97
submitted 1 year ago by learn3code@hexbear.net to c/news@hexbear.net

run from it, dread it, beans arrive all the same

bean bean-think chickpea

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] kristina@hexbear.net 93 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Idk if you read the article or not, but most of this can be attributed to the fact that our grid runs on emitters. Fix that and it goes down significantly.

Also, you really shouldn't be rooting against this tech, its anti-materialist. The quickest way to solve the ethical issues of meat production is with this tech. No, you will never convince America (or any country in the world) to be 100% vegan without full replacements of all meat varieties. This line of thinking that you can persuade all people to stop eating meat is idealism, not materialism. A reduced price and easier manufacture of lab grown meat will accomplish that, however, and I think we're likely to see this tech being more popular in places like China, as they have taken a focus on it in their 5 year plans.

This paper also ruled out altering the cells of these proteins to be more resistant to endotoxins natively... which is absurd, of course its possible that can be resolved through selecting the most fit cells, and that is another part of the bulk of CO2 emissions mentioned by this paper going away.

I'd also like to point out that this research is not lab tested and is not peer reviewed, they simply amalgamated and indexed other papers and looked for amounts reported. A proper investigation into this would require field work and consistent equipment. Its kinda wild how much of a media footprint this non-peer-reviewed article with no original research has... This is probably the cheapest kind of research paper to commission, I wouldn't be surprised if the meat industry was astroturfing this.

[-] Nagarjuna@hexbear.net 22 points 1 year ago

I swear you can have the worst takes and if you say "material conditions," then hexbear will upvote you 50 times.

You want materialism? The current level of meat consumption in the US is propped up by exploitation of migrant labor and an extractive mode of agriculture which is unsustainable and relies on external inputs like fertilizer which are themselves the product of other extractive industries.

We could dramatically reduce meat consumption without any technological changes by:

--Paying meat packers a living wage

--Organize Whole Foods and Wal-Mart, driving up meat cutters' wages

--Stop subsidizing meat

--Stop subsidizing feed crops

--Switch to permacultural farming practices

Banking on a tech breakthrough is ideological in the sense that it protects the status quo and marshals venture capital into mostly speculative assets.

Additionally, convincing people to go vegetarian is not idealist. Mass media has a huge effect, and using it to encourage vegetarianism is a material process. So either, we can take material measures to encourage vegetarianism, or you don't believe we'll ever wield power. Based on your defense of lab meat (a vc grift similar to tech start-ups), I think it's the latter.

[-] kristina@hexbear.net 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Theres a lot to break down here, but no, people like eating meat and that is a material fact. If you're hoping to exterminate the meat industry as it exists today, then you need enhancements in technology. No one really uses horses and buggies for transporting goods anymore, that has been replaced by trains, cars, and trucks. Technological change is one of the greatest examples of material conditions being altered. And as time goes on, tech generally makes us less reliant on animals for labor. And as it stands, meat consumption is rising despite the increase in vegans.

And I'm not 'banking on tech breakthrough'. Graphs show the price is going down and you can buy a dish of cultivated chicken in China for 15-25 USD. Its very reasonable to assume the ~2030 estimate for mass produced cultivated eggs by the CPC to be genuine. The 5 year plan even suggests the amount of cultivated meat produced will increase by 50% by 2025.

[-] Nagarjuna@hexbear.net 5 points 1 year ago

If you're hoping to exterminate the meat industry as it exists today, then you need enhancements in technology.

Hey, I think you might want to read my post a little bit closer.

[-] kristina@hexbear.net 22 points 1 year ago

If you're just gonna post zingers, I'm done here.

[-] oregoncom@hexbear.net 18 points 1 year ago

I don't think you've ever met someone from a nomadic-pastoralist culture before if you think veganism/vegetarianism can be encouraged through mass media. Mongols for example have been following a version of buddhism that discourages eating meat for almost a millennial now and their modern diet still consists largely of meat. The only thing that has decreased meat consumption for them is 20th century modernization of agriculture.

Switch to permacultural farming practices

Even the biggest proponents of permaculture maintain that it's very difficult to do at scale, and that no such large scale solution exists at the moment. Hoping for large scale switchover to permaculture is just as idealistic as hoping for lab grown meat to become economical.

[-] Nagarjuna@hexbear.net 7 points 1 year ago

Getting your average suburbanite to eat less meat is different from asking someone whose whole life centers around stock animals. I dont expect everyone to go vegan after an ad campaign, but the UK, where the mass media approach has been tried, has more than twice as many vegetarians per capita than the US.

I agree with the problem of permaculture at scale. Right now the bleak reality is that there is no scalable alternative to extractive agriculture. that said, grain and vegetable farming is far more efficient than meat farming in most cases. The exception is where you're using animals as part of a grasslands management regime (where the grassland is either yeilding meat or nothing), and i actually do want to see an expansion of Bison farming to that end. I agree with you that that was an idealistic take on my part tho. I think my point about changing farming policy to encourage more efficient crops still stands though, do you agree?

Tangent related to bisonposting:

I have a cousin whose entire job is to count Bison. He’s like the most zen person I know and I think it’s because he has such a chill job. Like he just chills in nature and keeps the government up to date on how many bison are there. It rules.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[-] cecinestpasunbot@lemmy.ml 22 points 1 year ago

Believing that this tech will solve the environmental and ethical problems of animal agriculture is anti materialist. Cultured meat is almost certainly going to be way more resource intensive to produce than plant based alternatives. There’s no way around it.

You also don’t need to convince anyone to go vegan. The world at large either has to wind down it’s reliance on animal agriculture or face the environmental devastation that comes with it. Remember culture develops as a consequence of material conditions. It’s anti materialist to think otherwise.

[-] kristina@hexbear.net 37 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

For the record, the CPC disagrees with you and their body consists of thousands of engineers and historically cares a lot about food production. Though they are focusing on different meat products, namely eggs and pig skin. Eggs imo are far more likely to succeed here in the near future based on the research I've read in China. I remember researching how much funding this is getting in each country and China was funding this research on a scale of 10-1 over the West.

[-] cecinestpasunbot@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 year ago

I’m open to being proven wrong but I just don’t think it’s viable. It’s not as simple as throwing a few cells in a bioreactor.

To make this commercially viable you would have to develop a very efficient supply chain to produce all the complex nutrients and hormones necessary to grown animal tissues in vitro. You would have to do this without relying on the byproducts of animal agriculture as is currently the case. Most of the research I’ve read kind of hand waves away that issue.

Next, you have to culture animal tissues at an industrial scale. This is the challenge some researchers are trying to address. I think this may be possible but it’s unlikely to be very efficient. You still need to “feed” your cells over a long period of time as muscle tissue does not grow quickly, even when stimulated with hormones.

Lastly, if you somehow find solutions to all those problems I think it’s unlikely you’ll have a product that closely imitates the taste an texture of meat. Animal tissues are complex. They contain a variety of cell types and extra cellular proteins that no attempt at lab grown meat has come close to replicating. I think it’s next to impossible for them to get cells to grow into a complex tissue like they would in vivo. So instead you’ll be left trying to cobble together a cell based mush full of antibiotics and growth hormones into something that looks edible.

The alternative is just using plant protein as a basis for meat alternatives. That’s something the CPC is also supporting. Personally I’m already pretty impressed by what’s available now. Improving it to a point where people will be comfortable giving up meat seems much more viable in my opinion than lab grown meat.

[-] JuneFall@hexbear.net 12 points 1 year ago

There’s no way around it.

I am not totally convinced with that part, but the rest I would critically support.

If you grow plant matter in labs or hydroponics with usage of sunlight and water nutrition enhancement you will be better than lab meat, but there are plenty of plants which in the wild are less good. However there are also plenty which are good enough and widely available in the soils we currently got.

Your point will at least for 15-30 years be totally true (since energy production for both lab meat and hydroponics is on average bad).

[-] Nagarjuna@hexbear.net 7 points 1 year ago

I really think "materialist" and "idealist" outside the concept of 19th century debates around Hegel are thought-terminating cliches.

[-] Florist@hexbear.net 9 points 1 year ago

Yeah, the common usage on this site is

good realistic idea = materialism

bad unrealistic idea = idealism

load more comments (3 replies)
[-] iridaniotter@hexbear.net 65 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Study Finds Scaling Up Production Using Existing Processes Highly Energy-Intensive

Immature technology found to be worse than mature technology. shocked-pikachu

[-] fuckmyphonefuckingsu@hexbear.net 52 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This paper that isn't peer reviewed, shares none of its data and is based on a weak hypothisis says beans are bad

:cope: anti cool-bean losers, bean gang stay winning

[-] ButtBidet@hexbear.net 38 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Maybe lab grown just isn't efficient. I'd be down with Western countries stop subsidising meat and subsidising food to the poor.

Not to discredit the data, but I need to point out how gross the lead author is.

[-] appel@whiskers.bim.boats 20 points 1 year ago

I wrote an article on my thoughts here: https://bim.boats/flaws-of-cm/ In short, I believe it's basically impossible to do it at the right scale to make it cheap enough due to the requirement for growth factors (or cancerous cells) and for sterility.

[-] aes@lemm.ee 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Did u even read the article? They literally just said that lab grown stuff isn't inherently greener than animal products, which is such a fucking nothingburger of a statement.

[-] learn3code@hexbear.net 37 points 1 year ago

I did read the article. My conclusion was that I should go eat some beans.

[-] Lizardon@lemmy.ml 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)
[-] MF_COOM@hexbear.net 17 points 1 year ago

Yeah I mean I don't know why it wouldn't be honestly. Mfers just don't want to eat a damned bean huh

[-] Jimmycrackcrack@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 year ago

It probably would be if we just scaled up existing production methods but that'd seem unlikely because it's just too expensive and difficult regardless of environmental impact. The goal has always been to find out how to do this in a cheap and scalable manner. That has proved very elusive though to my outsider's understanding, certainly doesn't seem to be an easy task. I hope they eventually do.

[-] learn3code@hexbear.net 10 points 1 year ago

Yeah, if we can eventually get the carbon footprint down then great. I'm not against lab-meat in principle, but it's probably not going to be the overnight climate savior that people are hoping for. Meanwhile there's plenty of plant-based protein available in the here and now.

[-] Finger@hexbear.net 13 points 1 year ago

no more half measures walter

[-] axont@hexbear.net 10 points 1 year ago

the lab grown meat thing is still so bizarre to me. Does meat actually taste good to people? I guess it must but it's always been disgusting to me.

Just give me a bean patty on my dumb american burger, it's fine and better than anything resembling meat

[-] SpiderFarmer@hexbear.net 16 points 1 year ago

Meat is tasty, but a black bean burger piled high with fried onions, cheese and mayo is also a winner in my book.

[-] axont@hexbear.net 6 points 1 year ago

yeah something must be wrong in my brain then. I can't consume meat without feeling gross and it's been like that since I was a child.

[-] SpiderFarmer@hexbear.net 8 points 1 year ago

Eh, we're all a little different. I honestly. I like carbs and oils, myself. Pastas, breads, rice. Granted, I've been cutting down on that myself. It would be nice to see a world where meat consumption would be drastically down. Heck, I keep waffling about going pescatarian within a few years.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] chatokun@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 1 year ago

I enjoy vegetarian and bean based items, but they don't taste like meat. Which makes sense since you don't like meat. Still, what you're portraying is a gross indifference(gross as in mass, not any judgement) to the fact that people have differences from your opinions/tastes.

I don't like the taste of: celery, blue cheese, pickles, some other pickled items, a lot of sweet stuff, tabasco sauce, surcalose, sweet coconut (I like savory coconut though) and a number of other edible items. Do I think it's crazy other people enjoy that stuff? No, because I realize other people exist, have different opinions, tastes, and priorities than I do.

My tastes do not make me superior to others; simply different. Stopped being shok0ed people aren't you. You are neither the only person to exist, nor are you more important than others who exist. You are you, and I am me. And they are them. I am also not more important than any other existence, and neither are they.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)
[-] booty@hexbear.net 9 points 1 year ago

Wow how surprising, it's not like I've been saying for years that lab-grown meat is a gimmick or anything.

Mfers here on hexbear were even getting mad at me for saying that. This bazinga shit is never going to help. Just stop harming animals.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] NoGodsNoMasters@hexbear.net 5 points 1 year ago

'I'll eat lab-grown meat when it's available' is pretty much the 'future carbon capture technology will solve climate change' of animal welfare anyway (actually climate change too because it definitely affects that too)

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2023
97 points (100.0% liked)

news

23532 readers
653 users here now

Welcome to c/news! Please read the Hexbear Code of Conduct and remember... we're all comrades here.

Rules:

-- PLEASE KEEP POST TITLES INFORMATIVE --

-- Overly editorialized titles, particularly if they link to opinion pieces, may get your post removed. --

-- All posts must include a link to their source. Screenshots are fine IF you include the link in the post body. --

-- If you are citing a twitter post as news please include not just the twitter.com in your links but also nitter.net (or another Nitter instance). There is also a Firefox extension that can redirect Twitter links to a Nitter instance: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/libredirect/ or archive them as you would any other reactionary source using e.g. https://archive.today . Twitter screenshots still need to be sourced or they will be removed --

-- Mass tagging comm moderators across multiple posts like a broken markov chain bot will result in a comm ban--

-- Repeated consecutive posting of reactionary sources, fake news, misleading / outdated news, false alarms over ghoul deaths, and/or shitposts will result in a comm ban.--

-- Neglecting to use content warnings or NSFW when dealing with disturbing content will be removed until in compliance. Users who are consecutively reported due to failing to use content warnings or NSFW tags when commenting on or posting disturbing content will result in the user being banned. --

-- Using April 1st as an excuse to post fake headlines, like the resurrection of Kissinger while he is still fortunately dead, will result in the poster being thrown in the gamer gulag and be sentenced to play and beat trashy mobile games like 'Raid: Shadow Legends' in order to be rehabilitated back into general society. --

founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS