This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
If we could produce meat indistinguishable from the real thing at a competitive cost and scale, I would eat it. This seems a ways off to me from what I've read in the thread so far, with the most viable solutions being mere facsimiles of this. I don't eat the Impossible stuff and the current leading synthetic meat seems unappetizing to me. I want to emphasize that this isn't due to fear of synthetic meat per se, but the idea of replacing genuine meat with an inferior product. If we can make synthetic meat as good as real meat, that's an amazing feat and should be celebrated.
Supposing we manage to do this, I'm mixed about some of the second-order implications. I don't like the centralization of food production that would likely result from this. Also, the potential banning of hunting and fishing as you said, or of consuming actual animals. I'd still want to pursue the lab meat. Making more of something for less time, money, and resources is how the species has avoided its Malthusian limits for so long. Any big advancement brings about issues we couldn't have conceived of before, but the tradeoff has almost always been worth it.
Bioreactors, especially large are supposedly quite tricky to get right. We'll see.
I don't like this on principle. Beef is a commodity. This would be a product, you'd be handing some vultures a monopoly. And then they'd then use activists to increase their profits by banning their competition.
I don’t expect it to be easy, or for them to get it right until at least a few decades are out.
I agree with your concerns. Still, a lot can happen between now and then and I’d hate to reject an amazing breakthrough due to our current dysfunctional relationship with capital and our countrymen.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link