Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef • Hacker News Board

Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#241

Post by hmsimha » Mon, Aug 05, 2013, 10:48 PM UTC

hawkharris wrote: post #236

codev wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Guardian is pretty progressive in style terms. I think there's an increasing tendency to write it as internet and they're closer to the cutting edge than a more conservative (style-wise) newspaper like the NYT. Here are their capitalisation rules: http://www.theguardian.com/styleguide/c#id-3043710

Thanks for taking the time to find and share this interesting guide. I think that The Guardian is a very progressive paper in general, but I'm not sure that lowercasing "the Internet" is a progressive move. The Internet is capitalized because it's a proper noun: not just any general network, but a specific global network of computers. [1] There is only one Internet. If an author is referring to a subset of the Intern…

In social network analysis, there's the concept of a giant connected component in a graph where edges propagate between nodes over time. That's essentially what I consider the internet to be. There's only one of them by virtue of giant connected component emergence in that kind of network. I've never viewed it as a proper name.

Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#242

Post by hmsimha » Mon, Aug 05, 2013, 10:52 PM UTC

pearjuice wrote: post #230

leoh wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have got to be trolling. You just said that the purpose of animals are to be eaten. Okay, maybe some animals and maybe our society condones meat-eating. But you cannot possibly allow this as absolute reality. Some very productive, peaceful, societies (pre-Modern China) were almost completely vegetarian. Vegatarianism is a possibility. Now, regarding artificial meat. It's weird. But people will not hangs their hab…

I would rather have vegatarianism as an absolute reality than one where artificial meat is the standard. In fact, I will become a vegetarian if the latter applies.

If everyone had switched to vegetarianism at the same time, we probably wouldn't be in a situation where scientists are trying to develop artificial meat. In fact, I would suggest that if you want to do your part to prevent this from becoming a reality you should go ahead and switch to vegetarianism right now :D If everyone does it, it might not be viewed as cost-effective to continue this research.

Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#243

Post by jlgreco » Mon, Aug 05, 2013, 11:10 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #129

rorrr2 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bull. Shit. My wife is a vegetarian. I've tried probably 8-10 different brands of vegie burgers and chicken nuggets. They don't taste even remotely like meat. Some do taste alright, I admit. Another problem is price. You would think soy products would be cheaper than meat. Nope. So freaking expensive.

> You would think soy products would be cheaper than meat. Why would I think that highly processed products of the isolation and retexturing and reflavoring of soy products would be less expensive than meat, which is usually pretty minimally processed? The raw materials cost of the soy product might be lower (depending on what else is added for flavor and texture, even that might not be true), but you can't really ig…

I would expect it because corn subsidies cause way more corn to be grown than necessary.

Now, lots of corn is great and all (well, not really), but if you grow corn all the time you are going to kill your soil (for one, depleting the nitrogen in the soil). Soybeans have the neat property of putting atmospheric nitrogen back into the soil. So if you want to grow lots of corn without breaking the bank on fixing your soil all the time, then changes are you spend some of the time growing soybeans. (Usually two seasons of corn then one of soybean, or one of corn then one of soybean).

Since soybeans are not the primary crop but are grown relatively in proportion to massively overproduce corn, I would expect soybeans to be pretty damn cheap. I don't have the market breakdown but my understanding is that the bulk of soybeans are just used as cattle-feed. I would expect this to depress the price of soybeans leading to very cheap soy products, even with the large amount of processing that needs to be done to them to make them human edible.

The large amount of processing might be the cause of the high price of soy products, but with supply of soybeans so high my suspicion is that low demand causes soybean product prices to be high. Soybean based food is still relatively niche and there are not all that many companies in that field so prices stay high.

Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#244

Post by jlgreco » Mon, Aug 05, 2013, 11:14 PM UTC

bluedino wrote: post #176

zevyoura wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My parents are vegetarian, and I've had a similar experience, except for one product: Beyond Meat. Their chicken is unbelievably realistic; I could tell it apart in a direct taste test, but in the context of something like a burrito, I don't think I could.

Chicken is one of the blandest of the birds. That's why it has to be deep fried, covered in spices and roasted, or marinated/mixed with a bunch of sauce to taste good. Chicken meat simply doesn't have the ability to be enjoyed on it's own like beef. Eggs on the other hand...

Call me crazy, but I've never been able to taste the difference in any sort of bird. Duck, turkey, chicken.. it all tastes the same to me.

Probably makes it a great candidate for vat growth.

Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#245

Post by mscarborough » Mon, Aug 05, 2013, 11:15 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #213

jdietrich wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it would be orders of magnitude more difficult. Muscle tissue is relatively homogeneous and has a far simpler structure than skin and hair folicles. Minced meat has had most of the complex macro-structure destroyed by the process of mincing, so it's easier still to imitate than whole pieces of meat. There is also a very limited market for these products, as there are many satisfactory substitutes to leather a…

It may be more difficult but we have synthetic meet it's just far to expencive to be practical. So the fact that the end product would presumably be with a lot more per lb could be a significant factor. PS: I suspect you could sell a few thousand 100k coats a year under the 'Animal Free' idea. Which pays for a fair amount of R&D.

You can already buy animal-free synthetic fur coats, and if you pay even $1,000 you're getting ripped off in a big way.

Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#246

Post by powertower » Mon, Aug 05, 2013, 11:26 PM UTC

VladRussian2 wrote: post #234

amirhirsch wrote: post #69

Best quote from Sergey: "If what you're doing is not seen by some people as science fiction, it's probably not transformative enough"

and he is spot on with artificial meat. The artificial meat impact on our civilization will be comparable with that of beginning of meat eating by apes 2M years ago. Once more nutritious than natural, the artificial meat will allow to overcome the current energy limitation on our brain. Once artificial meat becomes mainstream and eating natural meat become obsolete, the human race will be able to overcome obsolete co…

> Once more nutritious than natural, the artificial meat will allow to overcome the current energy limitation on our brain.

I think you could rather drink a mixture of a protein, vitamin, oil, enzymes, etc, shake today - and get the same effects, than wait for your enhanced meat product.

The energy limitation was also a leap, when apes (or whatever) started eating meat, and later humans (or whatever) started using fire to cook their foods. And then bigger, more thoughtful, brains could be sustained.

There really is nothing more to improve on that will give you better than marginal results from this point in time. And even then, you'd have to wait for evolution to take its course and produce (well, perpetuate) whatever DNA is required to produce a bigger brain over a millennium or even longer... Assuming that's even a trait that is capable of producing more offsprings than in those that don't have that trait.

Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#247

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Aug 05, 2013, 11:34 PM UTC

jlgreco wrote: post #243

dragonwriter wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You would think soy products would be cheaper than meat. Why would I think that highly processed products of the isolation and retexturing and reflavoring of soy products would be less expensive than meat, which is usually pretty minimally processed? The raw materials cost of the soy product might be lower (depending on what else is added for flavor and texture, even that might not be true), but you can't really ig…

I would expect it because corn subsidies cause way more corn to be grown than necessary. Now, lots of corn is great and all (well, not really), but if you grow corn all the time you are going to kill your soil (for one, depleting the nitrogen in the soil). Soybeans have the neat property of putting atmospheric nitrogen back into the soil. So if you want to grow lots of corn without breaking the bank on fixing your so…

> with supply of soybeans so high my suspicion is that low demand causes soybean product prices to be high.

High supply and low demand are both factors that lead to low prices, not high prices.

Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#248

Post by pearjuice » Tue, Aug 06, 2013, 12:00 AM UTC

hmsimha wrote: post #242

pearjuice wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would rather have vegatarianism as an absolute reality than one where artificial meat is the standard. In fact, I will become a vegetarian if the latter applies.

If everyone had switched to vegetarianism at the same time, we probably wouldn't be in a situation where scientists are trying to develop artificial meat. In fact, I would suggest that if you want to do your part to prevent this from becoming a reality you should go ahead and switch to vegetarianism right now :D If everyone does it, it might not be viewed as cost-effective to continue this research.

No I will not because I can still eat real 100% natural meat which has been dealt with properly.

Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#249

Post by asdfdsa1234 » Tue, Aug 06, 2013, 12:29 AM UTC

hni wrote: post #221

cgh wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a reason why there are practically no vegan power athletes. I was vegan for nearly ten years and I regret it immensely as I now see how badly it set me back. That said, you're right, with a properly-designed diet you can be healthy and happy. I don't believe you can ever be athletically optimal, however (aside from perhaps pure cardio sports).

Strongest German, vegan: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrik_Baboumian

He became vegan in 2011, after setting records.

Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#250

Post by jlgreco » Tue, Aug 06, 2013, 12:32 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #247

jlgreco wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would expect it because corn subsidies cause way more corn to be grown than necessary. Now, lots of corn is great and all (well, not really), but if you grow corn all the time you are going to kill your soil (for one, depleting the nitrogen in the soil). Soybeans have the neat property of putting atmospheric nitrogen back into the soil. So if you want to grow lots of corn without breaking the bank on fixing your so…

> with supply of soybeans so high my suspicion is that low demand causes soybean product prices to be high. High supply and low demand are both factors that lead to low prices, not high prices.

In Econ 101, yes. As I said, "Since soybeans are not the primary crop but are grown relatively in proportion to massively overproduce corn, I would expect soybeans to be pretty damn cheap". Soybeans are not soybean products though, and a high supply of soybeans doesn't mean that soybean product prices should be low.

I posit that there is a low supply of soy-products caused by a low-demand for soy-products. Only a fragment of consumers are interested in soybean products, and demand is unlikely to change much as price drops. Worse, the vegetarians I know tend to be pretty loyal to particular brands of soy product. Basically, demand for soybean products is pretty inelastic and low. Not many people are interested in soy products, but the people that are interested will pay what they have to.

Premium soy products are the Bloomberg Terminal's of food. Almost nobody wants a Bloomberg Terminal, but a few people need a Bloomberg Terminal. Worse, the people in that market need a Bloomberg Terminal specifically. Bloomberg is unlikely to lease more terminals by dropping their price. If there were more demand for that sort of product, we would probably see more companies making suitable products for far cheaper. That's not the case though, so it is a shitty market to break into.