this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2024
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This sounds like good news but what I don't want is one big corporation replacing hundreds/thousands of worldwide farmers and having total control over the cost of selling this to consumers.
We need local individual owned stem cell meat farms.
It'd really become an art if it became accessible enough to do locally. Getting the right texture, marbling, tenderness, etc.
Like a craft brewery model for cultured meat? Sounds cool.
Exactly!
But it doesn't work if it costs billions of dollars to start it up.
Bladerunner
Besides, there's nothing that tastes quite like real grass-fed free range stem cells.
Most of the production in the us already comes from 2-3 giant corporate farms. It is simply more effeciant.
Those farms receive immense subsidies as well. No, it's not efficient, it's just what the US economic system produces.
Good news, these farmers can start growing stuff to feed humans instead!
Regardless, we really shouldn't be preventing progress for the sake of protecting jobs. Especially when the status quo is so wantonly destructive. And even as this would replace some jobs, it would create new ones.
All that said, I'm very skeptical of this tech.
It needs to be done at small to moderate scale with properly strong regulations.
The fields used to feed livestock would be used to grow stuff to feed humans
The buildings... Should we really stop progress to save some buildings used to raise animals in order to kill them?
There's a labor crisis in the farming industry already (and in general really) so it's not as if they had no option in front of them
You do realize that not all farmland is suitable for growing onions or melons. A pretty good chunk of it is pretty much suitable for grass only. Where I live, half of all the farmland is growing grasses for grazing and hay, (no, its not alfalfa). What are those farmers supposed to switch to make a living? The rest is used for wheat, rye, and barley and some green chop corn silage. And yields can be quite limited depending on the year.
Unless you are fine with massively more use of fertilizers and pumping ground water to irrigate those food crops on marginal land. And even then the growing season overrides all.
Then you stop using that land to grow feed and let nature do its thing and the people working that land can just go work somewhere where there's demand.
Should we have stopped telecommunication progress to keep the switchboard operators working?
"the people working that land can just go work somewhere where there’s demand."
So easy to say when it's not your job isn't it.
Now, I don't know what you do to make a living, but with AI, your job as a programmer should just go away and you should find a different job where there is demand - maybe you could be a servant or stock shelves. It's so easy to do so, just go somewhere else.
Again, should we stop all progress so as not to eliminate jobs that would otherwise become unnecessary?
As long as it's not YOUR job right?
What do you know about the field I work in and its necessity in the long run?
And again, are you saying that we should stop progress because some people will lose their job? How hard is it to answer that question?
I don't know what you do for a living. But the odds are that at some point technology will find a way to make it less necessary. You will very likely become surplus to needs. And that will most likely happen when you are nearing the end of your working life. What do you do then?
So the issue is, what do you do with those people who no longer have a job? Can you afford to spend the money and years that might be required to retrain a, let's say a 50 year old truck driver for another job? And remember that not everyone can be retrained.
Start thinking beyond the end of your nose and look at the broader picture.
Are.
You.
Saying.
We.
Should.
Stop.
All.
Progress.
To.
Save.
Jobs?
Are You Saying We Should Let People Starve And Die Because They Can't Learn A New Job Skill? Advance Or Die!
If so,that's spoken like a true Trumper.............
You're dodging the question
(it's also very cute that you're using a separate account to upvote every comments you make on a two days old discussion as soon as you post them, go back to Reddit)
The industrialized meat industry in Europe has very little to do with farming. An industrial stable with tens of thousands of pigs who never see daylight or breath fresh air is a factory, where bought animal feed is input, and manure and pigs are output.
sounds like the US system, without the child labor.
Perhaps they were referring to pivoting from animal feed to human crops
Yes we definitely don’t want one corp owning this entire type of tech.
I think some kind of cultured meat is “obvious” at this point in history.
I don’t think this company would be able to maintain its monopoly as other companies develop their own processes. Maybe some vegans will open source the basics or something.
I doubt the legal system would allow one company to control this market, and tech being the barrier won’t do it either, so I don’t predict a monopoly for long on this kind of thing.
Yeah, it will be like two-three, owned by the same shareholders on the stock market.
Or as many choose to enter the market, unless you think there will be some artificial constraint placed on entry?
And since all shares are actually owned by the DTCC, they are the actual masters manipulating the stock as needed to enrich themselves. We'll get cultured meat at their grace when it's profitable for them.
We do have a number of excellent meat alternatives now, which use relatively simple processing steps and legumes, wheat etc. as base material.
As such, I imagine, they will remain cheaper than lab-grown meat and if we can get past people's reservations with them, I feel like they would offer a much more direct path for farmers to get paid, as well as the opportunity for various smaller companies to compete in doing that processing.