4 ms·

Wouldn't animals without a pain response just stand there quietly while farmers poked them with cattle prods trying to get them to move off the railroad tracks,

by quant18 17y ago

Wouldn't animals without a pain response just stand there quietly while farmers poked them with cattle prods trying to get them to move off the railroad tracks, hailstones pelted them bloody, predatory birds pecked them to death, etc.? Anyway, yeah, like everyone else said, for all these reasons, in vitro meat seems like a massive win over this idea. (Of course, if in vitro meat does deliver on its promises of lower-cost, more sanitary meat, you're probably just trading less animal suffering for more human suffering: lots of people are going to become unemployed, and the bulk of them will be found in relatively rigid economies, especially in the developing world, who can't easily switch from agriculture to to other economic sectors due to structural reasons)

dejb 17y ago
> if in vitro meat does deliver on its promises of lower-cost, more sanitary meat, you're probably just trading less animal suffering for more human suffering: You could argue this for any technological development. So the reduction of animal suffering in this case would be a bonus on top of the usual economic gains.
patio11 17y ago
lots of people are going to become unemployed Lots of people becoming unemployed from agriculture practically defines development. There is another human suffering tradeoff: poor people will be able to eat meat on a regular basis. For many people, this is actually one of the defining things that makes them un-poor. It is routinely advanced as one of the "We've made it, guys!" signs for Japan in the post-war era, for example. (The truly poor can then transition to the health problems of the rich: obesity caused by overconsumption of cheap tasty food. See the lower socioeconomic strata in the US, who on a global scale are so un-poor it hurts my head to see the two compared with each other.)
- quant18 17y ago
  Good point. And a third benefit I didn't think of in the first place: third-world governments not only often misprice water, but also can't effectively enforce water access rights --- which often leads to violent conflict (between tribes with different modes of production, etc). Shifting food production towards richer economies would reduce the strain on water resources in the third world.

by quant18 17y ago

dejb 17y ago

> if in vitro meat does deliver on its promises of lower-cost, more sanitary meat, you're probably just trading less animal suffering for more human suffering: You could argue this for any technological development. So the reduction of animal suffering in this case would be a bonus on top of the usual economic gains.

patio11 17y ago

lots of people are going to become unemployed Lots of people becoming unemployed from agriculture practically defines development. There is another human suffering tradeoff: poor people will be able to eat meat on a regular basis. For many people, this is actually one of the defining things that makes them un-poor. It is routinely advanced as one of the "We've made it, guys!" signs for Japan in the post-war era, for example. (The truly poor can then transition to the health problems of the rich: obesity caused by overconsumption of cheap tasty food. See the lower socioeconomic strata in the US, who on a global scale are so un-poor it hurts my head to see the two compared with each other.)

quant18 17y ago
Good point. And a third benefit I didn't think of in the first place: third-world governments not only often misprice water, but also can't effectively enforce water access rights --- which often leads to violent conflict (between tribes with different modes of production, etc). Shifting food production towards richer economies would reduce the strain on water resources in the third world.