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Oil is a bad metaphor. Those "dry" wells are only worth it once the price of oil goes up, that's what they're waiting for. Food doesn't seem to have anything s
by kadoban 2y ago
Oil is a bad metaphor. Those "dry" wells are only worth it once the price of oil goes up, that's what they're waiting for.
Food doesn't seem to have anything similar. If you could make more profitable food _right now_, there's nothing stopping you, no reason to wait.
- llamaimperative 2y agoR&D doesn’t happen by just theorizing what the maximum the market could sustain and then conjuring up those innovations out of thin air. It happens via sustained investment decisions over years. Those decisions are made in light of their costs and incentives, which change over time. Either food can be “improved” under certain economic conditions (which are probably amplified by GLP-1s), or we’re at the theoretical maximum. So you can give an argument why GLP-1s don’t produce strong incentive for R&D or you can argue that a stronger incentive won’t matter because we’re capped out, but historically the “if it could be better it would be better already” argument is disproved by capitalism on a daily basis.