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Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

theguardian.com

131–140 of 272 posts

Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#131
post #77

How about a return to traditional agriculture, which would provide more jobs, cleaner food, and decentralization and localization of food infrastructure? Why the relentless pursuit of industrialization and homogeneity at any cost?

There are many reasons, but all the others become moot when you take into account that a return to traditional agriculture is economically impossible. It survives as a niche product, but it can't remotely compete on scale and price.

Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#132
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lab grown fur seems a lot harder to do than lab grown meat. Skin is an incredibly complex organ. Especially if you want to grow hair on it.

Maybe the first step would be developing the ability to grow hair on existing skin. That would be a very popular breakthrough, curing baldness and patching up scar tissue that cannot grow hair anymore. Then it's a matter of getting that to grow on synthetic skin.

Just wait.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2294205/Billionaire-...

Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#133

While it's more ethical for the animal, I must question the carbon footprint and efficient and effective use of resources to make synthetic beef. Firstly, to make it scale you'll need a lot of machinery. Then you'll need the right nutrients. It will need a lot of technology, because to make beef grow it will need to have everything maintained and provided for it. In nature, beef cattle can be run on reasonably unprod…

Turning 100g of protein into 15g of protein is not "very effective and efficient."

Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#134

I like the idea of being able to be a carnivore without being a killer. However, there is a trap in this. Right now, there are cows and pigs wherever there are humans. Fast forward 200 years when we can grow our own meat in the lab. Who's going to keep around livestock? For what reason? Pigs and cows would exist in a wild state in a small fraction of their former "territory." If at all.

> However, there is a trap in this. [...] Pigs and cows would exist in a wild state in a small fraction of their former "territory." If at all.

Why would that be a problem?

Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#135
post #117

> "Cows are very inefficient, they require 100g of vegetable protein to produce only 15g of edible animal protein," Dr Post told the Guardian before the event. "So we need to feed the cows a lot so that we can feed ourselves. We lose a lot of food that way. Yes, if most of what you feed the cows are human-edible.

Well, and most of that 100g turns into manure which can be used as fertilizer. If you count that manure as 'waste' then you are doing it wrong.

Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#136
post #97

I can't wait to see the cognitive dissonance from the "natural" people. On one hand, it could quite possibly replace factory farming and eliminate a huge amount of waste, pollution, and animal cruelty. On the other hand, it's GMO. I love seeing True Believers in Movementarianism squirm. I'm equal opportunity here. I like pointing out the philosophical inconsistencies of dogmatic positivism to your typical Reddit /r/a…

Why are you assuming that meat consumption is necessary?

At the very least some animal product is necessary (e.g., dairy or eggs).

See: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/21/opinion/21planck.html

Vegetarians can go ahead and argue that vegans are too extreme while vegans fire back that vegetarians are just vegans who lack commitment.

Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#137
post #97

I can't wait to see the cognitive dissonance from the "natural" people. On one hand, it could quite possibly replace factory farming and eliminate a huge amount of waste, pollution, and animal cruelty. On the other hand, it's GMO. I love seeing True Believers in Movementarianism squirm. I'm equal opportunity here. I like pointing out the philosophical inconsistencies of dogmatic positivism to your typical Reddit /r/a…

Why are you assuming that meat consumption is necessary?

It may not be, but considering how much we enjoy eating it, you would be unlikely to be able to get everyone to stop.

Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#138
post #86
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe, just maybe buying animal-products, where the animals didn't suffer, where they were raised species-appropriate, would help, as it would be a ecological signal as well. This is very hard to do in most of the "first world" places because agriculture or raising animals doesn't scale that well unless you do it on an industrial scale. Now, you and me and a couple of others maybe can afford to pay extra for meat p…

When you consider the real costs of unsustainable, industrialized agriculture† a very different picture emerges. The convenience of industrialized, globalized, corporate food infrastructure doesn't outweigh the long-term costs. This basic misunderstanding of how food gets to your plate was featured prominently in a recent NY Times piece claiming the McDouble was the "cheapest, most nutritious" food ever. The upfront…

Did you just call it a cost that farm work would become more efficient and need fewer man hours for the same productivity?

Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#139
post #97

I can't wait to see the cognitive dissonance from the "natural" people. On one hand, it could quite possibly replace factory farming and eliminate a huge amount of waste, pollution, and animal cruelty. On the other hand, it's GMO. I love seeing True Believers in Movementarianism squirm. I'm equal opportunity here. I like pointing out the philosophical inconsistencies of dogmatic positivism to your typical Reddit /r/a…

This cognitive dissonance exists in your head only.

Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#140
post #97

I can't wait to see the cognitive dissonance from the "natural" people. On one hand, it could quite possibly replace factory farming and eliminate a huge amount of waste, pollution, and animal cruelty. On the other hand, it's GMO. I love seeing True Believers in Movementarianism squirm. I'm equal opportunity here. I like pointing out the philosophical inconsistencies of dogmatic positivism to your typical Reddit /r/a…

All the skeptics I know are huge proponents of science/evidence based medicine and are, for example, very anti-"Vaxxer" (or is it anti-"anit-Vaxxer"? Whatever, they hate Jenny McCarthy is what I'm getting at here...)

I think you mean conspiracy theorist circles. Very different sort of group, even when they attempt to mimic the language of skeptics.

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