Comments on: Artificial Meat

By: Kenny Easwaran

Kenny Easwaran — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 05:14:01 +0000

If everyone's right that you have to grow much more than cultured cell lines in order to make something reliably meat-like (and that wouldn't surprise me, given the little bits my boyfriend has been showing me from the food chemistry book I got him for his birthday) then it starts to seem that vat-grown meat isn't really going to solve the ethical problem. If we need to grow something that makes organs and is connected to a circulatory and nervous system and also has to exercise to build up the right texture, then it sounds like we've got something that's only one step removed from a veal calf that's been given the "banzai kitten" treatment.

By: grendelkhan

grendelkhan — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 18:51:39 +0000

roac: Mine was going to be about whether eating cultured human flesh would be cannibalism.

The Parking Lot Is Full did it. (Well, sort of. But it's pretty clear that the next step after human-flesh burgers is your-own-human-flesh burgers.)

By: grendelkhan

grendelkhan — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 23:19:48 +0000

Henri Vieuxtemps: I’m disappointed with PETA; I expected them to say that taking cells from a live pig is unacceptable.

Worry not; apparently this did cause a schism within PETA. Apparently the moderates won out.

By: Keith M Ellis

Keith M Ellis — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 21:04:45 +0000

Kass was formerly a tutor at St. John’s, so his invitation to be commencement speaker was more that than that he is a neocon. SJC is, indeed, to some degree a “nest of neocons”, but that’s a product of the history of the Great Books movement in American academia and that Strauss had an association with SJC. Several contemporary tutors were students of Strauss’s. One, for example, was Wolfowitz’s dorm roommate at Cornell and, with him, became entranced by Strauss.

Nevertheless, this neocon history and association has exactly zero influence on an SJC education and approximately zero students would be able to describe neocon philosophy, or Straussian philosophy, knowingly or even unknowingly. Because, of course, as a rule the tutors have minimal participation in class and very rarely inject their own interpretations of the readings. At Chicago, Strauss could indoctrinate his students; while at SJC (during his very short tenure there), he could not.

In general, although SJC students tend toward the apolitical, the student body has been liberal and not conservative. It’s my impression that this has been changing for the last fifteen years, or so—I think this is because its prestige has increased and more parents (and students) are choosing the school for what they think it culturally/politically represents rather than out of intellectual/educational idealism, which is what drew people in my generation and before to the school. Nevertheless, while I think there’s a growing contingent of culturally and politically conservative students at St. John’s, I think they’re still the minority. One of my favorite media quotes about SJC comes from an 80s National Review article which praised the school’s academic program yet puzzled over the fact that the student body is very liberal.

The neocon, Straussian, and cultural chauvinistic subcultures within the St. John’s community have been the objects of my personal crusade as a johnnie—in my opinion, they are detriments to the ideals of the school and the community. But they exist. The fact that the Santa Fe campus has the Eastern Studies MA proves that these viewpoints don’t represent the ideology of the school. On the other hand, the establishment of the Eastern Studies program was very hotly contested and is still resented by the people who hold those views.

Kass is an embarrassment, in my opinion.

By: Ambassador At Large

Ambassador At Large — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 22:22:41 +0000

The cattle industry will, of course, sue the in vitro beef industry and demand that the labels for the in vitro stuff say things like “Beeph Food Product.” So the Vegetarian Society doesn’t need to worry.

By: Moby Hick

Moby Hick — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:05:02 +0000

We don’t have any pickled pigs feet. People keep eating the ham before the foot can grow.

By: ajay

ajay — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:17:18 +0000

50: “well, a pig like that, you don’t eat it all at once.”

By: roac

roac — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 19:17:56 +0000

Does that mean you went to the U of C?

No. My son was graduating from St. John’s in Annapolis, which I found out was a nest of neocons only after he signed on. Kass used to teach there. When I heard who the speaker was I said “Well, that’s surprising. Not.”

47: Besides Shayol, Smith of course also gave us sheep the size of Zeppelins functioning as drug factories.

By: Moby Hick

Moby Hick — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:44:21 +0000

47: Leg of lamb would work. Steak and one-kidney pie might work. Liver and onions, not so much.

By: lemuel pitkin

lemuel pitkin — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 07:10:49 +0000

I heard Kass give a commencement speech a couple of years ago

Does that mean you went to the U of C? When I was in college there (mid 90s) Kass had a surprisingly large undergrad following, not at all limited to folks on the right.

By: Substance McGravitas

Substance McGravitas — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 05:39:50 +0000

You’d probably have more luck getting animals to regenerate limbs, which you could cut off ad inf.

This would provide lasting employment to those who always wear hockey masks.

By: sara

sara — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 05:13:17 +0000

You’d probably have more luck getting animals to regenerate limbs, which you could cut off ad inf. As long as we’re reffing obscure SF, think of Cordwainer Smith’s “A Planet Named Shayol.”
But they’ll have to work on the species. Nobody wants to eat lizard tails, and there isn’t much market (outside Asian markets) for frog legs in the U.S.

By: Cryptic ned

Cryptic ned — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:12:10 +0000

I think some people have probably read Oryx & Crake. It was written by a very famous author.

By: Lisa

Lisa — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 18:59:39 +0000

Has no one read Oryx & Crake?

By: Moby Hick

Moby Hick — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 14:42:19 +0000

there’s a hell of a lot of money on the table.

Only if you tip better than I do.