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Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

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Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#51

Post by hprotagonist »

rjf72 wrote: post #47
hprotagonist wrote: post #2

One thing i’d genuinely like to see more of in the US is easy and sanely priced access to wild game. Deer populations being what they are, and populations of environmentally troublesome species such as feral boars being what they are, it seems like a net win. i would love to be able to get my hands on venison or boar that’s been processed in a USDA-approved way, because the meat’s high quality, the animals had lives…

In most (all?) states in the US selling hunted game, such as deer or boar, is illegal. Conflicted opinions on this. I very strongly support the right to hunt, and also find it vastly more humane for the animals. On top of this I also tend to take a libertarian slant on most things. However, in this specific case you have a textbook tragedy of the commons waiting to happen. The reason game is so widespread is specific…

it’s not illegal to sell game meat per se, but the hoops you have to jump through are (probably intentionally) prohibitive.

it’s illegal to sell anything without a USDA stamp on it, and economy of scale means that it’s not profitable to have an inspected and cleared process and processing facilities just for game.

Other perfectly reasonable nations don’t do this—and in part due to the fact that deer are an invasive pest in New Zealand, you can buy wild game meat pies in gas stations for about 3 bucks there.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#52

Post by DoreenMichele »

tgb wrote: post #8

I think he's wrong about people not having loyalty to meat. There is a ton of literal hatred for veganism and vegetarians in this world. Think of the practically cult-like following bacon has. I recall a thread some years ago on Reddit's r/fitness with someone asking for vegan protein sources due to certain allergies or other health restrictions and it was spammed with dozens of comments along the lines of "bacon" an…

There is a ton of literal hatred for veganism and vegetarians in this world.

I think there is a ton of literal hatred for vegans and vegetarians, who tend to position themselves as morally superior to meat eaters and brag about how they are kinder and gentler than meat eaters, often while being openly cruel people. They are frequently seemingly oblivious to the glaring contradictions between their self image and their actual behavior.

I've known at least one person who used the label vegan while not actually being vegan. She was vegetarian and sometimes ate vegan, but calling herself vegan for the moral superiority points. She was a high-handed judgy person who was openly, consistently and persistently ugly to me when I was homeless and extremely ill.

(When I have remarked on that to vegetarians trying to lecture people about stuff, they are almost never sympathetic to how awful that was for me. Their default reaction boils down to a callous and narcissistic "Get over your crap, honey. #NotAllVegans. Your one time totally unimportant negative experience shouldn't be used to impugn my stellar character!")

Maybe if more people eat vegetarian burgers because, meh, climate change and clean eating for my own health and similar reasons without it being treated like some cult you need to join to save your soul, open hatred of meatless meals will go way down.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#53

Post by JasonFruit »

perplamps wrote: post #43
JasonFruit wrote: post #27

Maybe it's my rural background and associations, but I see a powerful psychological effect to eating meat from a real animal, and that won't disappear because some meat substitute tastes pretty good. I like falafel, I like shiitake mushrooms, I like a good veggie burger, but there's no substitute for the flesh of an animal — especially one I raised, where I know its diet, its experiences, and how it was slaughtered a…

> there's no substitute for the flesh of an animal — especially one I raised, where I know its diet, its experiences, and how it was slaughtered and butchered When PG said eating meat might sound perverse one day, it's hard to imagine how a comment like this might come across. I'm not a vegetarian and even I find it difficult to differentiate between the above justifications and the ravings of a serial killer.

Oh, you see, that's easy — a serial killer kills people. Is it maybe more moral not to think about where your meat comes from? If you are eating meat, but you can't contemplate the death of the animal that provided it, maybe you're not as morally elevated as you think.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#54

Post by DoreenMichele »

JasonFruit wrote: post #27

Maybe it's my rural background and associations, but I see a powerful psychological effect to eating meat from a real animal, and that won't disappear because some meat substitute tastes pretty good. I like falafel, I like shiitake mushrooms, I like a good veggie burger, but there's no substitute for the flesh of an animal — especially one I raised, where I know its diet, its experiences, and how it was slaughtered a…

Maybe it's my rural background and associations...

Almost certainly. People tend to feel that however they grew up is the one right and true way to live. It can be an extremely difficult feeling to escape, even in cases where they actively very much want to leave it behind and live some other way, for example people who were abused and are in therapy and trying hard to find a better way to live.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#55

Post by perplamps »

JasonFruit wrote: post #53
perplamps wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there's no substitute for the flesh of an animal — especially one I raised, where I know its diet, its experiences, and how it was slaughtered and butchered When PG said eating meat might sound perverse one day, it's hard to imagine how a comment like this might come across. I'm not a vegetarian and even I find it difficult to differentiate between the above justifications and the ravings of a serial killer.

Oh, you see, that's easy — a serial killer kills people. Is it maybe more moral not to think about where your meat comes from? If you are eating meat, but you can't contemplate the death of the animal that provided it, maybe you're not as morally elevated as you think.

Note that I said nothing about morals or being morally elevated. Just that what you said could have been a line from Silence of the Lambs.

I think it's our automatic defensiveness about having our morals questioned that leads to all these strange, weak arguments (e.g. "powerful psychological effect to eating meat").

Instead of doubling down on our position to mentally justify our possible transgressions, one alternate possibility is to recognize the real negative impacts of our actions and work towards limiting our meat consumption and promoting substitutes.

As an aside, based off of what you said about falafels and shiitake mushrooms, it sounds like you maybe haven't tried a lot of common meat substitutes that are already difficult to distinguish from processed meats (things like Morning Star Grillers Original that I've gotten from a bunch of grocery stores).

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#56

Post by JasonFruit »

perplamps wrote: post #55
JasonFruit wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, you see, that's easy — a serial killer kills people. Is it maybe more moral not to think about where your meat comes from? If you are eating meat, but you can't contemplate the death of the animal that provided it, maybe you're not as morally elevated as you think.

Note that I said nothing about morals or being morally elevated. Just that what you said could have been a line from Silence of the Lambs. I think it's our automatic defensiveness about having our morals questioned that leads to all these strange, weak arguments (e.g. "powerful psychological effect to eating meat"). Instead of doubling down on our position to mentally justify our possible transgressions, one alternat…

That's an interesting response, and one that would make sense from a vegetarian. But you ignore the main point of my reply: I eat meat with the ramifications of my actions in full view, and you eat meat even though you find the thought of the animals previous life and death comparable to the musings of a serial killer. Then, having made that comparison, you suggest that you weren't discussing morals.

What, pray tell, was the point of comparing my motivations to those of a serial killer, if not to make a suggestion as to the morality of my reasoning? I welcome a discussion of morality; I'd hold that it's key to the matter of eating animals.

(As to your aside, I've tried a number of those products, and they are just fine. So is homemade seitan. But they provide a different experience from meat, for the "strange, weak" reason I related above.)

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#57

Post by rjf72 »

notus wrote: post #5

His statement about how it will increase economic inequality is pretty interesting. Meat substitutes/alternatives are often marketed ideologically as something that will help reduce economic inequality since it would eventually become more cost effective than trying to raise something to slaughtering age. I'm not sure how it being a startup is a problem, but didn't think about the smaller farms who would be out of bu…

To raise chickens you need a hen. Add a rooster and you're now the proud owner of a chicken farm. Seriously. Ideally you'd setup a roosting spot for them. And you can tweak their diet to increase their production, growth, etc but chickens 'free ranging' with very minimal support is how they were cultivated for millennia. The one and only problem you run into is that roosters are very loud. The point is that anybody can start raising chickens with very little cost.

'Meat substitutes' are going to be grown in fairly sophisticated labs and sourced from artificially reproduced or otherwise obtained cells. And it's not going to taste like e.g. chicken once the cells are grown. The taste you know from various meats is a product of that animal's physiology and diet. The meat will also not have the same texture. So once you grow your cells in a lab you then need to artificially flavor them and then artificially generate a meat-like texture. The upfront costs for this will all not only be very expensive but there will also be a minefield of intellectual property, patent, and other such barriers all throughout the field. This is why the first artificial meat companies are working on is hamburger -- you can simply grind up the cells and then dump in lots of flavoring.

I expect we'll see the same thing happen to meat that happened with genetically engineered plants. The entire industry will be rapidly monopolized. And our new 'Meatsanto' will undoubtedly lobby the government for favorable treatment which at the minimum will include them being able to label these artificially flavored and textured cells as simply 'chicken'. Add in artificial undercutting of prices and other incentives and you'll see Meatsanto gain more and more marketshare, perhaps including licensing their technology to ranchers now put out of business. And it's at that point, once the monopoly and dependence is established, that they begin to squeeze their new monopoly and start printing billions.

----

I think there's a pretty simple rule of thumb. Centralization leads to wealth inequality, decentralization leads to more equitable wealth distribution. When you add barriers to entry, you create centralization. As an example of this consider shoes. At one time shoes were an industry that used to support countless thousands (millions?) of cobblers, apprentices, and their local market interrelations. It's now been replaced by a small handful of multinational corporations that produce billions of shoes worldwide at immense profit margins. Of course in exchange shoes are undoubtedly now higher quality than they've ever been, and you can pick up a reasonable pair of shoes for a few hours of minimum wage, but I do not think more affordable shoes positively affects wealth inequality as much as removing immense number of jobs and redirecting all proceeds to a handful of companies does to negatively affect it.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#58

Post by perplamps »

JasonFruit wrote: post #56
perplamps wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that I said nothing about morals or being morally elevated. Just that what you said could have been a line from Silence of the Lambs. I think it's our automatic defensiveness about having our morals questioned that leads to all these strange, weak arguments (e.g. "powerful psychological effect to eating meat"). Instead of doubling down on our position to mentally justify our possible transgressions, one alternat…

That's an interesting response, and one that would make sense from a vegetarian. But you ignore the main point of my reply: I eat meat with the ramifications of my actions in full view, and you eat meat even though you find the thought of the animals previous life and death comparable to the musings of a serial killer. Then, having made that comparison, you suggest that you weren't discussing morals. What, pray tell,…

There are a lot of things we do out of convenience that we don't delight in, like walking over ants. There's a distinct difference between welcoming an easy alternative to walking over ants and delighting in squishing them under your feet (regardless of how brazenly you celebrate your actions).

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#59

Post by JasonFruit »

perplamps wrote: post #58
JasonFruit wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting response, and one that would make sense from a vegetarian. But you ignore the main point of my reply: I eat meat with the ramifications of my actions in full view, and you eat meat even though you find the thought of the animals previous life and death comparable to the musings of a serial killer. Then, having made that comparison, you suggest that you weren't discussing morals. What, pray tell,…

There are a lot of things we do out of convenience that we don't delight in, like walking over ants. There's a distinct difference between welcoming an easy alternative to walking over ants and delighting in squishing them under your feet (regardless of how brazenly you celebrate your actions).

Are you suggesting that you eat meat because paying $10/pound for a mediocre steak that gives you the moral willies is honestly more convenient than buying a can of beans and taking a vitamin supplement? I'm saying I delight in eating the flesh of an animal, and that knowing I gave it a comfortable, healthy life and a merciful death contributes to that pleasure.

Your reasoning is pretty waffly and evasive to serve as a basis for comparing someone to a serial killer — which, as you may have noticed, I resent, as I consider almost anyone would.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#60

Post by [deleted] »

perplamps wrote: post #58
JasonFruit wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting response, and one that would make sense from a vegetarian. But you ignore the main point of my reply: I eat meat with the ramifications of my actions in full view, and you eat meat even though you find the thought of the animals previous life and death comparable to the musings of a serial killer. Then, having made that comparison, you suggest that you weren't discussing morals. What, pray tell,…

There are a lot of things we do out of convenience that we don't delight in, like walking over ants. There's a distinct difference between welcoming an easy alternative to walking over ants and delighting in squishing them under your feet (regardless of how brazenly you celebrate your actions).

[deleted]
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