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Rich (and Regular) People Should Stop Eating Meat, Says Bill Gates
As science fiction readers know, it is often the case that real meat, actual flesh, is either hideously expensive, or no longer exists.
For example, in Neuromancer (1984), by William Gibson, we read about vat-grown meat compared to regular meat:
Sometimes, though, you're thinking that this artificial meat is not so bad, as in Robert Heinlein's Farmer in the Sky (1950):
Often, though, it's kind of gross, like ChickieNobs from Oryx and Crake (2003) by Margaret Atwood:
What they were looking at was a large bulblike object that seemed to be covered with stippled whitish-yellow skin. Out of it came twenty thick fleshy tubes, and at the end of each tube another bulb was growing.
"What the hell is it?" said Jimmy.
"Those are chickens," said Crake. "Chicken parts. Just the breasts, on this one. They've got ones that specialize in drumsticks too, twelve to a growth unit.
"But there aren't any heads..."
"That's the head in the middle," said the woman. "There's a mouth opening at the top, they dump nutrients in there. No eyes or beak or anything, they don't need those."
“I don’t think the poorest 80 countries will be eating synthetic meat. I do think all rich countries should move to 100% synthetic beef,” Gates told the MIT Technology Review.
“You can get used to the taste difference, and the claim is they’re going to make it taste even better over time. Eventually, that green premium is modest enough that you can sort of change the people or use regulation to totally shift the demand,” Gates said.
(Via India.com)
I find myself wondering if Gates has gotten himself used to the taste difference. Anyway, in one possible future, this is why we don't have any meat.
"Jesus," Molly said, her own plate empty, "gimme that. You know what this costs?" She took his plate. 'They gotta raise a whole animal for years and then they kill it. This isn't vat stuff." She forked a mouthful up and chewed.
I grabbed two Syntho-Steaks out of the freezer and slapped them in quickthaw, added a big Idaho baked potato for Dad and a smaller one for me...
"This is the latest," said Crake.
Anyway, the question arises 'Why don't we have any real meat to eat?" Apparently, in our possible future, it's because Bill Gates doesn't think we should have any.
Microsoft co-founder and billionaire, Bill Gates recently said that people in wealthy countries should stop eating beef entirely and shift to a synthetic alternative if they want to fight climate change, reported various news platforms.
(Tasty In Vitro Meat Eaten On Stage!)
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