As a thinking experiment, let us consider that on the 1st of January of 2025 it is announced that an advance making possible growing any kind of animal tissue in laboratory conditions as been achieved and that it is possible to scale it in order to achieve industrial grade production level.

There is no limit on which animal tissues can be grown, so, any species is achieveable, only being needed a small cell sample from an animal to start production, and the cultivated tissues are safe for consumption.

There won’t be any perceiveable price change to the end consummer, as the growing is a complex and labour intensive process, requiring specialized equipments and personnel.

Would you change to this new diet option?

  • comfy
    3·
    2 days ago

    I’m sure that, in the same way that there’s still a market for objectively inferior exploitatively mined diamonds as a status symbol instead of lab created diamonds, there would still be a market for rEaL meat where “you can really taste the suffering” or whatever.

    I don’t think the value is sadism in itself, but the supposed natural purity; it’s the sense of authenticity. They’d be more likely to market it like “As nature intended”, “no nasty chemicals, organic”, “no added dihydrogen monoxide”, like that. You can play on the silly fear of scary chemical names.

    I suppose animal furs is a relevant case study. Synthetic alternatives exist, but the real thing is considered a status icon by idiots.

    That all said, fuck those cruel idealistic pieces of shit and the suffering they enable.

    Now here’s the more interesting question that actually has me on the fence: if “growing any kind of animal tissue” is what has been achieved, where would you stand on consuming lab-grown human meat? Is it immoral?

    Human meat, the inevitable question!

    I see literally no ethical problem with eating non-sentient lab-grown meat, and I don’t see why it being human flesh should be treated specially. I’m not even trying to equivocate humans and other animals, I don’t consider human meat to be a human being, so there’s no farming torture I’m concerned about, and I care about the meat’s death as much as I care about a jellyfish or grass being squished. It’s not like they’re farming an entire conscious human like The Matrix, that would be uneconomical. (that said, what if humans were lab-grown for scientific research like lab animals? That’s a more confronting question to me!)

    Are there risks?

    I’m no expert, but I suspect human diseases are more transferable than other animal meat diseases, so that’s a consideration. Contamination is always a concern, I’d assume.

    What would be the proper etiquette and presentation and everything if it became socially accepted?

    I don’t care. I can buy chicken nuggets and eat them with my elbows, if I want. I’ll do that with human meat too. I already side with Frank Reynolds’ perspective on the whole ‘respect for the dead’ tradition, put me up on a mountain for vultures and flowers like the Zoroastrianists, but this isn’t even a sentient, let alone social, being. The only real etiquette I would consider is to make sure people aren’t unknowingly served it, same with pork and other meats, because that could be unreasonably cruel to someone who is alive.