While I agree with Fergus that the video shared above is not very informative, I do think we should reflect more on the feasibility of cultured meat within the community. A report commissioned by Open Philanthropy from a top scientist found that cultured meat might never work at scale.
I would encourage you to read this article on it here:
Lab-grown meat is supposed to be inevitable. The science tells a different story.
Recent reporting by WIRED on Upside Foods is also concerning.
Insiders Reveal Major Problems at Lab-Grown-Meat Startup Upside Foods | WIRED
My fear is that cultured meat might be (another) area in which the community has fallen into groupthink, causing us to direct a lot of resources in a misguided way (i.e. the Good Food Institute’s cultured meat efforts).
Very low confidence, but maybe it would make more sense to double down on plant-based meat, making products less competitive, and boring old moral advocacy?
I’d be very keen to hear what others think.
Thank you for writing this posit. I think the degrowth perspective is quite needed in the EA community, which I often feel tends to be too optimistic about the prospects of technological progress improving wellbeing in the medium-run and the negative impacts of climate change on wellbeing and overall societal stability in the medium-run. Facing these challenges, targeted degrowth of certain sectors in developed economies seems like the best response. Especially since a Haber Bosch-style breakthrough doesn’t seem likely, or hoping that one does happen seems unreasonable given the stakes.
However, I agree that degrowth doesn’t is probably not very tractable. A massive shift in developed countries’ political power structures would be required to implement the reductions in profit and redistribution of economic resources that degrowth implies.