Live data from Hacker News

World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

slashgear.com

61–70 of 350 posts

Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

#61
post #37

> Future Meat Technologies says this facility requires 96-percent less freshwater than livestock production, as well as using 99-percent less land and producing 80-percent fewer greenhouse emissions. Even accounting for PR hyperbole, it is so apparent at this point that any country who chooses not to board this train will be at the mercy of those who do. This is a national security issue. We can choose to curse our y…

> with a warped sense of ickiness or masculinity, or we can choose protein security indefinitely into the future I think you're confusing a few things. I'm very pro lab-grown meat, and I don't see why it would be either "icky" (if anything, it could be much more "pure", able to grow in controlled conditions without any pesticides, hormones or antibiotics) nor less "masculine" (a steak is a steak is a steak). I'm very…

[deleted]

Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

#62

I always wonder about the morality questions. This is like a lab experiment for subjective morality. For the sake of the experiment, let's assume the sci-fi writers are right, and eating animals will eventually be considered immoral. This is an extreme stance at the moment (hello PETA) but let's assume it will eventually be accepted as the only moral stance. How long will it be between the introduction of lab-grown m…

Another question is, if its banned to kill an animal for meat, for various animals, how long until they go extinct? Many are co-dependent on humanity for their survival at the species level... Or at the very least how will it affect their evolution?

humans have kept dogs and cats and horses around even though many of them aren’t used for their original purposes anymore, so I’d be surprised if some sentimental folks didn’t keep a few cows or sheep or whatnot around just for fun.

Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

#63

I always wonder about the morality questions. This is like a lab experiment for subjective morality. For the sake of the experiment, let's assume the sci-fi writers are right, and eating animals will eventually be considered immoral. This is an extreme stance at the moment (hello PETA) but let's assume it will eventually be accepted as the only moral stance. How long will it be between the introduction of lab-grown m…

It is not a generational issue. Sometimes it seems like the Internet thinks that all the *isms have been invented after 2010. Studying newspapers or TV shows from the 1970s easily refutes that assumption.

Also, there is no correlation between goodness and vegetarianism:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler_and_vegetarianism

Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

#64
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they're usually far from natural (tons of chemicals) I really object to marketing use of the word 'natural' and 'chemicals'. I don't mean to single you out - these concepts are widespread in marketing. Plenty of 'natural' things are bad, like small pox, the Ebola virus and salmonella. Plenty of 'unnatural' things are good, like antibiotics to treat infection. All matter is made from chemicals. Whether a chemical li…

I wouldn't say Penicillin is 'unnatural', there are probably better examples out there.

That's true, I just picked penicillin and salt intentionally as they both can be synthesised in a lab and in nature

Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

#65
post #50
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> with a warped sense of ickiness or masculinity, or we can choose protein security indefinitely into the future I think you're confusing a few things. I'm very pro lab-grown meat, and I don't see why it would be either "icky" (if anything, it could be much more "pure", able to grow in controlled conditions without any pesticides, hormones or antibiotics) nor less "masculine" (a steak is a steak is a steak). I'm very…

> they're usually far from natural (tons of chemicals) I really object to marketing use of the word 'natural' and 'chemicals'. I don't mean to single you out - these concepts are widespread in marketing. Plenty of 'natural' things are bad, like small pox, the Ebola virus and salmonella. Plenty of 'unnatural' things are good, like antibiotics to treat infection. All matter is made from chemicals. Whether a chemical li…

Penicillin is a natural product of fungi against bacteria.

Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

#66

I always wonder about the morality questions. This is like a lab experiment for subjective morality. For the sake of the experiment, let's assume the sci-fi writers are right, and eating animals will eventually be considered immoral. This is an extreme stance at the moment (hello PETA) but let's assume it will eventually be accepted as the only moral stance. How long will it be between the introduction of lab-grown m…

Another question is, if its banned to kill an animal for meat, for various animals, how long until they go extinct? Many are co-dependent on humanity for their survival at the species level... Or at the very least how will it affect their evolution?

Domestic animals are already going extinct[1] as agriculture standardizes on the most profitable, most stable, or lowest maintenance breeds. Most domestic breeds wouldn't survive transition to wild living, survive by outcompeting native wildlife. That's why we don't have flocks of wild chickens roaming North America but there feral pigs are a menace.

Based on this, I would bet that our current domestic meat animals would go extinct relatively quickly. There are some people who try to preserve various breeds in what are essentially zoos, but I can't imagine them operating in perpetuity.

1: https://www.livestockconservancy.org/index.php/heritage/inte...

Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

#67
post #56

I always wonder about the morality questions. This is like a lab experiment for subjective morality. For the sake of the experiment, let's assume the sci-fi writers are right, and eating animals will eventually be considered immoral. This is an extreme stance at the moment (hello PETA) but let's assume it will eventually be accepted as the only moral stance. How long will it be between the introduction of lab-grown m…

I think "meat from animals" will quickly become considered higher quality, or luxury. We can kind-of see this now with seafood, where "wild caught" is more expensive than farmed.

I'm not so sure about that. Lab grown meat has the potential of offering consistent quality at consistent prices, something that's hard to do in fish farms. You're still breeding animals, but far from their natural habitat and far from their natural diet -- with lab grown meat, the equation changes in that sense.

Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

#68

> Future Meat Technologies says this facility requires 96-percent less freshwater than livestock production, as well as using 99-percent less land and producing 80-percent fewer greenhouse emissions. Even accounting for PR hyperbole, it is so apparent at this point that any country who chooses not to board this train will be at the mercy of those who do. This is a national security issue. We can choose to curse our y…

You're foolishly projecting ideology and personal beliefs into somewhere so far removed from the consumer that it simply won't matter.

Commodities buyers don't care who's corn is ethical or who's corn is unethical. They don't care who's ground beef is manly and who's isn't. It all comes down to cost per results at the end of the day. Resource usage is just a part of that calculation. No different than the cost of shipping.

If McDonalds and Walmart can cut their existing beef with fake plant beef or lab beef without hurting their bottom line (by making their products less attractive to consumers) they will.

Will there be people who try and capture the high end market with some ideologically themed marketing in the meantime? Of course. But make no mistake, the long term goal for these new synthetic meat (both plant meat and lab meat) producers is not the high end market. It's the thousands of reefer cars that put that house brand 80/20 on a store shelf near you. Pandering to whatever the premium consumer wants to hear until you can make your product cheap enough and good enough to make real money is just a necessary part of bootstrapping that.

Putting the McDouble back on the dollar menu with the help of synthetic beef is what societal progress looks like.

Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

#69

> Future Meat Technologies says this facility requires 96-percent less freshwater than livestock production, as well as using 99-percent less land and producing 80-percent fewer greenhouse emissions. Even accounting for PR hyperbole, it is so apparent at this point that any country who chooses not to board this train will be at the mercy of those who do. This is a national security issue. We can choose to curse our y…

It is of course impossible to verify either way, but I am very sure these statistics of 96% savings in freshwater are total nonsense. Anyone who has ever cultured cells on any scale can attest to the amount of water needed at any scale in terms of washing, rinsing, diluting, sterilizing, feeding, etc. Moreover, we have seen time and time again, the reporting of extremely high numbers for water usage in beef and milk…

I imagine a lot of the freshwater savings involves not needing to feed an animal. What they drink and eat takes large scale agriculture and processing operations which will be cut drastically.

Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

#70
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overproduction is based on assumptions around how variable farm output is. Climate change increases variability.

Climate change isn't the weather. Climate is the average. We are in a global warming emergency and no one is doing enough about it.

Climate change is literally the weather.
Post reply on HN