keep her beloved pet as long as possible, there's just something wrong here. I've been "mom" to several much-loved cats during my lifetime, and it broke my heart to lose the "cat love of my life" four years ago. But having him cloned. It just wouldn't be the same, no matter how much the new cat looks and acts like him. I don't even want to give cats the same names as previous cats.

I volunteer at my local animal shelter, and see many homeless cats in need of a loving home. I couldn't in all good consciousness "clone" or breed a cat instead of adopting a needy pet.

On another tangent: would anyone consider making a clone of yourself? That way, you could bring yourself up in a different way, and see how much of a difference different nurturing could have on you. (I guess I wouldn't, because I'd hate to see "me" at my peak--12!--while "I" am going downhill fast!...unless I could speed up the growth process, get my clone to about 25, and have my brain implanted in her: she'd have to be created with only basic brain functions).

 

It seems extremely unlikely that a cloned pet would act like the original. There are probably inherited factors, but too much of behavior is learned. The cloned cat would be like the two black guys who make themselves up like the two white women in the movie White Chicks: You could tell that the clone was intended to represent the original, but the similarities would be superficial, and the differences profound.

But as for criticizing the woman who had her cat cloned, you might as well criticize someone who buys a Porsche: he could have boughbt a Civic instead and used the difference to save homeless animals. ... Or you could have bought a Corolla instead of a Prius and donated the difference to an animal shelter.

People are selfish. We will give a little bit of money to "good causes," but we spend far more on ourselves (if we have it) than we really need to meet the basic necessities of life; and meanwhile cats, dogs, and people suffer.

 

Evan:

Thank you for starting this very interesting thread. What excellent people use this forum!


Daniel:

I deeply admire your radical sense of justice, and I hear lots of frustration in your "voice". I must disagree that nobody ever got rich through hard work. I think I'm rich, and the only thing I ever inherited was a disposition to autoimmune disorders and curly hair.

My father died when I was 14 years old. My mother had never worked outside the home. We were so poor that having meatloaf for dinner was a treat.

Today I own my own home, I'm enormously overpaid, so much so that we managed to pay off a 30 year mortgage in 3 and a half years. I got here by working my butt off, and I'm very pleased it worked out this way.

Communism is a type of social and economic model that could work very well if there were no human beings involved.

Cloning:

I see no moral dilemma in the cloning of a family pet. Certainly the lady could have useed her money to do good, but it was her money...

Now on the subject of human cloning, I think it is an issue that requires great thought. I'm far from being a theist, and I share the skeptical views of religion put forth by ther long-ago communists of old (opiate of the people). I hesitate at the idea of cloning humans. Evolution is our friend. Random genetic variations are good. We need to avoid messing with the system, and we must respect life above all other things.

 

You are mistaken about me. I am as selfish as anyone else. Like everyone else, I give a little to charity, and spend most of my money on myself.

As for parasites who abuse the system: you (Evan) are in a job where you see only those who come in for medical care, whether appropriate or not. You don't see the vast majority of working poor who work backbreaking jobs, long hours, for less than the cost of rent on an apartment. People who, for a variety of circumstances, never had the opportunity to study for a career. And sure, a small number of them abuse the system, but what they take is nothing compared to the welfare the rich get. The multi-billion-dollar give-aways to corporations. Where is Ken Lay today? Is he in jail for stealing billions of dollars and wiping out the savings of thousands of hard-working people? Nope. He's sitting on top of the bank, laughing.

But my main point in posting in this thread was to answer the folks who thought the woman who cloned her cat ought to have given the money to an animal shelter instead. As long as we live in a capitalist society, that woman has as much of a right to spend $50,000 on a cat as we have to spend $20,000 to $30,000 on a car.

As for me, I didn't earn my money. I inherited it. By what right do I have all this money, which I never did anything to earn, while other people in the world have nothing? No right except the perverted capitalist ethic which places property rights above human rights. But, as stated above, I am just like everyone else, and I'll keep my money and spend it on myself while I can, and give away a little. The only difference is that I recognize that by any honest morality I have no right to more money than people who work far harder than I.

 

i also dont see a problem cloning pets. i think that the only way to learn anything is to push the boundaries of our knowledge.

is everything therefore the right thing to do? hell if i know, but i will never find out until i try and fail. its my belief that its impossible to reason out the ramifications of such a situation as complicated and far reaching as this.

also, we dont know enough going in to make intelligent decisions and will never know unless we try it. i hear things like we could create genetically altered corn that might cause some sort of plague that would wipe out millions before we find out that the corn is the source is too far fetched for me to believe and basic b.s. spun by alarmists who only wish to raise questions to invoke discussion.

but if we looked at the worst case scenario of everything, then we would still be living in caves. would you have cancelled the space program back in the mid 60's if you knew ahead of time that a few dozen of the best the US has to offer would die?? some would argue that losing one life is enough to shelve the project.

im sorry, but we owe our very existence to the pioneering spirit of the scientists who are willing to take the risk, be ostracized for the actions and beliefs, and maybe fail miserably.

 

Daniel, I take exception to your statements that nobody has gotten rich by hard work. My first job was a paper route while I was in middle school. Once old enough, I went to work for Target, pushing shopping carts. This job made me able to purchase my own car, maintain it, insure it, as well as play. I did this job through high school and college. After college, I moved on to building and repairing PC's. After a while, I took a break from electronics, and drove trucks. Now I'm back in the electronics field, monitoring the wireline side of the Verizon phone network. I make a nice chunk of change every year, and not one red cent of what I make is "given" to me - I WORK for it.

I also watched my father build what is nothing less than a substantial real estate home rental "business." I remember him coming home from his "day job", only to grab toolboxes, go fix furnaces, unclog drains, repair appliances, fix sump pumps, clean vacant homes for new rentals, show vacant homes to perspective tenants, etc.

Not one red cent of his wealth was given to him, he worked for every bit of it. After he nearly died from a staph infection a couple of years ago, and due to a former manager's wife where I work now losing 65% of her fathers estate to the money grubbing government through both inheritance, death, and income taxes, my family got together to pursue avenues to keep my fathers assets intact when the inevitable happens, and they pass away.

I want my fathers estate to remain intact. His hard work does not belong to the government - it belongs to US - the family. Us four brothers all want it to remain functional as the house rental business it is, where it can keep providing housing, and provide us with an additional income, once the estate has transferred to us, when our parents have passed on. Who knows, that income will be what keeps us off of the welfare roles if something were to happen to one of us, rendering us unable to work.

As for this gal, and her spending $50k to clone her pet. That's her business. I can personally think of one dog, that I would have loved to do the exact same thing with. He was a dog pound rescue, and there will never be another dog capable of filling his paws.

 

This is an excellent thread!

First, my folks always picked up strays for pets. That was long before animal shelters. Since they were both raised on farms, I guess they had respect for animals.

Second, I also have chosen my pets from animal shelters. My present companion, "Boo Boo," is a 3 year old male cat of indeterminate parentage. I got him at the animal shelter when he was 5 months old. His previous "caregivers" had thrown him against the wall a few times when he was a kitten, so he has a gimpy rear leg.

If this rich broad wants to spend 50 g's to clone her beloved kitty, whatever. If she wants to clone a goldfish, whatever. I never would, but that's just me.

As far as the issue of fairness in the world, I firmly believe the world could be just, fair, and predictable. It's very easy to accomplish: take away all the humans. Once us greedy, selfish, conspiring humans enter the picture, all bets are off.

It really doesn't matter what belief system a person claims to believe in, it really doesn't matter what "ism" they subscribe to, in the end, we're all the same. True, a handful of people out there are truly trustworthy and honest and even nice. Some are wealthy, some are horribly poor, and some are somewhere inbetween.

Unless all the stars align, the massively wealthy probably had to bend/break more than a few rules to get their loot. I've always followed my parent's advice, and so far it has served me well:

Don't break the rules, but make sure you use them to your advantage.

Under the current stratification of "ism's" it appears our system can satisfy most people well. No, it's not the best for the environment, or even for our health or emotional/spiritual development.

Considering how selfish, greedy, and conspiring human nature is, I doubt a truly "fair" system could hope to evolve. We're in this mess as, right at the heart of it, we wanted it. Nothing happens by random chance, we create things and we create situations.

I think nature will eventually teach us a lesson. We seem to have conveniently forgotten how things like Bubonic Plague, the Black Death, or TB wiped out a substantial proportion of civilizations past. We're now facing the same thing with old diseases that have become resistant to current treatments, especially MRSA or VRSA.

Anyway, this is turning into a downer. How about this: kitties, good. Cloning kitties, iffy. Cloning humans, ugh, who would want to?

 

Wolfman:

A long time ago my folks incorporated their business to minimise taxes and preserve assets/equity. Despite having only grade school education - they were raised in the Great Depression and had to work to support their families, they also saw the benefit to sound financial decisions.

They also pressured me to incorporate too, something I grumbled about but now realize was a sound decision. When you consider that in excess of 2/3 of taxpayer money is p***** away, why give them any more than you absolutely have to?

Have you spoken to a qualified taxation attorney to determine your best course of action wrt the family business? Please seek out qualified advice, as what appears to be a "minor" misstep can wipe out a family business.

BTW: I also believe in growing assets for my older age. I rather doubt we'll have Social Security and Medicare when I'm in my 60's. It's bankrupt now.

 

its funny that we have seemed to pigeon hole on the amount of money that was spent and how the person may have or may not have arriven at the point at which they are able to spend the amount.

i think if we found that some spend upwards of $25,000 a night on a hotel room for themselves more acceptable then maybe we are not looking at the situation correctly.

facts are, i am not gonna tell someone what god to worship, im not gonna tell someone who to marry, im not gonna tell someone which hand to wipe their a** with either.

the only thing i will say is that if you want to spend your money...

SPEND IT ON ME!!!

 

I am not 100% certain what my Father has done with the business. When we were discussing this issue, he was looking at putting the estate into a trust. The properties are being phased over to a management company to deal with the stuff that my Father used to do himself. We haven't discussed the issue recently, and it's probably a good idea to bring the issue up again. My folks are in extremely good health, so I expect them to be around for a good long while yet, barring some catastrophic event. Longevity is very much in our family amongst those who have abstained from tobacco use.

 

HAHA yer funny!

Seriously, good points raised though.