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If you use current technology for growing cells I can easily believe that it will never be competitive. Even with economies of scale that is rather sensitive wo

If you use current technology for growing cells I can easily believe that it will never be competitive. Even with economies of scale that is rather sensitive work that is very easily spoiled. Unless you figure out how to ensure clean-room conditions for low cost this part alone might make this too expensive. But I don't see how there could be any kind of insurmountable problem here. Animals "solve" this problem for us right now, so there is a way. I just think that the solution has to be quite different than how we grow cell cultures in the lab right now. Short term I'd be really skeptical on the prospects of replacing meat in this way. But long term is an entirely different question.

lazerpants 5y ago
It's like looking at the Wright Flyer and saying that it is neat proof of concept, but that affordable transatlantic flight will simply never be possible. Prescient at that point in history, but myopic over a long enough time frame.
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
  I'm surprised it was downvoted. It was a good point. Those of us in the computer industry can well remember when "640K should be enough for anyone." We literally cannot imagine what the future will bring. I'm still waiting on my flying atomicar. I think it will end up being necessary to make food this way, and that we'll figure out how to do it (Soylent Green, anyone?).
  - White_Wolf 5y ago
    I do have times when I look at my phone and think about the first "computer" I touched. I'm still amazed sometimes of how tech changed since I was 6-7 years old(talking almost 40 years) I'm no fan of lab growing anything because or banning people from raising animals or having food plots because those that make the food make the rules. That being said... I wouldn't be suprised to see, in 2-3 decades, something taking off in that regard. All it takes is one stroke of genius and a ton of elbow grease to change it all.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
    These sorts of things look like inspirational posters and suffer from survivorship bias. Many more ideas failed than succeeded. We also seem to think that no one learned from all that experience. We can see the things that made something once thought impossible work at scale. We all know these stories. So we’re more primed to be wary of just being negative. I’m all for spending money on this, but it could turn out certain breakthroughs are needed and we don’t know when or if they will come.
  - randomdata 5y ago
    > Those of us in the computer industry can well remember when "640K should be enough for anyone." I can remember the urban legend, but there seems to be no solid evidence that it was ever actually said, let alone believed by anyone. The saying is normally attributed to Bill Gates, but he denies ever saying it, and tells how he was pushing computer makers to include even more RAM.
    - ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
      That’s why I didn’t attribute the quote. I’m quite aware that the attribution is probably B.S. There’s no question that the attitude was prevalent, though; whether or not Gates said anything like it. “Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet.” —Abraham Lincoln
      - randomdata 5y ago
        When 640k was all you could reasonably buy as a consumer, it had to be enough for anyone if you wanted to own a computer at the time. It was never thought of as some fundamental limit that could not be broken or utilized in larger quantities, however.
- Jensson 5y ago
  Most things people said wouldn't happen didn't happen though. Some remarkable things happened, yes, but you can't count on remarkable breakthroughs happening in any specific area. People looked at past results and thought we would live forever by now, but we still die and there is no end in sight of that. People looked at past energy use and saw the future of fusion solving all human energy needs, but energy use has been flat for the past 50 years as no new efficient enough energy sources was found. People looked at the innovations of transportation and assumed we would all have flying cars today, yet we still drive cars on the ground just like 70 years ago. They are a bit safer and more efficient today, but they are still just cars.
  - beambot 5y ago
    Fwiw, net-positive nuclear fusion now legitimately looks to be less than 5 years out. See Commonwealth Fusion. Here's a technical deep dive: https://youtu.be/rY6U4wB-oYM https://youtu.be/rY6U4wB-oYM
    - Jensson 5y ago
      Those slides was 2.5 years ago, there ought to have been some very interesting development since then if it is just 5 years away, right? Can't you link something more recent?
      - beambot 5y ago
        Most recent advances: https://news.mit.edu/2021/MIT-CFS-major-advance-toward-fusion-energy-0908 https://news.mit.edu/2021/MIT-CFS-major-advance-toward-fusio... I just figured the physics symposium lecture would be more interesting given the deep-dive details and allusions to why ITER "failed" to achieve the desired breakthroughs.
        Jensson 5y ago
        Thanks, that looks cool. Just that a professor with slides is rarely a good sign that something is soon production ready, but them meeting production milestones is a good sign. Still I wont bother to check the physics, if they are right it is great, but I wont change my life based on them making it. I know the problems with ITER, it will be too expensive to really revolutionize much, but I haven't done physics in a while and wont bother with more now.
Jeff_Brown 5y ago
> how to ensure clean-room conditions for low cost Maybe rather than chlorine or UV or whatever, give the clean rooms immune defenses?
- beerandt 5y ago
  There's UV light in sunshine. Maybe they should grow the protein outside.
vladTheInhaler 5y ago
Agreed. Skimming Humbird's analysis, he mentions concentrations of catabolites as a significant limit on cell density, and points out that their removal is usually the job of the kidneys. To me that immediately raised the question of how to design an artificial kidney-like structure that can also live in solution. Similarly, the cleanroom conditions are very difficult to sustain, but what if we could engineer a replacement for the immune system to police the reactors? Both of those are of course complete science fiction currently, but they're not "thermodynamically impossible" like he seems to suggest. They're 'just' conditioned on a significantly deeper understanding of biochemistry and genetic engineering than we currently have. Given the current state of the technology and the implications of meat for global warming, I suspect that meat might just become more expensive until it stops being eaten entirely. And when the technology exists to produce it artificially, there won't be a market for it anymore. Speaking as someone who eats meat regularly, it's mostly a matter of conditioning. I don't think I would have independently invented the idea of killing and consuming an animal if other's hadn't taught it to me.
- Jensson 5y ago
  If you solve those issues cost efficiently enough to grow meat cells you basically also solved all human blood and heart diseases. Just run your artificial kidneys to clean the blood etc. It isn't impossible to solve as you say, but solving it would basically revolutionize all of medicine.
- roca 5y ago
  "Engineer a replacement for the immune system" sounds insanely hard. Problem statement: "constant incoming stream of incredibly diverse unknown bacterial and viral invaders that you have to recognize and kill before their replication overwhelms your systems, but make sure you don't attack any of your own extremely diverse tissues, oh also those bacteria and viruses are constantly evolving to bypass your defenses". Natural immune systems are incredible biotech and it's a miracle we're not all dead. > I don't think I would have independently invented the idea of killing and consuming an animal if other's hadn't taught it to me. If you were really hungry I think you'd figure something out.

lazerpants 5y ago

It's like looking at the Wright Flyer and saying that it is neat proof of concept, but that affordable transatlantic flight will simply never be possible. Prescient at that point in history, but myopic over a long enough time frame.

ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
I'm surprised it was downvoted. It was a good point. Those of us in the computer industry can well remember when "640K should be enough for anyone." We literally cannot imagine what the future will bring. I'm still waiting on my flying atomicar. I think it will end up being necessary to make food this way, and that we'll figure out how to do it (Soylent Green, anyone?).
- White_Wolf 5y ago
  I do have times when I look at my phone and think about the first "computer" I touched. I'm still amazed sometimes of how tech changed since I was 6-7 years old(talking almost 40 years) I'm no fan of lab growing anything because or banning people from raising animals or having food plots because those that make the food make the rules. That being said... I wouldn't be suprised to see, in 2-3 decades, something taking off in that regard. All it takes is one stroke of genius and a ton of elbow grease to change it all.
- 2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
  These sorts of things look like inspirational posters and suffer from survivorship bias. Many more ideas failed than succeeded. We also seem to think that no one learned from all that experience. We can see the things that made something once thought impossible work at scale. We all know these stories. So we’re more primed to be wary of just being negative. I’m all for spending money on this, but it could turn out certain breakthroughs are needed and we don’t know when or if they will come.
- randomdata 5y ago
  > Those of us in the computer industry can well remember when "640K should be enough for anyone." I can remember the urban legend, but there seems to be no solid evidence that it was ever actually said, let alone believed by anyone. The saying is normally attributed to Bill Gates, but he denies ever saying it, and tells how he was pushing computer makers to include even more RAM.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
    That’s why I didn’t attribute the quote. I’m quite aware that the attribution is probably B.S. There’s no question that the attitude was prevalent, though; whether or not Gates said anything like it. “Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet.” —Abraham Lincoln
    - randomdata 5y ago
      When 640k was all you could reasonably buy as a consumer, it had to be enough for anyone if you wanted to own a computer at the time. It was never thought of as some fundamental limit that could not be broken or utilized in larger quantities, however.
Jensson 5y ago
Most things people said wouldn't happen didn't happen though. Some remarkable things happened, yes, but you can't count on remarkable breakthroughs happening in any specific area. People looked at past results and thought we would live forever by now, but we still die and there is no end in sight of that. People looked at past energy use and saw the future of fusion solving all human energy needs, but energy use has been flat for the past 50 years as no new efficient enough energy sources was found. People looked at the innovations of transportation and assumed we would all have flying cars today, yet we still drive cars on the ground just like 70 years ago. They are a bit safer and more efficient today, but they are still just cars.
- beambot 5y ago
  Fwiw, net-positive nuclear fusion now legitimately looks to be less than 5 years out. See Commonwealth Fusion. Here's a technical deep dive: https://youtu.be/rY6U4wB-oYM https://youtu.be/rY6U4wB-oYM
  - Jensson 5y ago
    Those slides was 2.5 years ago, there ought to have been some very interesting development since then if it is just 5 years away, right? Can't you link something more recent?
    - beambot 5y ago
      Most recent advances: https://news.mit.edu/2021/MIT-CFS-major-advance-toward-fusion-energy-0908 https://news.mit.edu/2021/MIT-CFS-major-advance-toward-fusio... I just figured the physics symposium lecture would be more interesting given the deep-dive details and allusions to why ITER "failed" to achieve the desired breakthroughs.
      - Jensson 5y ago
        Thanks, that looks cool. Just that a professor with slides is rarely a good sign that something is soon production ready, but them meeting production milestones is a good sign. Still I wont bother to check the physics, if they are right it is great, but I wont change my life based on them making it. I know the problems with ITER, it will be too expensive to really revolutionize much, but I haven't done physics in a while and wont bother with more now.

Jeff_Brown 5y ago

> how to ensure clean-room conditions for low cost Maybe rather than chlorine or UV or whatever, give the clean rooms immune defenses?

beerandt 5y ago
There's UV light in sunshine. Maybe they should grow the protein outside.

vladTheInhaler 5y ago

Agreed. Skimming Humbird's analysis, he mentions concentrations of catabolites as a significant limit on cell density, and points out that their removal is usually the job of the kidneys. To me that immediately raised the question of how to design an artificial kidney-like structure that can also live in solution. Similarly, the cleanroom conditions are very difficult to sustain, but what if we could engineer a replacement for the immune system to police the reactors? Both of those are of course complete science fiction currently, but they're not "thermodynamically impossible" like he seems to suggest. They're 'just' conditioned on a significantly deeper understanding of biochemistry and genetic engineering than we currently have. Given the current state of the technology and the implications of meat for global warming, I suspect that meat might just become more expensive until it stops being eaten entirely. And when the technology exists to produce it artificially, there won't be a market for it anymore. Speaking as someone who eats meat regularly, it's mostly a matter of conditioning. I don't think I would have independently invented the idea of killing and consuming an animal if other's hadn't taught it to me.

Jensson 5y ago
If you solve those issues cost efficiently enough to grow meat cells you basically also solved all human blood and heart diseases. Just run your artificial kidneys to clean the blood etc. It isn't impossible to solve as you say, but solving it would basically revolutionize all of medicine.
roca 5y ago
"Engineer a replacement for the immune system" sounds insanely hard. Problem statement: "constant incoming stream of incredibly diverse unknown bacterial and viral invaders that you have to recognize and kill before their replication overwhelms your systems, but make sure you don't attack any of your own extremely diverse tissues, oh also those bacteria and viruses are constantly evolving to bypass your defenses". Natural immune systems are incredible biotech and it's a miracle we're not all dead. > I don't think I would have independently invented the idea of killing and consuming an animal if other's hadn't taught it to me. If you were really hungry I think you'd figure something out.