{"id":118463,"date":"2021-01-13T12:17:21","date_gmt":"2021-01-13T20:17:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/?p=118463"},"modified":"2021-01-13T15:52:03","modified_gmt":"2021-01-13T23:52:03","slug":"artificial-flesh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/01\/artificial-flesh","title":{"rendered":"Artificial Flesh"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Review: Meat Planet (2019) by Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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In the words of the book\u2019s author, Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft, Meat Planet: Artificial Flesh and the Future of Food<\/a><\/em> (2019) is \u201cnot an attempt at prediction but rather a study of cultured meat as a special case of speculation on the future of food, and as a lens through which to view the predictions we make about how technology changes the world.\u201d While not serving as some crystal ball to tell us the future of food, Wurgaft\u2019s book certainly does serve as a kind of lens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our very appetites are questioned quite a bit in the book. Wondering about the ever-changing history of food, the author asks, \u201cWill it be an effort to reproduce the industrial meat forms we know, albeit on a novel, and more ethical and sustainable, foundation?\u201d Questioning why hamburgers are automatically the default goal, he points out cultured meat advocates should carefully consider \u201cthe question of which human appetite for meat, in historical terms, they wish to satisfy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wurgaft\u2019s question of \u201cwhich human appetite\u201d \u2013 past, present, or future \u2013 is an excellent one. If we use his book as a lens to observe other emerging technologies, the question extends well beyond our choices of food. It could even have direct implications for such endeavours as radical life extension. Will we, if we extend our lifetimes, be satisfactory to future people? We already know the kind of clash that persists between different generations, and the blame we often place on previous generations for current social ills, without there also being a group of people who simply refuse to die. We should be wary of basing our future on the present \u2013 of attempting to preserve present tastes as somehow immutable and deserving immortality. This may be a problem such futurists as Ray Kurzweil, author of The Singularity is Near<\/a><\/em> (2005) need to respond to.<\/p>

Continue reading \u201cArtificial Flesh\u201d | ><\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Meat Planet is quite nutritious food for thought. Beyond directly addressing and critically examining the hopes behind cultured meat, it raises a number of questions that should be asked of the advocates of other emerging technologies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":305,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,11,30,1506,20,1495,1522,224,17],"tags":[2529,2690,330],"class_list":["post-118463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biological","category-biotech-medical","category-ethics","category-food","category-futurism","category-health","category-innovation","category-science","category-sustainability","tag-book-review","tag-food-innovation","tag-the-singularity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/305"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118463"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118471,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118463\/revisions\/118471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}