Trained as a neuroscientist, Elliot is the Principle Scientist at a nonprofit called The Good Food Institute, which is focused on building an innovation ecosystem that will accelerate the development of alternatives to conventional/industrialized production of meat, eggs, and dairy.
While I totally understand Chris' skepticism surrounding another advance in technology being the answer to our problems, I was a little surprised at his resistance to this potential solution. Agriculture on the scale of our massive population is clearly unsustainable, so someone like Elliot looking to find a complete alternative to the system as opposed to trying to make the system work, sounds like the right approach to me personally.
I did enjoy the push back and Elliot standing his ground when confronted with the “two sides and what do we really know” arguments. No, they’re are things we know and here’s the data…
I enjoyed the debate nature of this podcast. Not that it was necessarily meant to be a debate, but that it was an example of a naturally occurring debate that didn't turn into black and white thinking and ad hominem attacks. I think both sides named their biases well and made thoughtful arguments. A good example of a respectful dialogue, which I wish was more common in media. Definitely a complex topic.
Fantastic episode really grappling with the various directions our society is heading in - one towards more technology further disconnecting us from our biosphere (lab meat) and the other reconnecting us to our living earth through regenerative agriculture.
I know this space intimately, having founded and run my own climate org focused on reducing meat (Less Meat Less Heat - TEDx talk here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEWXPxaL7c0) then transitioning towards regenerative agriculture (Farmer's Footprint Australia), realising that we can't keep playing 'whack-a-mole' with each of our problems arising from the confluence of the growth and technology fuelled mindset of what we deep 'progress'. We all feel a major disconnect from our mother nature/Gaia as well as each other (we have actually excluded ourselves from our definition of nature!) which manifests in many ways. I think going down the path of lab meat and fake meat will further disconnect us and make our psychological schisms even worse.
I don't claim to know what the solution is but I believe it should be rooted in our reconnection to our country and our living earth overall, as well as each other (away from VR, lab meat, solitude etc).
Although I do believe the reality will likely be us pursuing both paths I really do hope that we start listening to our hearts and our guts in helping guide us towards what actually feels right, rather than what our brain tells us is right according to these calculations. I know my perspective is not a completely scientific one, but then again I think there is much science does not and cannot measure but we feel to be true, so we should not let our civilisation be defined by a single tool.
Great podcast. Love the ability to disagree and progress, and I think the potential of parallel tracks of regenerative ag and bio reactors (and less meat) holds promise.
In the past all the food were "organic", now you pay extra to have "organic" food. Will be the same with the meat. LabMeat is not better, not healthy, but will be a cheaper product. The poor will eat LabMeat and the rich will eat "organic" meat.
I've been reading a lot of Taoist stuff lately. I think one of the core tenets of Taoism is not trying to come up with these clever solutions to the world's problems because they seem to have all these unforeseen negative consequences. Let's say lab-grown meat does become widely available and cheap, are people going to consume so much that heart disease levels go beyond what they already are? I would probably eat more meat if it didn't cost so much because like most people I don't have much self-discipline. But maybe lab-grown meat will usher in a worldwide utopia, who am I to say?
As an aside, I just wanted to point out that sweat glands (and most other glands in the skin) along with hair follicles all store stem cells. It's interesting that Elliot mentions that a cut will heal faster on the face than on the back. I haven't thought deeply about this function of sweat glands but it makes sense since the cheek has somewhere in the neighborhood of 320 glands per centimeter squared, the forehead about 200 and the back only about 75 glands per cm squared.
While I totally understand Chris' skepticism surrounding another advance in technology being the answer to our problems, I was a little surprised at his resistance to this potential solution. Agriculture on the scale of our massive population is clearly unsustainable, so someone like Elliot looking to find a complete alternative to the system as opposed to trying to make the system work, sounds like the right approach to me personally.
I did enjoy the push back and Elliot standing his ground when confronted with the “two sides and what do we really know” arguments. No, they’re are things we know and here’s the data…
I enjoyed the debate nature of this podcast. Not that it was necessarily meant to be a debate, but that it was an example of a naturally occurring debate that didn't turn into black and white thinking and ad hominem attacks. I think both sides named their biases well and made thoughtful arguments. A good example of a respectful dialogue, which I wish was more common in media. Definitely a complex topic.
Fantastic episode really grappling with the various directions our society is heading in - one towards more technology further disconnecting us from our biosphere (lab meat) and the other reconnecting us to our living earth through regenerative agriculture.
I know this space intimately, having founded and run my own climate org focused on reducing meat (Less Meat Less Heat - TEDx talk here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEWXPxaL7c0) then transitioning towards regenerative agriculture (Farmer's Footprint Australia), realising that we can't keep playing 'whack-a-mole' with each of our problems arising from the confluence of the growth and technology fuelled mindset of what we deep 'progress'. We all feel a major disconnect from our mother nature/Gaia as well as each other (we have actually excluded ourselves from our definition of nature!) which manifests in many ways. I think going down the path of lab meat and fake meat will further disconnect us and make our psychological schisms even worse.
I don't claim to know what the solution is but I believe it should be rooted in our reconnection to our country and our living earth overall, as well as each other (away from VR, lab meat, solitude etc).
Although I do believe the reality will likely be us pursuing both paths I really do hope that we start listening to our hearts and our guts in helping guide us towards what actually feels right, rather than what our brain tells us is right according to these calculations. I know my perspective is not a completely scientific one, but then again I think there is much science does not and cannot measure but we feel to be true, so we should not let our civilisation be defined by a single tool.
Great podcast. Love the ability to disagree and progress, and I think the potential of parallel tracks of regenerative ag and bio reactors (and less meat) holds promise.
In the past all the food were "organic", now you pay extra to have "organic" food. Will be the same with the meat. LabMeat is not better, not healthy, but will be a cheaper product. The poor will eat LabMeat and the rich will eat "organic" meat.
I've been reading a lot of Taoist stuff lately. I think one of the core tenets of Taoism is not trying to come up with these clever solutions to the world's problems because they seem to have all these unforeseen negative consequences. Let's say lab-grown meat does become widely available and cheap, are people going to consume so much that heart disease levels go beyond what they already are? I would probably eat more meat if it didn't cost so much because like most people I don't have much self-discipline. But maybe lab-grown meat will usher in a worldwide utopia, who am I to say?
As an aside, I just wanted to point out that sweat glands (and most other glands in the skin) along with hair follicles all store stem cells. It's interesting that Elliot mentions that a cut will heal faster on the face than on the back. I haven't thought deeply about this function of sweat glands but it makes sense since the cheek has somewhere in the neighborhood of 320 glands per centimeter squared, the forehead about 200 and the back only about 75 glands per cm squared.