Fascinating article about steaks grown in the lab.

Maybe it’s because I’ve read the Dune books so many times (remember slig meat?), but I’ve long thought that we’d eventually be able to replace farm grown meat with lab, or factory, grown meat. Now I don’t think it’s necessarily an entirely good idea. As with all new technologies, there are pluses and minuses. But I am curious what the animal rights and eco-types would say to the proposition of lab grown meat — assuming they could get past their deep luddism. After all, the suffering of farm animals would be sharply curtailed if not eliminated. Forests wouldn’t need to be cleared for cattle and billions(?) of acres of forest land around the world could be allowed to revert to wilderness, improving the quality of our air and water.

Of course, even if we perfected the technology overnight (which we wouldn’t), there are some obvious downsides: millions of farm animals would probably have to be killed since their would no longer be much economic utility in feeding them. Worse, billions of people around the world would have their traditional social, political and economic arrangements shattered. Our attachment to the land would be even more attenuated. Whole new quasi-religions and political movements would develop around the need to eat “authentic” meat. Anyway, it’s an interesting topic for lazy-day pondering.