Google's Sergey Brin explains why he paid $330,000 for lab burger • Hacker News Board

Re: Google's Sergey Brin explains why he paid $330,000 for lab burger

#41

Post by evan_ » Tue, Aug 06, 2013, 3:56 PM UTC

marcuspovey wrote: post #8

...And what happens when we no longer need cows? It's not going to be happy fun time for the species, because as soon as there's not a reason to breed them then we'll have a few cows kicking around in zoos and that's it. Good for the environment, possibly, but bad for the species.

The cow is already extinct in the wild. It's not an animal that gets along well outside of human care. An argument could be made that the kindest thing to do is let the species, twisted and distorted by humanity into a ghoulish parody of a once-mighty beast, regain its dignity in extinction.

I have a feeling though that however easy faux-beef gets, there will always be people who won't eat it- just look at the "pink slime" controversy, or the anti-GMO movement.

Re: Google's Sergey Brin explains why he paid $330,000 for lab burger

#42

Post by tunnuz » Tue, Aug 06, 2013, 3:58 PM UTC

runarberg wrote: post #29

tunnuz wrote: post #10

The real cool thing is that they are making great advertising to stem cells, by doing something that has a very positive ethical connotation (which is the typical argument against using stem cell in medicine).

Stem cells don´t sell unless they come with hamburgers

That's another way to put it :D

Re: Google's Sergey Brin explains why he paid $330,000 for lab burger

#43

Post by speeder » Tue, Aug 06, 2013, 4:02 PM UTC

runarberg wrote: post #23

myko wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate? I don't understand what you mean by perceived need for more meat - to me this seems like a project geared at creating more ethical, future proof meat products.

Humanity has never -- with the exception of extreme cases, historical or modern -- eaten as much meat as the western man does now [1]. The only reason we eat as much meat as we do, I think, is out of marketing. The perceived need for more meat is therefor to saturate the marked. The problem arising from growing meat consumption include, pollution, maldistribution of food, animal suffering, wasting of land and resourc…

Actually, the land/people ratio now is vert low, there is research named "original affluent societies" that show that stone age people were rich and lived better, because low population means they almost did not had to work, with plenty of food, including hunted meat available.

Re: Google's Sergey Brin explains why he paid $330,000 for lab burger

#44

Post by NSMeta » Tue, Aug 06, 2013, 4:05 PM UTC

corresation wrote: post #31

lttlrck wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think they are having fun now? They are bred to be eaten, if we don't need them we'll stop breeding them.

Do you think they are having fun now? That's a very existential question that doesn't have an easy answer. Is a somewhat brief existence worse than no existence at all? If we eradicate fruit flies (or the many species that live short, brutish existences), have we done them a favor? I am a huge fan of the Omnivore's Dilemma and recommend it wholeheartedly because while Pollan faces these serious questions, he doesn't…

> Is a somewhat brief existence worse than no existence at all?

This would apply to local farms perhaps, but from what I read industrial livestock production is causing suffering to many animals to lower the costs.

Disclaimer: I am not a vegan.

Re: Google's Sergey Brin explains why he paid $330,000 for lab burger

#45

Post by kbenson » Tue, Aug 06, 2013, 4:06 PM UTC

runarberg wrote: post #35

jasondemeuse wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Honestly I cant find a single logical reason why this artificial-meat buisness is a good idea You can't find a single reason why people would rather eat a replacement that eventually looks and tastes like a burger, rather than cow-food mixed with saffron and beet juice? If that sounds good to you, more power to you, but to think that people would pay for the mush the same way people currently pay for burgers is rid…

No, I can't find a single logical reason. Saturating peoples appetite for overmarkeded type of food doesn't seem logical to me. Just because people will pay money for it, doesn't make it a good idea.

Why do people always confuse logic to mean we ignore all sociological concerns? Just because they are harder to reason about doesn't mean they don't matter.

It's not logical to pretend that they don't matter.

Re: Google's Sergey Brin explains why he paid $330,000 for lab burger

#46

Post by oh_sigh » Tue, Aug 06, 2013, 4:06 PM UTC

runarberg wrote: post #23

myko wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate? I don't understand what you mean by perceived need for more meat - to me this seems like a project geared at creating more ethical, future proof meat products.

Humanity has never -- with the exception of extreme cases, historical or modern -- eaten as much meat as the western man does now [1]. The only reason we eat as much meat as we do, I think, is out of marketing. The perceived need for more meat is therefor to saturate the marked. The problem arising from growing meat consumption include, pollution, maldistribution of food, animal suffering, wasting of land and resourc…

> The problem arising from growing meat consumption include, pollution, maldistribution of food, animal suffering, wasting of land and resources, wasting of water, etc.

That's the whole point of growing meat in a lab. It isn't economical to do it now, but it also wasn't economical to have a personal computer 30 years ago, or to get your DNA sequenced 10 years ago.

Re: Google's Sergey Brin explains why he paid $330,000 for lab burger

#47

Post by runarberg » Tue, Aug 06, 2013, 4:09 PM UTC

clicks wrote: post #30

agentsaran wrote: post #22

A complete waste for $250,000. Lab meat? Why? Why would any one want to buy artificial, lab processed meat? Why do people insist on complicating food? Our supermarkets all already filled with things that can be barely classified as "food" and now we have this.

Well, it's a good indication you chose to make a throwaway account for that post, as it suggests that you yourself are aware to some extent how uninformed and ignorant the question is. But, to answer: These animals are brought up in very inhumane conditions -- in crowded spaces, with no light, no freedom. The whole process is unsustainable, what happens when the world population reaches above 10 billion and demand fo…

I'm going to make political remark because the issue by its nature is very political.

We are wasting time and energy investigating solution to a real problem from the wrong end. Doing science is not enough to solve this problem, we need to do politics too (or social science for that matter). Infact doing science might ultimately lead us to enhance the problem.

Now we are looking for a way to make a very wastefull behavior more economy friendly. Meat consumption at the current mass scale is unpresidented and there is no reason to enforce it. Alternatives include alternative diet, less waste, better usage of the food we already grow. We have found brilliant ways to cultivate food at minimum cost, but it is not securing the majority of our species food intake. And the western meat marked might be the biggest factor for this injustice.

Now trying to solve it by further saturating the western marked with meat -- a product that is to blame for this mal-distribution of food -- is not going to solve any problem. It is going to shift the attention away from the real issue at hand and further stabilizing a marked that is currently really unfair and damaging.

Re: Google's Sergey Brin explains why he paid $330,000 for lab burger

#48

Post by venomsnake » Tue, Aug 06, 2013, 4:12 PM UTC

runarberg wrote: post #18

tovmeod wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

maybe this is not the objective, rather having a more efficient way to produce meat, you're taking out of the equation the farm, meaning less space used, maybe healthier meat (without all the antibiotics and less fat) from one cow you can produce 10 tons of meat without all the space needed not only to raise the cows, but to grow their food, the lab can also be closer to consumers having obvious implications on that.

Well, if efficiency is the endgoal here, than bean cultivation seems way more logical answere to beef alternatives than fake meat. You basically take the the food you would otherwice feed your cows, stew it together with some saffran and beet juice (the same colorants as for the fake meat) and you have your economy-burger. No intermediate step which takes 10 times the space of a traditional meat-farm, no anti-biotics…

Okay ... because the burger is not meat. It will taste like crap.

I have always been very very carnivorous animal. Not because of marketing and my family was always almost vegetarian. But occasions where I eat more than 3-4 pounds of tenderloin in one sitting have been observed.

But if you want from me to eat a dish - it better have big chunks of skeletal muscles of for legged animal that spent the majority of its life on the surface.

There are a lot of people for which meat is plain old delicious. This does not mean that we support the current cruel farming methods and we cannot make the fact that the pig is very bad grain to meat converter (bovines are even worse).

So a meat that is meat - if it can be produced at a fraction of a environmental cost could have a lot of usages - sausages, burgers, almost everything that uses minced meat.

While chances are it won't end on the plate as a steak soon due to aesthetic reasons it could help in feeding the world.

Re: Google's Sergey Brin explains why he paid $330,000 for lab burger

#49

Post by bane » Tue, Aug 06, 2013, 4:13 PM UTC

runarberg wrote: post #35

jasondemeuse wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Honestly I cant find a single logical reason why this artificial-meat buisness is a good idea You can't find a single reason why people would rather eat a replacement that eventually looks and tastes like a burger, rather than cow-food mixed with saffron and beet juice? If that sounds good to you, more power to you, but to think that people would pay for the mush the same way people currently pay for burgers is rid…

No, I can't find a single logical reason. Saturating peoples appetite for overmarkeded type of food doesn't seem logical to me. Just because people will pay money for it, doesn't make it a good idea.

What's the logical reason for flavoring the beans?

Re: Google's Sergey Brin explains why he paid $330,000 for lab burger

#50

Post by BorgHunter » Tue, Aug 06, 2013, 4:13 PM UTC

runarberg wrote: post #18

tovmeod wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

maybe this is not the objective, rather having a more efficient way to produce meat, you're taking out of the equation the farm, meaning less space used, maybe healthier meat (without all the antibiotics and less fat) from one cow you can produce 10 tons of meat without all the space needed not only to raise the cows, but to grow their food, the lab can also be closer to consumers having obvious implications on that.

Well, if efficiency is the endgoal here, than bean cultivation seems way more logical answere to beef alternatives than fake meat. You basically take the the food you would otherwice feed your cows, stew it together with some saffran and beet juice (the same colorants as for the fake meat) and you have your economy-burger. No intermediate step which takes 10 times the space of a traditional meat-farm, no anti-biotics…

There's plenty of meat analogues in the market, from highly processed (think Boca and Morningstar Farms) to relatively minimally processed (homemade bean burgers and the like). They sell reasonably well, but nowhere near as well as actual meat. Why? Well, although they're kinda like meat, they're not quite the real thing.

The idea of vat meat is a great one if it turns out it can scale. It will give vegetarians (like me) an additional range of protein sources—not that I'm dissatisfied with what's out there, but I do miss real burgers from time to time. It will also give meat eaters an option that's actually meat, but without the externalities that are endemic in the meat industry (factory farms, poor conditions for animals, methane emissions, low efficiency).

It's unreasonable to expect the world to become vegetarian because of those externalities. And the grass-fed/free-range/cruelty-free kind of thing, while a good step, only addresses some of the externalities, while being intrinsically more expensive. Why not investigate vat meat to see if it's a feasible alternative? Maybe it isn't, and we'll have wasted a bunch of time and money (though I suspect there are implications to this exploration beyond simply food). But maybe it is, and we could fix or ameliorate a bunch of problems without demanding the world switch to soy, seitan, and lentils for their protein (which is not going to happen to the extent it would need to).