{"items": [{"author": "Peter", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/631924346422?comment_id=631927051002", "anchor": "fb-631927051002", "service": "fb", "text": "Another example I hear is margarine. It tastes exactly like butter, is cheaper than butter, and is healthier than butter. It's just all around better than butter. ...But people still eat butter.", "timestamp": "1381980355"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/631924346422?comment_id=631927949202", "anchor": "fb-631927949202", "service": "fb", "text": "@Peter: people go back and forth on whether margarine or butter is healthier. And I wouldn't say it tastes exactly like butter; I grew up eating margarine but can tell the difference and do prefer butter.", "timestamp": "1381980647"}, {"author": "Michael", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/631924346422?comment_id=631928138822", "anchor": "fb-631928138822", "service": "fb", "text": "I don't think margarine tastes anything like butter, and I don't understand why anyone would choose to eat it.", "timestamp": "1381980738"}, {"author": "Peter", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/631924346422?comment_id=631928567962", "anchor": "fb-631928567962", "service": "fb", "text": "I think similar opinions would exist on lab-grown meat. Some people would claim to taste no difference; some people would claim a huge difference. Some people would claim one is healthier than the other. Etc.", "timestamp": "1381980952"}, {"author": "b", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/109680641548243670506", "anchor": "gp-1381982378752", "service": "gp", "text": "http://www.dieselsweeties.com/strips/sw3376.png\n
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\nI think part of the idea is that, once there's vat-meat to be had, it's less of a sacrifice to give up real meat, even if some people are going to prefer real meat in some cases. This in turn might make the meat-loving populace much less hostile to the establishment of social structures (in the form of either social stigma or government regulation) against the use of real meat.\n
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\nReal humans don't support or object to things in a vacuum. They are more likely to decide they really care about things that are easy for them to care about without harm to their established way of life. The availability of vat-meat makes opposing animal slaughter easier.", "timestamp": 1381982378}, {"author": "Mac", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/631924346422?comment_id=631931207672", "anchor": "fb-631931207672", "service": "fb", "text": "Wow. Why does not lab-grown meat raise the same hackles that GMO products do? I would expect it to be fraught with exactly the same risks, both perceived and actual. Also what percentage of vegetarians/vegans are such for moral reasons, and what percentage are they of the total population. Don't expect morals will enter into it much.", "timestamp": "1381982497"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/631924346422?comment_id=631931841402", "anchor": "fb-631931841402", "service": "fb", "text": "@Walker: \"Why does not lab-grown meat raise the same hackles that GMO products do?\"
It may. I'm granting that it doesn't for the purpose of this post, to see what happens if people get past that.
\"Don't expect morals will enter into it much.\"
If people switch in large numbers to lab-grown meat it will probably be because it tastes good and is cheaper, but making this happen sooner could be really important to someone trying to reduce animal suffering.", "timestamp": "1381982969"}, {"author": "b", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/109680641548243670506", "anchor": "gp-1381982972146", "service": "gp", "text": "That is, I think an alternative point of comparison might be competition between ivory and plastics for applications like piano keys and billiard balls, or between spermaceti and petroleum-derived oils. I'm sure that in many such cases, the older, made-from-rare-animals, non-petrochemical options had some ephemeral advantages that led some connoisseurs to prefer them, but in the long hall those connoisseurs weren't enough to keep the traditional products on the market in the face of shifting attitudes, while it's believable that, in the absence of such synthetic substitutes, bans or near-bans on whaling and ivory-hunting might have met with more resistance from larger segments of the population.", "timestamp": 1381982972}, {"author": "b", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/109680641548243670506", "anchor": "gp-1381983161208", "service": "gp", "text": "@Walker: One major objection to GMOs is that they could escape into the wild or interbreed with wild relatives, and in so doing cause all sorts of ecological havoc. This is a real, though perhaps not insurmountable, concern about GMOs, although it's sometimes exaggerated by GMO opponents. It's harder to imagine a tissue culture getting loose in the same way.", "timestamp": 1381983161}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1381984092381", "service": "gp", "text": "@b\n\u00a0\"It's harder to imagine a tissue culture getting loose in the same way.\"\n
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\nThough it might make for good fiction.", "timestamp": 1381984092}, {"author": "Daniel", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/631924346422?comment_id=631933547982", "anchor": "fb-631933547982", "service": "fb", "text": "Walker, that depends on what your moral reasons are. If you're morally opposed to messing with nature/God's plan, you'd probably have an equal problem with this. If your moral objection is to cruelty to animals, though, this would seem a great solution.", "timestamp": "1381984347"}, {"author": "Ben", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/631924346422?comment_id=631938293472", "anchor": "fb-631938293472", "service": "fb", "text": "Doesn't the question \"will lab-grown meat replace factory-farmed meat\" depend completely on your estimates for how far the cost will fall and how close it will get to real meat? It seems like these estimates are too uncertain for our current expectations to be very relevant. For instance, your argument could have been made analogously for computers vs. slide rules in the days before Moore's Law was a well-known thing.", "timestamp": "1381989031"}, {"author": "Ross", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/631924346422?comment_id=631943817402", "anchor": "fb-631943817402", "service": "fb", "text": "Ben: I think your statement might be reducible to \"Doesn't this economic question depend completely on the costs involved?\"
My (informal) take on economics is that any system might be dominated by a particular factor, but isn't necessarily. So, it might be the case that cost is the deciding factor, or that instead, the disparity in demand is so large that it outweighs even relatively large gaps in cost. This is food, and people have many complicated feelings about food, not all of which are reducible to monetary amounts.
That said, I think that the lack of reasonable estimates on the costs involved is going to put a serious damper on our ability to do hypothetical economic evaluations. So I'd join you in asking for better cost estimates before making judgments on the situation.", "timestamp": "1382002062"}, {"author": "Brad", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/116032343632043704302", "anchor": "gp-1382012992186", "service": "gp", "text": "If the economics do work out and lab-meat can be sold for the same price as conventional meat, I do think consumer choice will be determined largely by perception. The big debate in the US now about labeling GMO food offers an example of how this may play out: if GMO labeling becomes a requirement, most food products sold in supermarkets will be labeled as containing GMOs. This could either drive lots of consumers away from conventional foods or else \"normalize\" GMOs and cause consumers to say, \"hey, I've been eating GMOs all along and I'm fine, maybe it's nothing to worry about.\" The GMO lobby is aware of this but isn't keen to perform the experiment in case it doesn't work out in their favour, which is why they oppose labelling.\n
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\nThere will always be some people who prefer \"real\" meat due to traditionalist tendencies, mistrust of lab meat, or actual differences in flavour and texture (e.g., some people avoid farmed salmon for taste reasons, not just because fish-farming causes environmental damage, involves the use of antibiotics, and is less sustainable than eating wild-caught Pacific salmon). But most consumers don't care and just buy based on price and perception. Labeling plays a big role in perception. Farmed salmon is the default in most supermarkets and I'd be surprised if more than 10% of consumers even know there is an alternative, because it's not labeled \"farmed.\" Same goes for shrimp. I'm sure there will be a requirement to label lab-grown meat as such, and getting over the stigmas associated with that perception could take time. It'll be interesting to see how perceptions evolve if GMO labeling ends up being required in the United States.", "timestamp": 1382012992}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1382019076292", "service": "gp", "text": "@Brad\n\u00a0\"actual differences in flavour and texture\"\n
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\nI suspect the flavor and texture differences will be much larger than farmed vs wild-caught salmon.", "timestamp": 1382019076}, {"author": "Brad", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/116032343632043704302", "anchor": "gp-1382019526953", "service": "gp", "text": "@Jeff Kaufman\n\u00a0Yes -- although probably not really noticeable in ground meat.", "timestamp": 1382019526}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/631924346422?comment_id=631956661662", "anchor": "fb-631956661662", "service": "fb", "text": "@Ben: \"our argument could have been made analogously for computers vs. slide rules in the days before Moore's Law was a well-known thing\"
People eat because they enjoy it in a way they never did with slide rules. People want variety in food but consistency in calculating devices. The speed difference between computers and slide rules is absolutely enormous, especially for complex problems, but the current cost difference between meat calories and plant calories is much smaller and the cost of lab meat is likely to be in between.", "timestamp": "1382019586"}, {"author": "Satvik", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/631924346422?comment_id=631965633682", "anchor": "fb-631965633682", "service": "fb", "text": "Jeff Kaufman, Ben, there are varieties of meat that people enjoy but rarely eat today (e.g. Kobe/Wagyu beef) because it's too expensive. If lab-grown meat costs 20% of animal-grown meat and animal-grown meat gets significantly more expensive than it is today (which it probably will, see Aled's post here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/effective.altruists/permalink/578239325565762/) then animal-grown meat will likely be seen as a luxury and consumption will drop dramatically.
It's a matter of how big you think the price difference will be. I agree that if lab-grown meat is just 10% cheaper than animal-grown meat, it won't have a significant impact on consumption, but my best guess is that lab-grown meat will be *massively* cheaper than the alternative in 50 years.", "timestamp": "1382024879"}, {"author": "Martin", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/631924346422?comment_id=632021816092", "anchor": "fb-632021816092", "service": "fb", "text": "Lab-grown meat (factory grown): I hate to imagine what crap the producers would put in the growth medium...", "timestamp": "1382064517"}]}