Peta is more of a Cult any way so why be surprised or even care what they do. Most members are crazy and they spend most their time being counterproductive to their own cause by doing everything they can to be labeled crazy. The only people that are incited by what they do are themselves. It's sad really, to have such a good cause entrusted to a bunch of freaks. I specifically remember a protest to free some elephants where some peta dip shit set off firecrackers that terrified the elephant into seriously injuring itself. This same elephant, which was old and sick and needed daily medical attention, was then sent to a refuge and put out to pasture to die. Peta is a disease that vegans get when they start to lose their faculties. Its funny but meat eaters or nowhere near that crazy-insane-will-do-anything-to-feel-better-about-thier-pathetic existence crazy, probably because we don't mind being at the top of the food chain or at least figure we don't have to justify or validate or menu selections.

i agree that some members are a lil cookoo, but not all. it's sad to think that the entire organization has been given a bad name simply because some of it's members are just fucking psycho.

it's like how everyone who isn't american assumes americans are assholes. while many of us are, we aren't all that bad.

i'm all for animal rights, but i'll have to be honest. my meat eating friends are more open to change and more accepting than my vegetarian/vegan friends.

can't we all just get along?

Is it really that hard to try to be a futurist for a moment and think beyond MINDLESS TRADITIONAL VALUES?

If you were raised in a society that respected animals and didn't even consider eating meat, then you saw someone kill and eat an animal, it would creep you the fuck out. Probably much moreso than this grown meat does to you now.

The only reason eating meat doesn't creep you out here and now is because you were rasied in a society that sees it as normal and everyone else does it.

Now imagine you lived in a society where, from childhood, you ate this meat replacement because everyone else did. Would it still gross you out? If this catches on, we could be there in two generations and no one would care anymore.

If you look at the absolute values of grossness to an impartial observer, I think eating the dead, rotting flesh of a once living, breathing creature is still grosser than eating an identical protein substance that was artifically created. You're only grossed out now is because it's DIFFERENT from what you're used to, and you're not willing to look at the potential benefits it could bring. Even disregarding cruelty, it would cut down on pollution, create more food for hungry people, free up more land to grow more sustainable food sources, and probably result in healthier food.

And anyways, even people who eat meat will often have some sort of meat they're grossed out by... Taco Bell or hotdogs or whatever. What if you could have that same taste from an artificial source. Wouldn't that be less gross?

+1 vote for the fake-meat-eater!

Unless there is serious doubts about the healthyness of such a theoretical in vitro food compared to in vivo food, I could definitly go with the lab-thing (and as silversoul has pointed out, there is really no reason meat grown by the most reasonable method would be unhealthy).
Price vs etics, I could imagine myself paying extra for the good conciousness of not supporting the ill-treatment of animals, based on my financial situation (with means not much at the moment but who knows what will be in 2012? )

At that part I did not get your point. What part of "We would like to see meat produced without the killing of animals" sugests that the person with this idea thinks carnivores are bloodthirsty psychos?

I see the total opposite: If meat eaters would be psychos that enjoy the idea of eating something that had a soul (Bwahahah!!) - than there would hardly be a market for in vitro meat (I refuse to call it fake just because it is diffrent).

Only those Herbivores and Vegetarians would buy it, that don't eat meat because of the taste and general healthyness but because of the ethics. - And up to my research into those people (I came to understand them a bit when I wrote my blog about a month ago), this would not be a reasonably big market.


As a meat eater, I support PFMPETA in this campaign - and I usually just grin about most of their campaigns.

As some have pointed out, the idea, that this could be cheap as in vivo meat by 2012 is a most improbably one, so the Million is quite save. Nevertheless, I think it's good that someone speaks about this topic, for the reason that we can get over the xenophobic hysteria "It's not real, I do not want!!!" now.

I feel like the vegans are underrepresented on this thread, so I guess I'll pipe up. I don't eat meat because I feel that if I don't have the stomach (literally and figuratively, what with the less acidic stomach than carnivores) to leap at a squirrel and rip its head off with my teeth, I don't have the right to eat meat. I know and understand that not everyone feels like this, no problem. I feel like this is as much a nonissue as abortion and stem cells should be. If you feel it's ethical and okay, do it. If you don't, don't. I personally think it sounds okay, and the lack of waste generated by factory farms is a nice idea.

I do agree with some of darknoire's points, PETA can undermine its image with the shit it pulls, but I still subscribe to their mailing lists/etc because it's one of the few organizations with a member base large enough to actually write to a huge clothing store like bebe and exert enough pressure for them to agree to stop selling fur. I like that. It's easy to feel helpless and PETA helps with that, although sometimes I resent dealing with the implication that I must agree with everything they do/say because I'm vegan.

Also, I promise I'm not that close-minded. Most of my meat-eating friends are much less so, I think. And I'm not imagining my conversations about veganism to be less annoying than they really are, promise. I've made a point not to be that irritating girl. It's just annoying to have someone ask about your diet, explain your reasons, have them treat you like a space alien while listing things you don't eat ('No butter? REALLY? No cake? But how do you make vegan cake? Is that even possible? That's weeeeird') and then shrug the whole thing off with "I guess that's cool but I just could never give up bacon." And I'm close-minded? I thought I couldn't give up sushi, but I stopped having cravings a month in.

That is all.

Screw this debate. I must attend to my meat tree. I've a mighty good crop coming in.

This. Meat is awesome.

Why can't we just develop a strain of corn or patato that tastes and feels like a chicken?

This surreal little tidbit is from the PETA website:

http://www.peta.org/actioncenter/ActionAlerts-item.asp?id=2498

They do make it kinda hard to take them seriously.

I'm down with vat grown steaks. As long as it's as good as the real thing, I'll eat the crap out of some in vitro fried chicken.

Soccer teams love it.

I suspect those who appear in PETA's ads do so voluntarily, unlike the animals we kill and eat. Which is cruel no matter how the animals are treated prior to their execution.

This is one of those threads I'm going to have a hard time talking seriously in.

First being serious: Popular Mechanics about a year ago had an excellent article on using stem cells to create meat. I think there are two benefits to researching that kind of technology: 1) Once perfected, it's quite possible that the cost of meat will go down, allowing those in poorer countries the nutritional value of eating meat (mainly animal protien).

2) The technology used to create giant slabs of animal tissues might also have some medical applications, like replacing the tissue of damaged organs.

[/seriousness]
Having said that, my main objection to the technology, is that for me personally, few things are more manly than knowing that an animal died an honorable death to feed me.