Kind of a generic title, but I have to start somewhere and today I was drawing a blank as to what the heck to write.
So at this point, I have jumped out of the plane on the assumption that I will figure out how to knit myself a parachute on the way down.
Geronimo, and all that.
You know, I’ve been following the development of vat-grown meat for a long time as it is a technology I long to see come to fruition for three main reasons :
- Environmental. This is the big one. Raising and slaughtering animals is a horribly inefficient way to get meat protein and blows through enormous quantities of precious resources while also creating tons of pollution. If there’s a technology that can replace that ecological horror with some clean and efficient, I’m all for it.
- Moral/Humanitarian. Eliminating the need to raise and slaughter animals for their meat would also be better for the animals, given the hellish conditions under which they are raised. This is a much weaker argument, however, because the animals could be raised more humanely. As to it being inherently cruel to kill them, that’s debatable. Animals kill and eat one another all the time, after al.
- Let’s call it… Scientific. The third reason I want a vat grown meat revolution is objectively terrible. It’s that I am dying to see how the vegan/vegetarian community reacts to it. Without the environment or the animals to use as moral justification for their beliefs, all they would have left is, “we think meat is icky”, and that’s no fun to shout outside a slaughterhouse.
Finally, I will leave this for you to ponder : if we did stop eating animals, the populations of those animals would plummet to almost nothing as we’d no longer have any reason to raise them by the millions. So is the species really better off?
More after the break.
On feeling grown up
It’s very hard for us hardcore failure to launch types.
You all know my (lack of a) life story. No jobs, no relationships, no involvement in practically anything. Just day after day after day of hiding from the world by living inside my computer most of the time.
The locations changed but the tragedy remained the same.
So there is very little I can do to feel grown up. Hell, ever since my legs went weak there’s very little I can do to feel like a competent recluse.
I’m a cripple now. And an invalid. Finally, my psychological inability to look after myself is backed up by a physical inability to look after myself.
I guess the ship of being self-reliant finally sailed off without me for good.
Bon voyage, I guess. I barely knew ye.
And that is a brutally hard cross to bear for a North American male of my generation. I may never get to be a grownup at all. My whole life could begin and end as a colossal waste of ever so much potential.
My only way out is to get back into freelancing. Climb over the massive pile of aversive fear that has accumulated at the entrance to that realm and get some fucking work.
I would still be a crippled invalid.
But I’d be an employed one.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.