Meatable can transform pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) into high-quality fat and muscle tissue in a record four days, down from eight days, a faster process than any in the industry.
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.
Thats just silly, what we need is to advance forward and transition away from private property since it is already hindering the development of productive forces.
Production at big scale is always much more efficient than small scale production. The subsidies are there to keep the american food industry on top internationally because it is a very important industry for national security.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The industrialized meat industry in Europe has very little to do with farming. An industrial stanle with thens 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.
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.
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.