From the article: ... ... The article describes several strategies used to reduce costs. It still seems pretty expensive, but setting limits on potential cost reductions seems hard.
From the article:
One of the most comprehensive critiques of cultured meat’s economic viability to date came in 2021 from David Humbird, a private engineering process consultant commissioned by the nonprofit Open Philanthropy Project. In a roughly 100-page techno-economic analysis, Humbird laid out a detailed case for why he believed scaled production would remain prohibitively expensive. His central conclusion was that cell culture media—the primary cost driver—could not realistically fall below $1 per liter, making it effectively impossible for total production costs to drop below $16 per kilogram. The analysis projected that, at scale, media costs would likely be around $6.50 per liter, and in the most optimistic scenario, $2.50 per liter—with total production costs starting at no less than $21 per kilogram.
...
Less than four years after the publication of the Humbird TEA and its surrounding media coverage, multiple companies are producing cell mass using culture media that costs $1 per liter or less—sharply undercutting Humbird’s projected minimum of $2.50 per liter. Several companies have achieved media costs below $0.50 per liter, placing current performance at 10 to 30 times lower than what the TEA deemed possible, even in its most optimistic scenarios.
...
The combination of lower media costs and higher cell densities has translated into dramatically reduced production costs. Several cultured meat companies are now producing cell mass at $10 to $15 per kilogram—already 30 to 50 percent below the TEA’s projected minimum of $21 per kilogram. A handful of leading-edge firms have gone further, achieving costs below $10 per kilogram.
The article describes several strategies used to reduce costs. It still seems pretty expensive, but setting limits on potential cost reductions seems hard.
These strategies definitely go a long way to make it viable, but I think the biggest factor will be that standard meat will continue to get more and more expensive until the prices converge....
These strategies definitely go a long way to make it viable, but I think the biggest factor will be that standard meat will continue to get more and more expensive until the prices converge. Standard grocery store prices for beef have convinced me to simply stop buying it.
Yeah, in America the meat industry is pretty heavily subsidized and it's still getting pretty dang expensive. If lab grown meat tastes decent and is cheaper I'll 100% buy it
Yeah, in America the meat industry is pretty heavily subsidized and it's still getting pretty dang expensive. If lab grown meat tastes decent and is cheaper I'll 100% buy it
I've eaten both Impossible and Beyond products and they're pretty decent. Prices have lowered since I first tried it, and is getting on a par with biological meat as the latter's price rises. If...
I've eaten both Impossible and Beyond products and they're pretty decent. Prices have lowered since I first tried it, and is getting on a par with biological meat as the latter's price rises. If the Trump admin doesn't manage to go through with their wish of knocking down safety guardrails in the name of increased production, then I'm guessing the price of beef will continue to rise.
Serum-free media is gaining traction as well, which could make the process more predictable, and hence cheaper. Yup consumers want something cheap and tasty, (and not gross or scary) not...
Serum-free media is gaining traction as well, which could make the process more predictable, and hence cheaper.
many of today’s startups are developing more pragmatic processes designed to minimize cost, complexity, and risk—while still delivering meaningful product value.
Yup consumers want something cheap and tasty, (and not gross or scary) not necessarily replicating the full experience of say, Wagyu or wild caught tuna. That sounds like a good direction
I too think cost will be the dominating factor in the success or failure of lab meat. If the producers try to pass the cost of development onto consumers, as happens with many progressive...
I too think cost will be the dominating factor in the success or failure of lab meat.
If the producers try to pass the cost of development onto consumers, as happens with many progressive products, lab meat will not make it. That or it is priced higher because there is less of it.
OTOH, my guess is that if lab meat is cheaper than animal products, and "close enough" for consumers lab meat will succeed -- especially with greedflation meat prices.
"Greedflation" as a concept is ascribing intent to market forces, and doesn't really exist. Corporations have always set the price as high as the market could bear (ie. "greed"). That didn't...
"Greedflation" as a concept is ascribing intent to market forces, and doesn't really exist. Corporations have always set the price as high as the market could bear (ie. "greed"). That didn't change under covid. What did change was the sudden injection of new money, the disruption to existing supply lines, and the resulting global inflation. Each of these factors created new market thresholds, which resulted in globally higher prices.
The variables changed, but the formula has stayed the same.
I've never found the 'greedflation' concept to be all that convincing. Companies are always trying to maximize profit, which I think most would agree is definitionally greedy. Blaming greed for...
Exemplary
I've never found the 'greedflation' concept to be all that convincing. Companies are always trying to maximize profit, which I think most would agree is definitionally greedy. Blaming greed for price increases is kind of like blaming gravity for plane crashes - vacuously true, perhaps. But there must be some other factor that is now making price increases profitable when they were not previously.
I think the logical candidate here is an increase in money supply. During the pandemic, the 'American Rescue Plan Act' added 1.9 trillion dollars to the economy, around a tenth of the total M2 money supply at the time - and this is on top of a trend where the money supply had basically quadrupled over the last decade. Now, I think you could argue that there were societal benefits to this stimulus package that outweighed inflation - I would personally get behind the same argument when it comes to UBI. But it would be silly not to expect this to cause some inflation.
I am also open to the possibility that market consolidation enabled grocery stores to raise prices, which is probably more a more emotionally satisfying argument to many people. However, the data I've seen doesn't really support this. Anecdotally, where I live, there are around a dozen different grocery store chains, all selling dozens of different brands of, for instance, meat - and they have all raised prices in more or less the same way. It is unimaginable to think that this large number of competitors could brought into the same pricing cartel.
Side note - lab meat may actually be a good way to better characterize 'greedflation'. If natural meat price inflation is based on opportunism and not monetary policy, then it will be more profitable to lower natural meat prices if lab meat starts getting cheap and popular. If this doesn't happen, it stands to reason the opposite is true, and that even charitable definitions of 'greedflation' are false.
No it isn't. Gravity doesn't make a conscious decision to pull more objects out of the air when it sees a plane crashing. When supply chain and other issues during the pandemic increased prices...
Blaming greed for price increases is kind of like blaming gravity for plane crashes
No it isn't. Gravity doesn't make a conscious decision to pull more objects out of the air when it sees a plane crashing.
When supply chain and other issues during the pandemic increased prices corporations decided to price gouge under the cover of legitimate price increases due to inflation.
I think you are misunderstanding the plane crash analogy here - whether you ascribe 'greedflation' to abstract market forces or conscious decisions is irrelevant. The point is that, like gravity,...
I think you are misunderstanding the plane crash analogy here - whether you ascribe 'greedflation' to abstract market forces or conscious decisions is irrelevant. The point is that, like gravity, the profit motive ('greed') has always been there. If it were sufficient to cause price increases, they would have already happened. There needs to be some other more proximate cause.
Saying that legitimate price increases provided 'cover' for price gouging flies in the face of reason. Do you really think people decide whether or not to stop at McDonalds on the way home from work based on whether they feel their hamburger prices honestly reflect the actual price of commodity beef? No, of course not. For the most part, they consider whether the benefit of the food is worth the cost, and whether there are cheaper options elsewhere.
I don't think I am. It is kind of weird how many ( not all ) Tildes argue like apologists for corporations and other powers doing harmful things. Let's agree to disagree. Have a nice weekend.
I think you are misunderstanding the plane crash analogy here
I don't think I am. It is kind of weird how many ( not all ) Tildes argue like apologists for corporations and other powers doing harmful things. Let's agree to disagree. Have a nice weekend.
It is kind of weird how many ( not all ) Tildes become unhinged over populist boogeymen like 'greedflation' instead of the actual serious harms of corporations, such as oligopolies, lobbying,...
It is kind of weird how many ( not all ) Tildes become unhinged over populist boogeymen like 'greedflation' instead of the actual serious harms of corporations, such as oligopolies, lobbying, congressional stock trading, and the military industrial complex. Ah well. Take care.
I'm not unhinged. In fact I'm pretty calm. I read about all of those things too. I don't know why, but I haven't had an inclination to post about them here. I do see posts here about people...
I'm not unhinged. In fact I'm pretty calm. I read about all of those things too. I don't know why, but I haven't had an inclination to post about them here.
I do see posts here about people struggling with unemployment and other economic issues. I do wonder if the apologists for corporations are people who never had jobs until they finished college, earn high salaries, and never had to struggle. The tone of the apology posts seem smug to me. Perhaps that is unfair.
The latter part doesn't really make sense. Inflation is quite simply defined as the measurement of the change in price over time. "Legitimate price increase due to inflation" is like saying "the...
When supply chain and other issues during the pandemic increased prices corporations decided to price gouge under the cover of legitimate price increases due to inflation.
The latter part doesn't really make sense. Inflation is quite simply defined as the measurement of the change in price over time. "Legitimate price increase due to inflation" is like saying "the legitimate movement of the car due to velocity". The causation is backwards - inflation is no more than a measurement of price changes.
On the one hand, yeah, I get that this is applicable to the United Stateses and other countries that did actually have similar things going on. On the other hand, I genuinely cannot see how the...
On the one hand, yeah, I get that this is applicable to the United Stateses and other countries that did actually have similar things going on. On the other hand, I genuinely cannot see how the majority of those things here could be truly applicable to shitholes like my home country, Greece.
Certainly it won't be an instant success if they pass on costs and it results in being substantially higher price than what comes from livestock, but I think what will more likely happen is that...
Certainly it won't be an instant success if they pass on costs and it results in being substantially higher price than what comes from livestock, but I think what will more likely happen is that they will have to pass on costs, it will be quite a bit higher, and a smaller portion of people will pay the premium for it, and then it will slowly begin to encroach on livestock meat prices over time and more people will convert as the price keeps dropping until it reaches a tipping point.
Livestock meat has truly insane scale of production compared to other food productions aimed at these markets. Like a lot of the meat imitation plant-based products are still fairly expensive compared to actual meat, which you would think not having to raise whole animals with all the inefficiencies that comes with could in no way beat these plant-based meat imitation products, but they do and I have to assume it's largely just due to the scale they operate at since plant based meat imitation products are a very tiny fraction of the market. I think they've gotten slightly better cost-wise over the years but still quite a bit more expensive. I think if they were good enough imitations people would be willing to pay the higher price, the scale would have gone up more, the cost would have gone down more; however that plant-based bacon even on the packaging where it's supposed to look its best doesn't look nearly as good as real bacon.
I don't have time to do much of a deep dive right now, but most meat products (at least in the US but I suspect most governments due it to some extent) are directly subsidized by the government,...
Like a lot of the meat imitation plant-based products are still fairly expensive compared to actual meat . . . and I have to assume it's largely just due to the scale they operate at since plant based meat imitation products are a very tiny fraction of the market. I think they've gotten slightly better cost-wise over the years but still quite a bit more expensive.
I don't have time to do much of a deep dive right now, but most meat products (at least in the US but I suspect most governments due it to some extent) are directly subsidized by the government, where as I can't find any plant based meats products are. The crops going into their supply chain are, but the feed for animals is too so that at least balances. However the end products are definitely not competing on the same footing. That's not to say scale isn't also a big factor in the cost difference as you point out, but it's not going to be the only major driver.
I have a strong suspicion that meat wouldn't be nearly as cost advantaged over plant alternatives if it wasn't for government subsidy. I think subsidy is probably a big part of exasperating the cost difference and even then meat prices have been climbing despite help from government subsidy.
As for market adoption, that's always going to be a tough sell. Food is tied so strongly to memories and personal experience that it's really hard to get people to try new things. Still, the plant-based meat companies still seem to be selling well enough to stay on business so far. Who knows how the next 10 years will look.
I've never encountered any real substantiated figures on subsidies in meat products so I'd be curious to know just how much it actually is. That's probably why I assumed scale, while I've heard...
I've never encountered any real substantiated figures on subsidies in meat products so I'd be curious to know just how much it actually is. That's probably why I assumed scale, while I've heard there are subsidies, without any figures to ascribe to it, I can't really determine the impacts of the subsidies to the resulting prices.
I've been eating some of the plant based meat imitation products off/on over the last 20ish years and I doubt it will change much in the next year 10 years but lab meat will potentially have a better chance. Realistically, many of the plant based imitation products don't deliver enough on the experience/taste as actual meat, and the price difference probably makes that worse. Maybe some could justify buying an inferior tasting product if it were cheaper or even equal price if ethic concerns are also being weighed, but not as much when its 2-3x more. They also don't necessarily offer a ton of health benefits over actual meat (can vary quite a bit depending on the product), so they don't always even have that advantage.
I try to buy organic when I can afford it, often when it's on some sale and I just freeze the stuff I don't use right away, I'd jump on lab grown if it was at similar or lower price points.
I try to buy organic when I can afford it, often when it's on some sale and I just freeze the stuff I don't use right away, I'd jump on lab grown if it was at similar or lower price points.
If someone treated someone else really nicely till they were 10 years old then murdered them, nobody would consider the nice treatment relevant to the ethics of the murder. It would be the murder...
If someone treated someone else really nicely till they were 10 years old then murdered them, nobody would consider the nice treatment relevant to the ethics of the murder. It would be the murder that defined their relationship in the end, basically to the exclusion of all else.
And yet, in the context of animals, we do, sometimes at least, care about their treatment prior to slaughter. So thankfully we're not talking about human child murdering farms, as to my knowledge...
And yet, in the context of animals, we do, sometimes at least, care about their treatment prior to slaughter.
So thankfully we're not talking about human child murdering farms, as to my knowledge those remain purely in your hypothetical.
I guess that's a normalized perspective sure. I'm not convinced that makes it a rational position though. I think the analogy holds up quite well and is a useful hypothetical.
I guess that's a normalized perspective sure. I'm not convinced that makes it a rational position though. I think the analogy holds up quite well and is a useful hypothetical.
I indeed hope that not having child murdering farms remains the normalized perspective. Whether that's "rational" or not doesn't matter in the slightest to me. We could discuss times in history...
I indeed hope that not having child murdering farms remains the normalized perspective. Whether that's "rational" or not doesn't matter in the slightest to me.
We could discuss times in history where children were murdered en masse if you prefer. It's not, in my mind, the slightest bit equivalent. But neither that conversation nor one on veganism seems appropriate in the context of this thread.
I'm think we're talking at crossed purposes perhaps. I'm saying that whether something is normalized isn't a good metric for whether it's ethical. I used an extreme hypothetical to express that...
I'm think we're talking at crossed purposes perhaps. I'm saying that whether something is normalized isn't a good metric for whether it's ethical. I used an extreme hypothetical to express that the logic, in a different context, doesn't make sense - from my POV.
The obvious corollary is slavery; in the 18th century one could have said a very similar thing:
"And yet, in the context of [slaves], we do, sometimes at least, care about their treatment [whilst keeping them as owned things]."
The point I wished to briefly touch on, was that when we're identifying whether something is ethical, identifying what we currently do and deciding that's the line is a flawed approach. I see these 3 things as essentially the same.
Keeping slaves is immoral whether or not you treat them well.
Killing children is immoral whether or not you treat them well.
Killing animals is immoral whether or not you treat them well.
I felt this was reasonable to raise in response specifically to a discussion of the ethics of meat consumption:
"I like eating meat, and I prefer it comes from well-treated animals!"
Where - if not following such a statement - would be a place to raise that point? It didn't seem shoehorned in to me?
No, I know exactly what you're saying, I just don't agree with the metaphor in the slightest nor your conclusions and I think the strategy of targeting someone who is trying to eat more ethically...
I'm think we're talking at crossed purposes perhaps. I'm saying that whether something is normalized isn't a good metric for whether it's ethical. I used an extreme hypothetical to express that the logic, in a different context, doesn't make sense - from my POV.
No, I know exactly what you're saying, I just don't agree with the metaphor in the slightest nor your conclusions and I think the strategy of targeting someone who is trying to eat more ethically and implying this is comparable to child murder is rude at best and counterproductive in nearly all cases.
I think there are clear differences between human children and (non-human) animals. I think the fact that people wouldn't generally stop a predator (animal) from killing a deer and would stop a predator (animal) from killing a child makes that clear.
I don't really engage with veganism arguments that use slavery or child murder (or rape, the other common one) to make their points, personally. Because I can agree with ethical points about eating meat without offensive hyperbole and the people making those points seem to have few thoughts about the human suffering they describe other than using it to make their point.
If you wanted to have a discussion about veganism without the comparison I wouldn't respond, but I wouldn't have pointed out how offensive the comparison was either.
Hey, you do you. I certainly found these kinds of arguments persuasive - as did many folks I know - so I'm not in agreement that it's always counterproductive. I can't speak for you, but I know I...
Hey, you do you. I certainly found these kinds of arguments persuasive - as did many folks I know - so I'm not in agreement that it's always counterproductive.
I can't speak for you, but I know I used to hate those arguments - in hindsight - because - I couldn't really find a way to get around them that fit with the utilitarian ethical approach I aspired to.
If you're not interested in engaging then more power to ya. I'll catch ya in some other thread about something else - all good.
Please do not think that my distaste for your argument is due to any internal ethical conflict on my part. I find your argument distasteful, flat out, and would even if I were vegan.
Please do not think that my distaste for your argument is due to any internal ethical conflict on my part. I find your argument distasteful, flat out, and would even if I were vegan.
Okey dokey. I mean, that is precisely what I think. I guess we can both be content in our own confidence. You know yourself ofc, but I've walked this road. Doesn't really matter what I think...
Okey dokey. I mean, that is precisely what I think. I guess we can both be content in our own confidence. You know yourself ofc, but I've walked this road. Doesn't really matter what I think anyway eh.
Add on "thinking you know my mind better than I do" to the things about your behavior I find offensive. "I can't speak for you but I'm actually speaking for you" is shitty behavior.
Add on "thinking you know my mind better than I do" to the things about your behavior I find offensive.
"I can't speak for you but I'm actually speaking for you" is shitty behavior.
Killing is -100 utils, belly rubs and nice food are +5 utils per day. It's easy to imagine a framework where the final action doesn't overwhelm the relationship. You're more than welcome to feel...
I can't speak for you, but I know I used to hate those arguments - in hindsight - because - I couldn't really find a way to get around them that fit with the utilitarian ethical approach I aspired to.
Killing is -100 utils, belly rubs and nice food are +5 utils per day. It's easy to imagine a framework where the final action doesn't overwhelm the relationship. You're more than welcome to feel it corrupts the relationship, but that's not a universal feeling. Many farmers name their sheep "Mutton" and "Meatball" as terms of endearment.
Keeping slaves is immoral whether or not you treat them well.
Killing children is immoral whether or not you treat them well.
Killing animals is immoral whether or not you treat them well.
These statements don't logically follow from each other. The acts of killing and treatment are entirely separate. I have issues with killing humans. I have no issues with killing other animals. I don't believe ethics are universal.
Beyond the implied speciesism point, this isn't a great argument. Murder is definitionally killing with those connotations. If they'd killed Wilbur from Charlotte's Web, that's murder. If someone...
Exemplary
Beyond the implied speciesism point, this isn't a great argument. Murder is definitionally killing with those connotations. If they'd killed Wilbur from Charlotte's Web, that's murder. If someone butchers another person's cat for dinner, that's murder. If we lived in a world where we ate humans, their slaughter wouldn't be murder.
Conflating these points only serves to beg the question of whether killing is ever ethical, which makes the standpoint for universal rights appear naive and condescending, as death is well-situated in most people's morality already, instead of inspiring compassion for the shared values of all life. But then it's time to justify the animal chauvinism taken for granted in veganism, and there's no easy argument to dismiss differences of opinion on that issue.
Which brings us to the comment you already replied to: it's all norms, and pretending that aesthetics are rational is self-deception. Veganism is an obviously superior framework of ethical consumption to hedonism, but it's much closer to diets prescribed to monks for explicitly ascetic purposes in practical terms (for most people in NA and Europe). If someone doesn't want to learn a whole new food culture, or multiple, in order to find a similar joy in a vegan diet as they do eating animal products, rhetorical sniping will not shift their sentiments.
Fair points. I suppose the counter would be that I didn't want to consider it, until the right comment and the right time meant that I did. And it changed my ethical outlook. This is a discussion...
Fair points. I suppose the counter would be that I didn't want to consider it, until the right comment and the right time meant that I did. And it changed my ethical outlook.
This is a discussion board where people exchange ideas and opinions, ideally where they're relevant. I wouldn't describe my comment as sniping. I'd have described it as a logical follow on from the ethical point raised in the comment to which I was responding.
If it changes no minds on this occasion, so be it - that's just part and parcel of discourse. I thought it was a reasonable expansion and I stick by that.
Just to be clear, I wasn't referring to your sentiment or the choice to comment as sniping. It was the particular message that felt snipey, since it implied the obviousness of the conclusion and...
Just to be clear, I wasn't referring to your sentiment or the choice to comment as sniping. It was the particular message that felt snipey, since it implied the obviousness of the conclusion and relied on somewhat circular reasoning in doing so. Please don't take my criticism of that as an insistence that you or anyone else isn't within their rights to share their opinions and beliefs.
I may not be vegan, but I am sympathetic, and I've got plenty of beliefs that are as or more unorthodox. Those of us who've come to beliefs in the far distances from the norm can very easily lose track of our original worldviews and fall into thought terminating cliche, rather than earnestly communicating our values.
The Thought Emporium has a video trying something like this. In his case, he is trying to replace DMEM with sports drinks. It is actually quite successful.
From the article:
...
...
The article describes several strategies used to reduce costs. It still seems pretty expensive, but setting limits on potential cost reductions seems hard.
These strategies definitely go a long way to make it viable, but I think the biggest factor will be that standard meat will continue to get more and more expensive until the prices converge. Standard grocery store prices for beef have convinced me to simply stop buying it.
Yeah, in America the meat industry is pretty heavily subsidized and it's still getting pretty dang expensive. If lab grown meat tastes decent and is cheaper I'll 100% buy it
I've eaten both Impossible and Beyond products and they're pretty decent. Prices have lowered since I first tried it, and is getting on a par with biological meat as the latter's price rises. If the Trump admin doesn't manage to go through with their wish of knocking down safety guardrails in the name of increased production, then I'm guessing the price of beef will continue to rise.
Serum-free media is gaining traction as well, which could make the process more predictable, and hence cheaper.
Yup consumers want something cheap and tasty, (and not gross or scary) not necessarily replicating the full experience of say, Wagyu or wild caught tuna. That sounds like a good direction
I too think cost will be the dominating factor in the success or failure of lab meat.
If the producers try to pass the cost of development onto consumers, as happens with many progressive products, lab meat will not make it. That or it is priced higher because there is less of it.
OTOH, my guess is that if lab meat is cheaper than animal products, and "close enough" for consumers lab meat will succeed -- especially with greedflation meat prices.
"Greedflation" as a concept is ascribing intent to market forces, and doesn't really exist. Corporations have always set the price as high as the market could bear (ie. "greed"). That didn't change under covid. What did change was the sudden injection of new money, the disruption to existing supply lines, and the resulting global inflation. Each of these factors created new market thresholds, which resulted in globally higher prices.
The variables changed, but the formula has stayed the same.
I don't think it's "greedflation" with events like bird flu and droughts culling flocks and herds.
I would have to see numbers to agree with you. Every other food product has been subjected to greedflation, it would seem odd that meat has not.
I've never found the 'greedflation' concept to be all that convincing. Companies are always trying to maximize profit, which I think most would agree is definitionally greedy. Blaming greed for price increases is kind of like blaming gravity for plane crashes - vacuously true, perhaps. But there must be some other factor that is now making price increases profitable when they were not previously.
I think the logical candidate here is an increase in money supply. During the pandemic, the 'American Rescue Plan Act' added 1.9 trillion dollars to the economy, around a tenth of the total M2 money supply at the time - and this is on top of a trend where the money supply had basically quadrupled over the last decade. Now, I think you could argue that there were societal benefits to this stimulus package that outweighed inflation - I would personally get behind the same argument when it comes to UBI. But it would be silly not to expect this to cause some inflation.
I am also open to the possibility that market consolidation enabled grocery stores to raise prices, which is probably more a more emotionally satisfying argument to many people. However, the data I've seen doesn't really support this. Anecdotally, where I live, there are around a dozen different grocery store chains, all selling dozens of different brands of, for instance, meat - and they have all raised prices in more or less the same way. It is unimaginable to think that this large number of competitors could brought into the same pricing cartel.
Side note - lab meat may actually be a good way to better characterize 'greedflation'. If natural meat price inflation is based on opportunism and not monetary policy, then it will be more profitable to lower natural meat prices if lab meat starts getting cheap and popular. If this doesn't happen, it stands to reason the opposite is true, and that even charitable definitions of 'greedflation' are false.
No it isn't. Gravity doesn't make a conscious decision to pull more objects out of the air when it sees a plane crashing.
When supply chain and other issues during the pandemic increased prices corporations decided to price gouge under the cover of legitimate price increases due to inflation.
I think you are misunderstanding the plane crash analogy here - whether you ascribe 'greedflation' to abstract market forces or conscious decisions is irrelevant. The point is that, like gravity, the profit motive ('greed') has always been there. If it were sufficient to cause price increases, they would have already happened. There needs to be some other more proximate cause.
Saying that legitimate price increases provided 'cover' for price gouging flies in the face of reason. Do you really think people decide whether or not to stop at McDonalds on the way home from work based on whether they feel their hamburger prices honestly reflect the actual price of commodity beef? No, of course not. For the most part, they consider whether the benefit of the food is worth the cost, and whether there are cheaper options elsewhere.
I don't think I am. It is kind of weird how many ( not all ) Tildes argue like apologists for corporations and other powers doing harmful things. Let's agree to disagree. Have a nice weekend.
It is kind of weird how many ( not all ) Tildes become unhinged over populist boogeymen like 'greedflation' instead of the actual serious harms of corporations, such as oligopolies, lobbying, congressional stock trading, and the military industrial complex. Ah well. Take care.
I'm not unhinged. In fact I'm pretty calm. I read about all of those things too. I don't know why, but I haven't had an inclination to post about them here.
I do see posts here about people struggling with unemployment and other economic issues. I do wonder if the apologists for corporations are people who never had jobs until they finished college, earn high salaries, and never had to struggle. The tone of the apology posts seem smug to me. Perhaps that is unfair.
The latter part doesn't really make sense. Inflation is quite simply defined as the measurement of the change in price over time. "Legitimate price increase due to inflation" is like saying "the legitimate movement of the car due to velocity". The causation is backwards - inflation is no more than a measurement of price changes.
On the one hand, yeah, I get that this is applicable to the United Stateses and other countries that did actually have similar things going on. On the other hand, I genuinely cannot see how the majority of those things here could be truly applicable to shitholes like my home country, Greece.
Certainly it won't be an instant success if they pass on costs and it results in being substantially higher price than what comes from livestock, but I think what will more likely happen is that they will have to pass on costs, it will be quite a bit higher, and a smaller portion of people will pay the premium for it, and then it will slowly begin to encroach on livestock meat prices over time and more people will convert as the price keeps dropping until it reaches a tipping point.
Livestock meat has truly insane scale of production compared to other food productions aimed at these markets. Like a lot of the meat imitation plant-based products are still fairly expensive compared to actual meat, which you would think not having to raise whole animals with all the inefficiencies that comes with could in no way beat these plant-based meat imitation products, but they do and I have to assume it's largely just due to the scale they operate at since plant based meat imitation products are a very tiny fraction of the market. I think they've gotten slightly better cost-wise over the years but still quite a bit more expensive. I think if they were good enough imitations people would be willing to pay the higher price, the scale would have gone up more, the cost would have gone down more; however that plant-based bacon even on the packaging where it's supposed to look its best doesn't look nearly as good as real bacon.
I don't have time to do much of a deep dive right now, but most meat products (at least in the US but I suspect most governments due it to some extent) are directly subsidized by the government, where as I can't find any plant based meats products are. The crops going into their supply chain are, but the feed for animals is too so that at least balances. However the end products are definitely not competing on the same footing. That's not to say scale isn't also a big factor in the cost difference as you point out, but it's not going to be the only major driver.
I have a strong suspicion that meat wouldn't be nearly as cost advantaged over plant alternatives if it wasn't for government subsidy. I think subsidy is probably a big part of exasperating the cost difference and even then meat prices have been climbing despite help from government subsidy.
As for market adoption, that's always going to be a tough sell. Food is tied so strongly to memories and personal experience that it's really hard to get people to try new things. Still, the plant-based meat companies still seem to be selling well enough to stay on business so far. Who knows how the next 10 years will look.
I've never encountered any real substantiated figures on subsidies in meat products so I'd be curious to know just how much it actually is. That's probably why I assumed scale, while I've heard there are subsidies, without any figures to ascribe to it, I can't really determine the impacts of the subsidies to the resulting prices.
I've been eating some of the plant based meat imitation products off/on over the last 20ish years and I doubt it will change much in the next year 10 years but lab meat will potentially have a better chance. Realistically, many of the plant based imitation products don't deliver enough on the experience/taste as actual meat, and the price difference probably makes that worse. Maybe some could justify buying an inferior tasting product if it were cheaper or even equal price if ethic concerns are also being weighed, but not as much when its 2-3x more. They also don't necessarily offer a ton of health benefits over actual meat (can vary quite a bit depending on the product), so they don't always even have that advantage.
I try to buy organic when I can afford it, often when it's on some sale and I just freeze the stuff I don't use right away, I'd jump on lab grown if it was at similar or lower price points.
Why do you prefer organic meat?
I like eating meat, and I prefer it comes from well-treated animals!
If someone treated someone else really nicely till they were 10 years old then murdered them, nobody would consider the nice treatment relevant to the ethics of the murder. It would be the murder that defined their relationship in the end, basically to the exclusion of all else.
And yet, in the context of animals, we do, sometimes at least, care about their treatment prior to slaughter.
So thankfully we're not talking about human child murdering farms, as to my knowledge those remain purely in your hypothetical.
I guess that's a normalized perspective sure. I'm not convinced that makes it a rational position though. I think the analogy holds up quite well and is a useful hypothetical.
I indeed hope that not having child murdering farms remains the normalized perspective. Whether that's "rational" or not doesn't matter in the slightest to me.
We could discuss times in history where children were murdered en masse if you prefer. It's not, in my mind, the slightest bit equivalent. But neither that conversation nor one on veganism seems appropriate in the context of this thread.
I'm think we're talking at crossed purposes perhaps. I'm saying that whether something is normalized isn't a good metric for whether it's ethical. I used an extreme hypothetical to express that the logic, in a different context, doesn't make sense - from my POV.
The obvious corollary is slavery; in the 18th century one could have said a very similar thing:
The point I wished to briefly touch on, was that when we're identifying whether something is ethical, identifying what we currently do and deciding that's the line is a flawed approach. I see these 3 things as essentially the same.
I felt this was reasonable to raise in response specifically to a discussion of the ethics of meat consumption:
Where - if not following such a statement - would be a place to raise that point? It didn't seem shoehorned in to me?
No, I know exactly what you're saying, I just don't agree with the metaphor in the slightest nor your conclusions and I think the strategy of targeting someone who is trying to eat more ethically and implying this is comparable to child murder is rude at best and counterproductive in nearly all cases.
I think there are clear differences between human children and (non-human) animals. I think the fact that people wouldn't generally stop a predator (animal) from killing a deer and would stop a predator (animal) from killing a child makes that clear.
I don't really engage with veganism arguments that use slavery or child murder (or rape, the other common one) to make their points, personally. Because I can agree with ethical points about eating meat without offensive hyperbole and the people making those points seem to have few thoughts about the human suffering they describe other than using it to make their point.
If you wanted to have a discussion about veganism without the comparison I wouldn't respond, but I wouldn't have pointed out how offensive the comparison was either.
Hey, you do you. I certainly found these kinds of arguments persuasive - as did many folks I know - so I'm not in agreement that it's always counterproductive.
I can't speak for you, but I know I used to hate those arguments - in hindsight - because - I couldn't really find a way to get around them that fit with the utilitarian ethical approach I aspired to.
If you're not interested in engaging then more power to ya. I'll catch ya in some other thread about something else - all good.
Please do not think that my distaste for your argument is due to any internal ethical conflict on my part. I find your argument distasteful, flat out, and would even if I were vegan.
Okey dokey. I mean, that is precisely what I think. I guess we can both be content in our own confidence. You know yourself ofc, but I've walked this road. Doesn't really matter what I think anyway eh.
Add on "thinking you know my mind better than I do" to the things about your behavior I find offensive.
"I can't speak for you but I'm actually speaking for you" is shitty behavior.
Killing is -100 utils, belly rubs and nice food are +5 utils per day. It's easy to imagine a framework where the final action doesn't overwhelm the relationship. You're more than welcome to feel it corrupts the relationship, but that's not a universal feeling. Many farmers name their sheep "Mutton" and "Meatball" as terms of endearment.
These statements don't logically follow from each other. The acts of killing and treatment are entirely separate. I have issues with killing humans. I have no issues with killing other animals. I don't believe ethics are universal.
Beyond the implied speciesism point, this isn't a great argument. Murder is definitionally killing with those connotations. If they'd killed Wilbur from Charlotte's Web, that's murder. If someone butchers another person's cat for dinner, that's murder. If we lived in a world where we ate humans, their slaughter wouldn't be murder.
Conflating these points only serves to beg the question of whether killing is ever ethical, which makes the standpoint for universal rights appear naive and condescending, as death is well-situated in most people's morality already, instead of inspiring compassion for the shared values of all life. But then it's time to justify the animal chauvinism taken for granted in veganism, and there's no easy argument to dismiss differences of opinion on that issue.
Which brings us to the comment you already replied to: it's all norms, and pretending that aesthetics are rational is self-deception. Veganism is an obviously superior framework of ethical consumption to hedonism, but it's much closer to diets prescribed to monks for explicitly ascetic purposes in practical terms (for most people in NA and Europe). If someone doesn't want to learn a whole new food culture, or multiple, in order to find a similar joy in a vegan diet as they do eating animal products, rhetorical sniping will not shift their sentiments.
Fair points. I suppose the counter would be that I didn't want to consider it, until the right comment and the right time meant that I did. And it changed my ethical outlook.
This is a discussion board where people exchange ideas and opinions, ideally where they're relevant. I wouldn't describe my comment as sniping. I'd have described it as a logical follow on from the ethical point raised in the comment to which I was responding.
If it changes no minds on this occasion, so be it - that's just part and parcel of discourse. I thought it was a reasonable expansion and I stick by that.
Just to be clear, I wasn't referring to your sentiment or the choice to comment as sniping. It was the particular message that felt snipey, since it implied the obviousness of the conclusion and relied on somewhat circular reasoning in doing so. Please don't take my criticism of that as an insistence that you or anyone else isn't within their rights to share their opinions and beliefs.
I may not be vegan, but I am sympathetic, and I've got plenty of beliefs that are as or more unorthodox. Those of us who've come to beliefs in the far distances from the norm can very easily lose track of our original worldviews and fall into thought terminating cliche, rather than earnestly communicating our values.
Slaughtering animals that were bred and grown for consumption isn't murder.
The Thought Emporium has a video trying something like this. In his case, he is trying to replace DMEM with sports drinks. It is actually quite successful.