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Cultured meats are a competitor to the meat industry, which is a major contributor (but sure, not the sole contributor) to deforestation. Technologies that fin

Cultured meats are a competitor to the meat industry, which is a major contributor (but sure, not the sole contributor) to deforestation. Technologies that financially out-compete those industries until the land is most valuable as a forest are each one step in a permanent, game-theory stable protection for forests. Once you've pulled something superior out of Pandora's box, there's no putting it back in, and no need to use regulation to force consumers to chose that more efficient option. A regulatory approach is only as strong as the social capital and government enforcement that you can muster to put those protections into law, it does nothing to eliminate the old selfish incentives to exploit those natural resources. The instant that you look away, that the regime changes, or you run out of social momentum, deforestation will resume.

asdff 4y ago
What I'm trying to get at is deforestation will always happen if forests are allowed to be sold. There will always be some use to be had if the land is allowed for private sale, because few people want to just sit on land and pay expenses. Many landowners of large tracts would like for some of that land to work for them. The meat industry is the major contributor today, yes, but if it was gone, there would be another industry as the major contributor. Then another and another, like snakes on Medusa's head. We have shown its a lot faster to just set up a national park than it is to develop technology that eliminates the need for any industry at all to develop on empty land. Sure, governments demand public support in order for their ideas to be maintained, but you could just as easily come up with some hypothetical technology that isn't one of those industries affecting forest today, some new industry or technology, that now has to be stymied to protect the forests. This could happen any time in the future. It will probably happen multiple times, and require more innovation to work out its dependence on land for that one new technology. Now rinse and repeat infinitely into the future as long as you allow forests you intend to protect to be privately owned by individuals or corporations with profit motives.
- brokensegue 4y ago
  if you decrease the profit of developing land then you reduce the amount of land that is developed. it's not inevitable that all lets gets developed even ignoring protected areas.
  - asdff 4y ago
    I would think on the grand scale it probably is inevitable that everything gets developed at some point. Look at Europe: there's probably not one square foot of flat land on that continent that didn't see some sort of human usage by now over history. Maybe the numbers don't pencil out today, but next week the world could change and now you are selling off parcels to people interested in improving the land.
- wheels 4y ago
  > What I'm trying to get at is deforestation will always happen if forests are allowed to be sold That's not really true. Most land in the world isn't developed. Just allowing it to be developed doesn't mean it will be in some manifest-destiny sort of way: there has to be some incentive to develop it. It might turn out that undeveloped, unstrategically located land simply has little economic value (and is more valuable as a carbon sink). Making food, industry and dwelling more land efficient would push down the economic incentives to develop more land.

asdff 4y ago

What I'm trying to get at is deforestation will always happen if forests are allowed to be sold. There will always be some use to be had if the land is allowed for private sale, because few people want to just sit on land and pay expenses. Many landowners of large tracts would like for some of that land to work for them. The meat industry is the major contributor today, yes, but if it was gone, there would be another industry as the major contributor. Then another and another, like snakes on Medusa's head. We have shown its a lot faster to just set up a national park than it is to develop technology that eliminates the need for any industry at all to develop on empty land. Sure, governments demand public support in order for their ideas to be maintained, but you could just as easily come up with some hypothetical technology that isn't one of those industries affecting forest today, some new industry or technology, that now has to be stymied to protect the forests. This could happen any time in the future. It will probably happen multiple times, and require more innovation to work out its dependence on land for that one new technology. Now rinse and repeat infinitely into the future as long as you allow forests you intend to protect to be privately owned by individuals or corporations with profit motives.

brokensegue 4y ago
if you decrease the profit of developing land then you reduce the amount of land that is developed. it's not inevitable that all lets gets developed even ignoring protected areas.
- asdff 4y ago
  I would think on the grand scale it probably is inevitable that everything gets developed at some point. Look at Europe: there's probably not one square foot of flat land on that continent that didn't see some sort of human usage by now over history. Maybe the numbers don't pencil out today, but next week the world could change and now you are selling off parcels to people interested in improving the land.
wheels 4y ago
> What I'm trying to get at is deforestation will always happen if forests are allowed to be sold That's not really true. Most land in the world isn't developed. Just allowing it to be developed doesn't mean it will be in some manifest-destiny sort of way: there has to be some incentive to develop it. It might turn out that undeveloped, unstrategically located land simply has little economic value (and is more valuable as a carbon sink). Making food, industry and dwelling more land efficient would push down the economic incentives to develop more land.