lab grown meat is a vaguely EA/rationalist/self IDed neolib meme. in theory it will save the environment (ok) and prevent suffering (yay) in a way that concentrates capital (double yay) and involves a lot of tech magic (triple yay).
hot luigi is a big fan apparently. seeing this discussed reminded me of this excellent article which shreds the concept of mass produced lab grown meat. I haven’t really seen this circulate much over the years, but it is really a masterwork of grift dissection. please enjoy
archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20241208141305/https://thecounter.org/lab-grown-cultivated-meat-cost-at-scale/
The riff-raff have brought us a graft grift.
Very good read, but throughout I can’t help but say to myself “ye so the issue is scale. AS ALWAYS”
This is a tale as old as time. Fusion energy is here! Quantum computers will revolutionise the world! Lab-grown meat! All based on actual scientific experiments and progress, but tiny, one-shot experiments under best-case conditions. There is no reason to think it brings us closer to a future where those are commonplace, except for a very nebulous technical meaning of “closer” as “yes, time has passed”. There is no reason to think this would ever scale in any way! Like, there is a chance that e.g. fusion energy at any meaningful scale is just… impossible? Like, physically impossible to do. Or a stable quantum computer able to run Doom. Or lab-grown meat on a supermarket shelf. Every software engineer should understand this, we know there are ideas that work only when they’re in a limited setting (number of threads, connections, size of input, whatever).
The media is always terrible at communicating this. Science isn’t fucking magic, the fact that scientists were able to put one more qubit into their quantum computer means literally nothing to you, because the answer to “when will we have personal quantum computers” is “what? how did you get into my lab?”. We have no idea. 50 years? 100 years? 1000 years? Likely never? Which number can I pull out of my ass for you to fuck off and let me do my research in peace? Of course, science is amazing, reading about those experiments is extremely interesting and cool as all fuck, but for some fucking reason the immediate reaction of the general public is “great, how quickly can we put a pricemark on it”.
And this leads to this zeitgeist where the next great “breakthrough” is just around the corner and is going to save us all. AI will fix the job market! Carbon capture will fix climate change! Terraforming Mars will solve everything! Sit the fuck down and grow up, this is not how anything works. I don’t even know where this idea of “breakthroughs” comes from, the scientific process isn’t an action movie with three acts and a climax, who told you that? What even was the last technological “breakthrough”? Transistors were invented like 70yrs ago, but it wasn’t an immediate breakthrough, it required like 40yrs of work on improving vacuum tubes to get there. And that was based on a shitton of work on electric theory from the XIX century. It was a slow process of incremental scientific discoveries across nations and people, which culminated in you having an iPhone 200 years later. And that’s at least based on something we can actually easily observe in the natural world (and, funnily enough, we still don’t have a comprehensive theory of how lightning storms even form on Earth). With fusion you’re talking about replicating the heart of a star here on Earth, with lab grown meat you’re talking about growing flesh in defiance of gods, and you think it’s an overnight thing where you’ll wake up tomorrow and suddenly bam we just have cold fusion and hot artificial chicken?
I hate how everyone seems to be addicted to, I don’t know, just speed as a concept? Things have to be now, news is only good if it arrives to me breaking in 5 minutes, science is only good if it’s just around the corner, a product is only good if it gets one billion users in a month. Just calm the fuck down. When was the last time you smelt the roses?
If you keep running through life all the roses are gonna burn down before you realise.
Techbros: “I’m hungry for that Lab Grown Meat!”
Labs:
Man I don’t need to be reminded of the sorry state of meat alternatives.
It’s bitterly funny to me that fashoid governments started banning cultivated meat as if the economic and technical issues weren’t enough. Ignorants terrified of threats they made up in their head as always.
count another yay for how magic tech could (meaning: won’t) solve major problem without people using it being inconvenienced in any way (giving up meat)
“Friedrich argued that investor buy-in was the de facto proof that cultivated meat has legs. Major meatpackers, prominent venture capital firms, the government of Singapore: You could trust that these stakeholders had done their due diligence, and they wanted in.”
Ow god it is a scam. This was a reaction to researchers saying “we dont see it”.
Investors as a general class are usually pretty terrible at staying in their lane and not listening when actual subject matter experts disagree with the guy with a good story. I think the only reason they have any reputation otherwise (compared to e.g. physicists’ disease) is survivorship bias.
Great article.
I have long suspected that it was a dead end, because at most you get a slurry that you then have to process. We already have that, the slurry is just made of vegetables. Growing animal cells in a way is way more complex then mashing peas or beans and make processed food from that.
Or you know, be unafraid to try tofu.
This is not a good take. Even if the tech is further away than the optimistic takes of the industry that doesnt make it impossible, and “at best” you could definitely have more than a slurry. There are mang current scientific studies revolving around growing human organs in a lab. Eventually we will be able to grow meat that is essentiallt indistinguishable from the ‘real thing’. And yes, while everyone should just go vegetarian, they arent going to. So the sooner we get to that point, the better.
You should read the article first.
I did. The articles conclusions are that its currently impossible to produce lab grown meat at such a scale that it could replace a large porton of the meat industry and still be viable economically as a short term investment. Im not denying that, and i dont care about investor returns. I dont think any industry should be privatized anyway, and especially beneficial scientific research that could shape the future. But the point is the technology is here, and will continue to get cheaper and more efficient, and in the meantime any meat consumption that is replaced is a good thing, even if its not all at once. The whole article reads like an investment prospectus, not a critique of the technology itself which is how its being presented.
“We can’t get people to eat less meat and more vegetables, therefore we must invest billions so that we can get to the logical endpoint: million dollars steaks!”
“Or at least, that is what we told them. Now, feast on the most expensive meat yet as we now can literally eat up the planets resources!”
Evil laughter as the billionaires twirl their mustaches and salivates.
Dammit. Is there another link?
“Sorry. This snapshot cannot be displayed due to an internal error”
try again later, both work for me
Yep. Thanks!
tired: lab grown meat
wired: worm filet mignon
hired: eat the rich
I just want to have a chance to get some for myself even if it’s super over priced I’ll go for it, my whole life meat has been my favorite type of food, either gmo me a plant that can make fat and gristle or I’m stuck with lab grown stuff
I just want a non destructive way to enjoy my favourite thing
You could always move out to the country and raise your own cows, just a few, for the milk and occasionally meat. Get some chickens too, for endless eggs.
Farm a small plot of land to feed them.
Get a big freezer, resign yourself to eating meat monthly instead of weekly or daily, and you’ll be set for life with minimal impact on the environment.
eggs are alright but I just can’t get the same thrill(not exactly the right word) out of cooking vegetable stuff, baking can have a bit of fun trying something new but meat is way more interesting to make good food with
I don’t think I could really get into full butchery, I’m fine with cutting up meat but killing and dressing is a bit much for me but I guess that’s where I could hire someone out
Indeed an amazing piece of journalism, a gripping read throughout! Thanks for the share.
It’s very easy, just eat vegetables.
carbon capture you can eat
Carbon capture is just another techno fix that will never scale up to our needs.
i had a bit of hope that this “cellular agriculture” from luigi’s twitter would be growing hydrogen-oxidizing bacteria or something of that nature, but no it’s a bad grift
In short, lab-grown cannot realistically replace a significant portion of the meat industry, for a variety of reasons. First of all, it’s far too expensive and doesn’t scale well because so much active machinery is required at each step in the manufacturing process. There are also issues regarding infected vats and if the cells’ nutrition compares to that of natural meat.
At least it’s possible in theory? I’m glad we’re that far. But it clearly isn’t going to happen at a large enough scale for lab-grown meat to start appearing at grocery stores.
