Another Reason to Love the Enlightenment!
For those of us who don’t wish to inflict harm on animals (well, setting aside mosquitos), but who merely avoid veal and foie gras, various scientists are coming up with a great solution: lab-grown meat that is not attached to any creatures capable of feeling pain or experiencing fear. (It seemed like a good idea to me for years, but I’d never heard of anyone working on it.)
I suspect that, for the next few years at least, this is a solution for VERY RICH PEOPLE who don’t wish to inflict harm on animals…
“The luxury of today is the necessity of tomorrow. Every advance first comes into being as the luxury of a few rich people, only to become, after a time, the indispensable necessity taken for granted by everyone.”
– Mises, Liberalism
There’s a quote very similar to that one above attributed to G Tarde in Hayek’s Constitution of Liberty.
Dear Micha and Justin: I don’t disagree, and am aware of the Mises quote. Please note my wording: “…FOR THE NEXT FEW YEARS…”
RL
Even if it becomes economical, I seriously doubt that this will catch on. Most vegetarians I know do not believe in animal rights, they rather oppose the factory farm system, or the environmental destruction caused by massive farming, or do it for health reasons.
This does nothing to address the problem.
Furthermore, three is probably close to as big, if not bigger, movement against “Frankenfood” than there is against eating meat. (There may be more PETA types in numbers, but most everyone I know, including liberals, hate animal rights activists, which makes the movement hard to catch on) So all those people are going to be against this even more so than the factory farms.
Plus that really sounds gross to me.
Essential to life are pain, suffering, sacrifice and death. Virtue can only be created in such a world. By freeing us from experiences – by enabling us to have our veal and eat it too – bio-futurists and their libertarian enablers create a world without limits and without meaning. There ought to be a law!
That’s my discourse and I’m sticking to it.
* see Leon Kass for more.
I’d very much like a simple tumor growing in a cylindrical glass petri pipe in my fridge. By making it the same diameter as a hamburger bun, you could slice off a fresh burger every week or so.
For a bit of fun, installing vocal chords toward the
end for a screaming tumor might be handy in driving off unwanted guests.