Great thread, folks.
Thales' point about it being a good idea to order directly customer->collector and cut out the middle-men seems like a very good thing. A lot of the "new internet economy" can use that model (as in that "The World is Flat" book) but a lot of established business fight tooth-and-nail to block that, because they make their money by being middle-men, and they want to defend their niches even though they've moved from a useful purpose to being vestigial parasites... so I think it's a great idea, but I think it's likely to encounter a lot of opposition from wholesalers and LFSes because they'd be cut out of the loop (I think wholesalers can evolve, and LFSes can still provide the valuable function of providing advice, supplies, and other things that still can use a local centralized clearing house, but a lot of businesses are so risk-averse that they look at all changes as a threat, and will fight for the status quo.)
Although, being a Libertarian at heart, I find Cthuhu77's notion that the individual should be responsible very appealing, I believe based on what I've observed that a lot of "exotic animals" hobbies attract people who aren't willing to learn enough to be responsible. Ideally, educating these people is the right solution, but it's not clear how best to do that, since there seems to be a continual stream of ignorant people, and many are too rushed, stubborn, or close-minded to be responsible. On the other hand, I think it's desirable to welcome new people to the community, and give them the benefit of the doubt, even if they have interest but no knowledge. Unlike, say, aviation, where there's a strong incentive to have requirements before someone is allowed to participate, there isn't anything, at least right now, that stops a novice from walking into an LFS an buying some random tank and a wonderpus. How can we give that novice an opportunity to understand the situation, and how should we address the fact that there are novices who refuse those opportunities even when they are available?
I get the impression that there is an attitude progression in being involved with exotic animals: there's sort of an initial enthusiasm, then an appreciation for the depth of the complexities and issues, and then finally, sometimes, a jaded frustration that so many participants in the field are so ignorant of the big picture. This is probably a gross oversimplification, but it seems to me that Cthulhu77 and Colin have gotten to that jaded stage, and Thales, Cuttlegirl, DHyslop, Nancy, and Carol are somewhere in the middle stage, where the enthusiasm offsets the jadedness.
Personally, I'm still pretty enthusiastic about keeping cephs, but I very much want to understand the issues and "do the right thing, and I think everyone I mentioned in the "middle ground" category is pretty much in that boat. And one of the things I like about TONMO is that we try very hard to shift people from "interested novice" to this middle ground. And while I certainly hold a great respect for Greg and Colin and Roy as having "earned their stripes," I think there's a danger of them coming across as curmudgeons since they're so frustrated with seeing so many cases of well-meaning stupidity that leads to mistreatment of animals that they're a bit inclined to associate naive enthusiasm with irresponsible, unethical bad practices. I have a great appreciation for curmudgeons, in fact, so I don't mean that as an insult, just as an observation that might help us steer things in the most positive direction possible: enthusiasm can be steered by a Gandalf-like figure to be responsible, and sometimes the enthusiastic newbies can become great advocates of the Forces of Good! I know it's terribly frustrating when people don't respect hard-earned wisdom in their enthusiasm, and there's a lot of "I refuse to admit that I don't know what I'm doing" that's just shameful, but there are also opportunities to correct this with teaching rather than condemnation, or so I'd like to think, at least. And it's perhaps helpful to remember that "back in the day" even the jaded folks were enthusiastic at the "boy, I've got a cephalopod! in my house! that's SO FRIGGING COOL!" stage (I would assume, anyway). That enthusiasm can be steered, but if it's squashed, it often leads to unfortunate responses (bitterness, resentfulness, close-mindedness, and whatnot).
in another wall-o-text(tm)