Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

the previous 2M were spent on this extensive option - increasing the size (that was enabled by meat eating), and i think we pretty much exhausted that venue. The next step is increasing the intensity of using that big brain. We use only small portion of it, and prolonged sustained thinking activities are very exhausting to our bodies in particular because it consumes a lot of energy. Evolutionary biological changes increasing brain efficiency would take long time (btw, it is very educational to read about specifics of Enstein's brain). This is why in historical short term only increasing of energy intake seems to be a viable option.

Nobody denies there are tasty non-meat things out there, but we're discussing meat and its alternatives.

I considered this too, but then I thought of buying a stone from another company, but realized that paying the same inflated prices for an essentially worthless (worth less anyway) rock would still contribute to keeping the margins and profits up for DeBeers and/or any company that might engage in questionable practices, then I thought about buying a non-diamond, but found that most semi-precious stones for sale were still offered by companies that also traded in diamonds.

To be honest, it was a bit exhausting (especially combined with the planning of a wedding). I just chose to draw the line at buying a stone that was created in a laboratory and not pulled from the Earth by a slave.

I would not be honest if I didn't admit that cultural expectations also came to bear on the decision not to just do something completely different.

I take your point. I feel like this is one of those areas where my purchase decisions could change drastically the more educated I become on the subject of the precious stones trade. Just in the span of buying the engagement ring to the wedding band, we decided to have zero stones of any sort on the wedding band itself.

It wasn't the case then, and it isn't the case now.

The fact is that industrialized agriculture represents a massive centralization of the production of a basic necessity of life. It is made to be perceived to be less inexpensive through subsidies on low-nutrition crops such as corn, sugar, and wheat, subsidies for import and export, state-funded research into literal Frankenstein's monsters built of corn, fish, and insect genes. Patents for the basic building blocks of life are issued and violations enforced, even cases of accidental spread of these genes by wind. Pollutants and hormones abound.

And what do we get? Lower nutrition when picked, lower nutrition because of shipping and storage, insecticides, hormones, anti-biotics, factory meat and egg production that makes a mockery of animal life, runoff that poisons our water supply and wildlife.

What is good about subsidizing junk crops? What is good about subsidizing the fuel used to ship food across the world when it can be grown literally in one's backyard? What if we funded robotics and technology for small agriculture instead of drones that kill Pakistani civilians and children? What is good about the conflation of money and value, to the point where money is lauded over health and freedom?

Your premise seems to be that people have decided they want industrialized agriculture because farming "sucks." To you this seems to imply that therefore industrialized agriculture is good and that there are not alternatives. We will and should become more and more materialistic, inert, disconnected from family and nature, because what people want must be good. We are not being manipulated by world government systems that have their own benefit at heart.

I reject this premise wholeheartedly.