yeah, not to keen on Jurassic Park, except at the imaginary level.

We need to stop unnaturally wiping out the species we already have, first.
C'mon Oskar, you aren't the "we can only do one thing" type normally. Nothing about cloning precludes the attempt to stop current extinctions. In fact, cloning technology may be one way to prevent extinctions.

Maybe not "preclude". But there's only so many scientists and scientific research facilities to go around, only so much money (yes, money is always a factor), only so much attention span.....

Though I generally support research for the sake of expanding knowledge, I have mixed feelings about some of our priorities. Children die for want of basic needs, others languish in foster care limbo...but by golly there's money to be made on infertility treatments and IVF so they go full speed ahead. People suffer, die for want of basic medical care...but there's money to be made on elective cosmetic surgery so we have doctors, nurses, resources and facilities making billions a year on bigger boobs and botox. ( Imagine if we could wave a magic wand and turn all those facilities and resources into primary care centers!) We euthianize millions of companion animals for lack of resources, but there's money to be made in backyard breeding "designer dogs" (aka mutts) so we do nothing about uncontrolled breeding. We make advances in decoding the human genome, and right away there's a question of who "owns it" because someone wants to make a profit.

Now, cloning. Why bother making the effort to save species or solve problems if we can just cook up new versions of whatever it is for profit?

I'm not saying we should stop advances in knowledge. But maybe we should devote a little more energy into solving a few problems first?

I agree with you that the priorities of our society as a whole are way out of whack Chaos, but it seems to me that there are far greater imbalances than the one you present. In fact, why not apply the same argument to every kind of research? After all, the money could be directed at providing basic needs for children.

The problem is with that word "could". The real question is "would" it be, and the answer is almost certainly "no". Children don't die because of lack of basic needs because society as a whole doesn't have the resources to provide them, its because, ultimately, people don't want us to. They would prefer other things. Don't blame the miniscule resources devoted to cloning for that, check out the US military budget instead.

Now, cloning. Why bother making the effort to save species or solve problems
Because saving species and solving problems are worthwhile things to do as well, and there are a LOT more resources devoted to them then there are to cloning.

if we can just cook up new versions of whatever it is for profit?
They aren't "new" versions that have been "cooked up", they would be original versions restored to life. And why bring "profit" into it?

I'm going to start a business that clones prostitutes.
The name of the business will be:

"We Clone 'em, You Bone 'em."

And why bring "profit" into it?

Because the answer to 99 out of 100 questions is money.

Because the answer to 99 out of 100 questions is money.

Not in my world... Thank goodness.