1 00:00:05,120 --> 00:00:10,240 Speaker 1: Would you eat a burder grown from human muscle cells? 2 00:00:10,760 --> 00:00:15,000 Speaker 1: And what does this question uncover about neuroscience and our 3 00:00:15,080 --> 00:00:19,080 Speaker 1: calculations of morality? And whether your children will have a 4 00:00:19,160 --> 00:00:21,680 Speaker 1: different answer, And what does this have to do with 5 00:00:22,120 --> 00:00:27,400 Speaker 1: endangered species or the sacred versus the profane, or brain plasticity, 6 00:00:27,600 --> 00:00:31,520 Speaker 1: or moral positioning or social belonging, or stepping on the 7 00:00:31,600 --> 00:00:37,680 Speaker 1: boundaries between moral categories or flesh copyrights or the future 8 00:00:37,840 --> 00:00:42,640 Speaker 1: of personhood, or what your food choices say about you. 9 00:00:46,920 --> 00:00:49,720 Speaker 1: Welcome to Inner Cosmos with me David Eagelman. I'm a 10 00:00:49,760 --> 00:00:53,080 Speaker 1: neuroscientist and an author at Stanford, and in these episodes 11 00:00:53,360 --> 00:00:57,160 Speaker 1: we sail deeply into our three pound universe to uncover 12 00:00:57,520 --> 00:01:00,040 Speaker 1: some of the most surprising aspects. 13 00:00:59,520 --> 00:01:15,640 Speaker 2: Of our life. 14 00:01:15,920 --> 00:01:19,600 Speaker 1: Today's episode is for sure the weirdest topic I've tackled. 15 00:01:19,920 --> 00:01:23,039 Speaker 1: But I found myself chewing on a question that is 16 00:01:23,160 --> 00:01:27,080 Speaker 1: hypothetical for now but will not be in a decade, 17 00:01:27,200 --> 00:01:31,200 Speaker 1: and I realized that asking the question serves as a 18 00:01:31,319 --> 00:01:35,880 Speaker 1: great lever to open up several issues about neuroscience and 19 00:01:35,959 --> 00:01:39,880 Speaker 1: our sense of morality. So let's begin with something familiar, 20 00:01:40,080 --> 00:01:43,680 Speaker 1: a hamburger, not the fast food kind of burger from 21 00:01:43,680 --> 00:01:46,679 Speaker 1: a cow that you're used to. This one you're holding 22 00:01:46,680 --> 00:01:50,280 Speaker 1: in your hand now was never part of an animal. 23 00:01:50,880 --> 00:01:54,800 Speaker 1: This one never mooed or clocked or ran through a field. 24 00:01:55,280 --> 00:01:58,720 Speaker 1: This burger started its life not on a farm, but 25 00:01:58,920 --> 00:02:02,640 Speaker 1: in a lab. This is the world of lab grown 26 00:02:02,840 --> 00:02:06,040 Speaker 1: meat that has been trucking along for years. The way 27 00:02:06,080 --> 00:02:09,640 Speaker 1: this works is you take a few little cells from 28 00:02:09,720 --> 00:02:12,880 Speaker 1: an animal. In theory, you could take just one cell. 29 00:02:13,080 --> 00:02:17,200 Speaker 1: This is a totally harmless, almost undetectable little biopsy. So 30 00:02:17,680 --> 00:02:21,440 Speaker 1: you pop off a cell from an animal's muscle. You 31 00:02:21,480 --> 00:02:24,280 Speaker 1: can also take it from the skin and reprogram that 32 00:02:24,360 --> 00:02:26,600 Speaker 1: into a stem cell and then differentiate it into a 33 00:02:26,639 --> 00:02:28,840 Speaker 1: muscle cell. But it's easier if you just start with 34 00:02:28,880 --> 00:02:31,440 Speaker 1: a muscle cell. Then what do you do with that 35 00:02:31,480 --> 00:02:35,440 Speaker 1: little cell. You put together the right cocktail of nutrients 36 00:02:35,480 --> 00:02:38,040 Speaker 1: and growth factors, and you stick it all in a 37 00:02:38,080 --> 00:02:42,440 Speaker 1: little petri dish or a bigger bioreactor, and that single 38 00:02:42,520 --> 00:02:47,200 Speaker 1: cell starts to divide and divide and divide, until eventually 39 00:02:47,200 --> 00:02:50,639 Speaker 1: you've got lots of cells. And what is that It's 40 00:02:50,680 --> 00:02:54,160 Speaker 1: a chunk of meat. That's all meat is, of course, 41 00:02:54,280 --> 00:02:56,720 Speaker 1: just a hunk of muscle tissue made of lots and 42 00:02:56,760 --> 00:03:01,600 Speaker 1: lots of little cells. Now, in practice people coculture some 43 00:03:01,720 --> 00:03:05,040 Speaker 1: fat cells in there too to get the marbling of meat. 44 00:03:05,680 --> 00:03:09,359 Speaker 1: And that's it. This is the stuff of burgers and 45 00:03:09,480 --> 00:03:14,400 Speaker 1: sausages and nuggets. This is real meat, just without the 46 00:03:14,480 --> 00:03:18,560 Speaker 1: animal who had to be raised and then killed. In 47 00:03:18,600 --> 00:03:21,640 Speaker 1: this case, the animal is still walking around out there, 48 00:03:21,840 --> 00:03:26,119 Speaker 1: totally unaware that it is a donor to the future 49 00:03:26,560 --> 00:03:30,240 Speaker 1: of human food consumption. In theory, with the right setup, 50 00:03:30,520 --> 00:03:33,280 Speaker 1: you'd never have to return to that animal again. You 51 00:03:33,280 --> 00:03:37,560 Speaker 1: could just keep those cells dividing, growing batch after batch, 52 00:03:37,640 --> 00:03:43,840 Speaker 1: a potentially infinite supply of burgers without killing a single animal. 53 00:03:44,320 --> 00:03:49,000 Speaker 1: Now that's pretty revolutionary. Part of the benefit is the ethics, 54 00:03:49,200 --> 00:03:53,320 Speaker 1: no more slaughterhouses, no more factory farms. And there's also 55 00:03:53,360 --> 00:03:57,760 Speaker 1: the environment too. Livestock is what gives fifteen percent of 56 00:03:58,080 --> 00:04:02,920 Speaker 1: greenhouse gas emissions. A cow is basically a methane factory 57 00:04:02,960 --> 00:04:06,520 Speaker 1: on four legs, and over a lifetime, a cow's water 58 00:04:06,760 --> 00:04:11,720 Speaker 1: usage is astronomical. So growing meat in a lab could 59 00:04:11,800 --> 00:04:16,880 Speaker 1: dramatically reduce our ecological footprint. Okay, so that all sounds great, 60 00:04:17,480 --> 00:04:20,480 Speaker 1: but the wrinkle for now is that it's very expensive. 61 00:04:20,880 --> 00:04:24,120 Speaker 1: The first lab grown burger was grown in twenty thirteen 62 00:04:24,600 --> 00:04:28,640 Speaker 1: and it cost over three hundred thousand dollars. Now prices 63 00:04:28,680 --> 00:04:32,440 Speaker 1: have been dropping since then, but it's still not fast 64 00:04:32,480 --> 00:04:36,520 Speaker 1: food cheap, and the energy requirements are huge. So for 65 00:04:36,600 --> 00:04:41,200 Speaker 1: the foreseeable future, this remains a kind of botique technology 66 00:04:41,600 --> 00:04:44,400 Speaker 1: with a lot of promise for the future. But what 67 00:04:44,440 --> 00:04:48,520 Speaker 1: I want to do today is think about the implications. 68 00:04:48,839 --> 00:04:53,600 Speaker 1: Because once you're growing meat from cells, you're not restricted 69 00:04:53,680 --> 00:04:56,760 Speaker 1: to cows or chickens or pigs. You can pop off 70 00:04:56,800 --> 00:05:00,600 Speaker 1: a cell and grow meat from anything. What if you 71 00:05:00,720 --> 00:05:04,640 Speaker 1: wanted a zebra burger you could do that. What if 72 00:05:04,680 --> 00:05:08,680 Speaker 1: you wanted a polar bear burger? Why not? What if 73 00:05:08,680 --> 00:05:12,480 Speaker 1: you wanted a falcon burger? It might be gamy, but 74 00:05:12,600 --> 00:05:16,920 Speaker 1: go for it. You could, without harming any animal, create 75 00:05:17,040 --> 00:05:20,240 Speaker 1: a burger from the cells of a cheetah or a 76 00:05:20,320 --> 00:05:24,440 Speaker 1: bald eagle or a panda bear. And that raises so 77 00:05:24,480 --> 00:05:29,320 Speaker 1: many strange questions now that there's no ethical issues. For example, 78 00:05:30,000 --> 00:05:33,560 Speaker 1: would you eat a burger made from an endangered animal 79 00:05:33,800 --> 00:05:38,599 Speaker 1: like an orangutan burger or certain types of rhinoceros. Again, 80 00:05:38,720 --> 00:05:42,360 Speaker 1: no animal is harmed here. You're not poaching a tiger 81 00:05:42,480 --> 00:05:46,919 Speaker 1: or hunting an elephant. You're cultivating a few cells, and 82 00:05:47,000 --> 00:05:51,159 Speaker 1: you could do this ethically and sustainably and harmlessly. So 83 00:05:51,360 --> 00:05:55,200 Speaker 1: is that okay? Is it less offensive? If no animal 84 00:05:55,480 --> 00:05:59,600 Speaker 1: is hurt? Does it change how we think about conservation 85 00:05:59,880 --> 00:06:05,320 Speaker 1: or species sanctity? These are the opportunities that your grandchildren 86 00:06:05,360 --> 00:06:07,880 Speaker 1: will have when they go into a restaurant. These will 87 00:06:07,880 --> 00:06:11,520 Speaker 1: be their menu options. And then it gets even stranger 88 00:06:11,640 --> 00:06:15,760 Speaker 1: because for the past few decades we've been unlocking ancient 89 00:06:15,880 --> 00:06:21,360 Speaker 1: DNA from mammoths, from Neanderthals, from creatures that haven't walked 90 00:06:21,360 --> 00:06:24,760 Speaker 1: the earth in tens of thousands or millions of years. 91 00:06:25,320 --> 00:06:30,160 Speaker 1: So would you try a wooly mammoth meatball? How about 92 00:06:30,200 --> 00:06:36,800 Speaker 1: a Jurassic barbecue like pterodactyl buffalo wings or a velociraptor steak. 93 00:06:37,640 --> 00:06:41,960 Speaker 1: And then, because this line of reasoning has no natural endpoint, 94 00:06:42,080 --> 00:06:47,320 Speaker 1: we reach the real question. Would you eat a human 95 00:06:47,440 --> 00:06:51,160 Speaker 1: burger not carved from a human and not taken from 96 00:06:51,160 --> 00:06:55,080 Speaker 1: anyone against their will? Just a few cells, a few 97 00:06:55,200 --> 00:06:58,599 Speaker 1: muscle cells, and a few fat cells grown in a dish, 98 00:06:58,720 --> 00:07:03,400 Speaker 1: No pain, no death, no victim. The question is is 99 00:07:03,480 --> 00:07:07,920 Speaker 1: that or is that not cannibalism? If no one is harmed, 100 00:07:08,040 --> 00:07:11,280 Speaker 1: no one dies, You're not desecrating a corpse. Will the 101 00:07:11,360 --> 00:07:15,840 Speaker 1: taboo still apply in the future. Now, we're gonna ask 102 00:07:15,840 --> 00:07:20,040 Speaker 1: ourselves some crazy questions to probe our sense of the 103 00:07:20,320 --> 00:07:24,560 Speaker 1: morality and the weirdness here. And remember, while these questions 104 00:07:24,760 --> 00:07:28,200 Speaker 1: seem insane to us, they're not going to for our 105 00:07:28,360 --> 00:07:32,040 Speaker 1: near term descendants. Okay, So the first question is, how 106 00:07:32,080 --> 00:07:35,280 Speaker 1: would you feel about eating the burger if it's your 107 00:07:35,400 --> 00:07:39,680 Speaker 1: own cells? Would you eat a self burger? Would it 108 00:07:39,720 --> 00:07:45,400 Speaker 1: be an active curiosity of narcissism, of culinary self knowledge, 109 00:07:45,800 --> 00:07:48,120 Speaker 1: not just you are what you eat, but you eat 110 00:07:48,280 --> 00:07:52,120 Speaker 1: who you are? Okay? Would you feel better eating a 111 00:07:52,280 --> 00:07:56,480 Speaker 1: self burger or a stranger burger? Does it matter who 112 00:07:56,520 --> 00:07:59,640 Speaker 1: the donor is? Would you feel different about eating a 113 00:07:59,680 --> 00:08:03,920 Speaker 1: burger made from the cells of an Olympic athlete versus 114 00:08:04,520 --> 00:08:07,280 Speaker 1: a person who is homeless. Keep in mind these are 115 00:08:07,320 --> 00:08:11,600 Speaker 1: just muscle cells. The cells don't hold the properties of 116 00:08:11,720 --> 00:08:15,080 Speaker 1: the larger person. But does it feel different if the 117 00:08:15,160 --> 00:08:20,320 Speaker 1: burger comes from someone's society admires versus someone's society shuns. 118 00:08:20,680 --> 00:08:23,680 Speaker 1: How about a burger made from your favorite movie star 119 00:08:23,920 --> 00:08:27,800 Speaker 1: versus a prisoner? Because biologically it's the same. These are 120 00:08:27,800 --> 00:08:31,520 Speaker 1: just hunks of marbled muscle fiber. There's no memory, there's 121 00:08:31,560 --> 00:08:35,360 Speaker 1: no personality. These are just cells. I was recently bouncing 122 00:08:35,400 --> 00:08:37,760 Speaker 1: this idea off my friend Kevin Kelly, and he was 123 00:08:37,760 --> 00:08:40,679 Speaker 1: struck with an idea that lit him up. He imagined 124 00:08:40,960 --> 00:08:44,280 Speaker 1: that in the not so distant future, married couples might 125 00:08:44,400 --> 00:08:47,280 Speaker 1: celebrate their wedding not with a cake, but with a 126 00:08:47,760 --> 00:08:51,600 Speaker 1: we burger. This is a combination of both partner cells 127 00:08:52,040 --> 00:08:56,520 Speaker 1: grown and grilled and ceremoniously eaten together. Now, there's something 128 00:08:57,040 --> 00:09:01,319 Speaker 1: loving and something disturbing about that idea. There's something sacred 129 00:09:01,400 --> 00:09:05,839 Speaker 1: and something grotesque. And that's the point. Lab Drone meat 130 00:09:06,120 --> 00:09:09,800 Speaker 1: is going to force us to confront the boundaries of 131 00:09:09,840 --> 00:09:14,320 Speaker 1: our ethics and our imagination. It invites us to question 132 00:09:15,000 --> 00:09:18,800 Speaker 1: why we draw lines exactly where we do, and whether 133 00:09:18,880 --> 00:09:24,440 Speaker 1: those lines are drawn in ink or in pencil. Okay, 134 00:09:24,520 --> 00:09:28,720 Speaker 1: so let's slow down to examine our physical responses to 135 00:09:28,760 --> 00:09:31,640 Speaker 1: these questions. When I asked you if you would eat 136 00:09:31,720 --> 00:09:35,480 Speaker 1: a human burger, even if you were nodding along with 137 00:09:35,559 --> 00:09:39,400 Speaker 1: the science, following the logic and understanding that nobody is harmed, 138 00:09:40,080 --> 00:09:43,600 Speaker 1: something else likely happened in your body, a little tightening 139 00:09:43,600 --> 00:09:47,439 Speaker 1: in your stomach, maybe a physical recoil or a facial 140 00:09:47,480 --> 00:09:50,480 Speaker 1: expression you didn't mean to make. That all comes from 141 00:09:50,559 --> 00:09:57,000 Speaker 1: the neural circuitry of disgust. Disgust is a neurological alarm bell. 142 00:09:57,120 --> 00:10:02,439 Speaker 1: It's a deeply wired signal, usually for survival. When you're disgusted, 143 00:10:02,559 --> 00:10:06,000 Speaker 1: we see activation of a brain region called the insula, 144 00:10:06,160 --> 00:10:09,840 Speaker 1: specifically the anterior insular cortex. This is a region that 145 00:10:09,920 --> 00:10:13,280 Speaker 1: integrates information from your body like smells and tastes and 146 00:10:13,360 --> 00:10:19,280 Speaker 1: gut sensations, and helps to generate the subjective feeling of revulsion. 147 00:10:19,800 --> 00:10:23,360 Speaker 1: So if you're in a brain scanner like fMRI and 148 00:10:23,400 --> 00:10:27,040 Speaker 1: you smell something rotten, or you see a gruesome injury, 149 00:10:27,280 --> 00:10:30,400 Speaker 1: or sometimes if you even just watch someone else react 150 00:10:30,440 --> 00:10:34,200 Speaker 1: and disgust, your insula lights up. But here's the thing. 151 00:10:34,840 --> 00:10:40,600 Speaker 1: Your insula also responds to moral violations. If you read 152 00:10:40,640 --> 00:10:44,800 Speaker 1: a story about someone betraying their friend, or cheating on 153 00:10:44,880 --> 00:10:49,040 Speaker 1: a test or committing a cruel act, this same brain 154 00:10:49,120 --> 00:10:54,200 Speaker 1: region is involved. Your body responds to moral pollution the 155 00:10:54,240 --> 00:10:58,600 Speaker 1: same way it responds to physical contamination, and that gives 156 00:10:58,679 --> 00:11:01,480 Speaker 1: us a clue that discussed is more than just an 157 00:11:01,480 --> 00:11:06,160 Speaker 1: evolutionary tool. For avoiding spoiled meat or dirty water. It 158 00:11:06,200 --> 00:11:11,240 Speaker 1: becomes the basis for our morality. It's how we police 159 00:11:11,320 --> 00:11:15,200 Speaker 1: the boundaries of what is acceptable, what is clean and unclean, 160 00:11:15,280 --> 00:11:18,280 Speaker 1: what is sacred and what is profane, or when it 161 00:11:18,320 --> 00:11:20,880 Speaker 1: comes to the way that we have traditionally eaten animals, 162 00:11:21,760 --> 00:11:25,720 Speaker 1: what has conscious feelings and experiences pain and what does not, 163 00:11:39,840 --> 00:11:43,400 Speaker 1: And this brings us to the idea of purity. Disgust 164 00:11:43,520 --> 00:11:46,760 Speaker 1: is most reactive not when something is dangerous, but when 165 00:11:46,800 --> 00:11:51,880 Speaker 1: something violates a perceived natural order. It doesn't have to 166 00:11:51,920 --> 00:11:56,080 Speaker 1: make sense logically, it just has to feel wrong. That's 167 00:11:56,120 --> 00:11:59,360 Speaker 1: why we shudder at the idea of incest, even when 168 00:11:59,360 --> 00:12:02,160 Speaker 1: it's hypothet me. This is why we gag at the 169 00:12:02,200 --> 00:12:07,000 Speaker 1: idea of drinking sterilized urine, even if it's scientifically safe, 170 00:12:07,559 --> 00:12:10,320 Speaker 1: and why for many people the idea of eating lab 171 00:12:10,480 --> 00:12:15,559 Speaker 1: drown animal meat trips that same internal alarm. My colleague 172 00:12:15,600 --> 00:12:18,000 Speaker 1: Jonathan Height did research on this some years ago and 173 00:12:18,120 --> 00:12:22,040 Speaker 1: found that in some situations, we don't build our moral 174 00:12:22,200 --> 00:12:27,720 Speaker 1: judgments from reason. We make snap decisions based on gut reactions, 175 00:12:28,080 --> 00:12:32,120 Speaker 1: and then we backfill with logic afterward. It's like our 176 00:12:32,120 --> 00:12:36,080 Speaker 1: brain has a courtroom, but the verdict is decided before 177 00:12:36,120 --> 00:12:40,360 Speaker 1: the lawyers even speak. In other words, we feel first 178 00:12:40,480 --> 00:12:44,480 Speaker 1: and we justify later. For example, in one study, Jonathan 179 00:12:44,559 --> 00:12:49,280 Speaker 1: Height and his student Scott Murphy presented participants with harmless 180 00:12:49,360 --> 00:12:54,560 Speaker 1: scenarios that were morally provocative, like a story about a 181 00:12:54,720 --> 00:12:59,000 Speaker 1: brother and sister who choose to have consensual sex just 182 00:12:59,080 --> 00:13:03,000 Speaker 1: once while on vacation, using birth control, telling no one, 183 00:13:03,440 --> 00:13:06,520 Speaker 1: and never doing it again. There's no direct harm in 184 00:13:06,559 --> 00:13:10,360 Speaker 1: the story, and yet most participants judged it to be 185 00:13:10,559 --> 00:13:16,840 Speaker 1: deeply wrong. When asked why, they struggled to articulate clear reasons. 186 00:13:16,880 --> 00:13:20,800 Speaker 1: They might mention genetic risk, which was controlled for by 187 00:13:20,800 --> 00:13:24,800 Speaker 1: the birth control, or emotional damage, which the story ruled out, 188 00:13:24,960 --> 00:13:28,640 Speaker 1: but these explanations were tacked on after the judgment had 189 00:13:28,679 --> 00:13:32,360 Speaker 1: already been made. In other words, people feel something is wrong, 190 00:13:32,760 --> 00:13:36,520 Speaker 1: but they can't explain why. In describing this, Height wrote, quote, 191 00:13:37,000 --> 00:13:41,240 Speaker 1: judgments were based more on gut feelings than on reasoning, 192 00:13:41,320 --> 00:13:45,559 Speaker 1: and participants more frequently laughed and directly stated that they 193 00:13:45,640 --> 00:13:49,959 Speaker 1: had no reasons to support their judgments end quote. Now 194 00:13:50,120 --> 00:13:55,319 Speaker 1: this is fascinating because that instinctive disgust, that gag reflex 195 00:13:55,840 --> 00:13:59,800 Speaker 1: is not always aligned with harm. Consider this. Some cultures 196 00:13:59,840 --> 00:14:05,200 Speaker 1: have rituals of reverend cannibalism, eating the flesh of a 197 00:14:05,240 --> 00:14:10,199 Speaker 1: loved one as an act of mourning and remembrance and love. 198 00:14:10,880 --> 00:14:14,480 Speaker 1: Most other cultures find that horrifying. So which is it? 199 00:14:14,520 --> 00:14:19,480 Speaker 1: Is it honoring or violating? Obviously, disgust is in some 200 00:14:19,760 --> 00:14:24,960 Speaker 1: part shaped by your culture. In some countries they eat dogs. 201 00:14:25,120 --> 00:14:28,040 Speaker 1: I have a dog who I love, and that repulses me. 202 00:14:28,360 --> 00:14:32,400 Speaker 1: Some places eat horses, some don't. Here in America we 203 00:14:32,480 --> 00:14:35,520 Speaker 1: love to eat cows, but in the majority of states 204 00:14:35,560 --> 00:14:39,200 Speaker 1: in India, killing a cow is revolting and illegal. So 205 00:14:39,280 --> 00:14:42,880 Speaker 1: some amount of our reactions are culturally poured into us, 206 00:14:43,360 --> 00:14:46,280 Speaker 1: and once they're baked in, they're hard to shake. We 207 00:14:46,320 --> 00:14:48,520 Speaker 1: don't just say, well that food isn't for me. We 208 00:14:48,560 --> 00:14:53,280 Speaker 1: say that's gross. We react with our whole bodies. And 209 00:14:53,320 --> 00:14:56,160 Speaker 1: this brings us back to the human burger. No one 210 00:14:56,240 --> 00:14:59,120 Speaker 1: is harm, no death, no trauma, just a few cells 211 00:14:59,200 --> 00:15:02,400 Speaker 1: grown in a dish. And these are just mammalian cells, 212 00:15:02,440 --> 00:15:05,920 Speaker 1: with very little difference between this and a McDonald's burger. 213 00:15:06,360 --> 00:15:11,720 Speaker 1: But psychologically these are worlds apart, because the human body 214 00:15:11,760 --> 00:15:15,440 Speaker 1: in almost all cultures is not just meat. It's a 215 00:15:16,040 --> 00:15:20,600 Speaker 1: sacred vessel. To consume it feels like a transgression. And 216 00:15:20,640 --> 00:15:24,480 Speaker 1: this is what lab grown meat forces us to confront 217 00:15:24,680 --> 00:15:28,840 Speaker 1: our narratives and when they might or might not require 218 00:15:28,920 --> 00:15:32,440 Speaker 1: an update. What is meat when it no longer comes 219 00:15:32,480 --> 00:15:36,400 Speaker 1: from a death? What is identity when flesh can be 220 00:15:36,800 --> 00:15:40,840 Speaker 1: copy pasted? What is taboo when the source of the 221 00:15:40,880 --> 00:15:44,800 Speaker 1: taboo is no longer present? Like harm or suffering? When 222 00:15:44,800 --> 00:15:47,560 Speaker 1: we think about the human burger, we find that we 223 00:15:47,640 --> 00:15:51,600 Speaker 1: often end up like Jonathan Hight's participants, who laugh and 224 00:15:51,880 --> 00:15:56,040 Speaker 1: shake their heads and can't articulate any reason why they 225 00:15:56,080 --> 00:16:01,080 Speaker 1: thought something was disgusting or immoral. So discussed is a 226 00:16:01,320 --> 00:16:05,200 Speaker 1: powerful emotion, but it's not always a reliable guide. It 227 00:16:05,280 --> 00:16:08,720 Speaker 1: was honed to help us survive in the ancient savannah, 228 00:16:08,840 --> 00:16:15,200 Speaker 1: but not really to navigate bioengineered futures. As the world changes, 229 00:16:15,680 --> 00:16:19,400 Speaker 1: how flexible are our brains? Will we continue to have 230 00:16:19,920 --> 00:16:25,440 Speaker 1: moral decisions dictated by ancient alarms? Or are we able 231 00:16:25,480 --> 00:16:28,400 Speaker 1: to update the software running in our heads? I don't 232 00:16:28,440 --> 00:16:30,480 Speaker 1: know the answer to this, but this is why I 233 00:16:30,480 --> 00:16:32,840 Speaker 1: would love to freeze myself and come back in one 234 00:16:32,880 --> 00:16:36,800 Speaker 1: hundred years, because it will be fascinating to see how 235 00:16:36,920 --> 00:16:41,080 Speaker 1: generations down the line, born into a new world are 236 00:16:41,120 --> 00:16:44,200 Speaker 1: going to see these issues and whether they're going to 237 00:16:44,200 --> 00:16:48,480 Speaker 1: be issues at all, And maybe, just maybe we're going 238 00:16:48,520 --> 00:16:51,760 Speaker 1: to have to learn to distinguish between what is gross 239 00:16:51,880 --> 00:16:56,760 Speaker 1: and what is wrong. So let's return to the central question. 240 00:16:57,240 --> 00:17:00,800 Speaker 1: Would you eat human meat without harmony? A human being 241 00:17:00,920 --> 00:17:04,680 Speaker 1: just a few skin cells coaxed into becoming muscle tissue 242 00:17:04,960 --> 00:17:09,440 Speaker 1: in a sterile dish. Why does something feel wrong? Well, 243 00:17:09,520 --> 00:17:12,160 Speaker 1: let's zoom in on a notion from psychology, the notion 244 00:17:12,280 --> 00:17:17,560 Speaker 1: of the ontological boundary. This is the invisible line that 245 00:17:17,600 --> 00:17:22,639 Speaker 1: our minds draw between categories of being, between what is 246 00:17:22,680 --> 00:17:25,760 Speaker 1: alive and what is not, or what is human and 247 00:17:25,800 --> 00:17:28,639 Speaker 1: what is animal, or what is a person and what 248 00:17:28,760 --> 00:17:32,640 Speaker 1: is an object. We are constantly sorting the world into 249 00:17:32,640 --> 00:17:37,760 Speaker 1: these sorts of categories, and when something crosses those boundaries, 250 00:17:38,119 --> 00:17:42,520 Speaker 1: we get a visceral reaction. For example, a corpse looks 251 00:17:42,600 --> 00:17:46,560 Speaker 1: like a person, but it isn't one anymore, or a 252 00:17:46,800 --> 00:17:51,080 Speaker 1: lab grown human burger is made of human flesh, but 253 00:17:51,160 --> 00:17:54,960 Speaker 1: no one was harmed in taking it. These things sit 254 00:17:55,080 --> 00:17:59,120 Speaker 1: in a kind of category limbo. They don't fit neatly 255 00:17:59,520 --> 00:18:03,400 Speaker 1: into the boxes that our minds rely on, and when 256 00:18:03,480 --> 00:18:07,359 Speaker 1: something violates an onto logical boundary, it tends to provoke 257 00:18:07,440 --> 00:18:12,560 Speaker 1: a reaction like disgust, or fascination or fear. That's why 258 00:18:12,640 --> 00:18:17,360 Speaker 1: lab grown human cells feel unsettling, because it blurs the 259 00:18:17,400 --> 00:18:21,880 Speaker 1: line between food and person. Even if no harm is done, 260 00:18:22,040 --> 00:18:24,800 Speaker 1: the categories we use to make sense of the world 261 00:18:25,240 --> 00:18:28,679 Speaker 1: are being scrambled because, whether we're aware of it or not, 262 00:18:28,800 --> 00:18:32,159 Speaker 1: most of us carry the belief deep in our psyches 263 00:18:32,560 --> 00:18:36,040 Speaker 1: that the human body is special. It's more than just 264 00:18:36,280 --> 00:18:40,080 Speaker 1: carbon and calcium and protein. That there's something about the 265 00:18:40,080 --> 00:18:45,120 Speaker 1: body that shouldn't be violated or copied or consumed or commodified. 266 00:18:45,600 --> 00:18:49,320 Speaker 1: The body, in all human cultures is more than a 267 00:18:49,359 --> 00:18:53,560 Speaker 1: physical thing. It's a vessel of identity and memory and 268 00:18:53,720 --> 00:18:58,080 Speaker 1: history and personhood, sometimes even divinity. So when we talk 269 00:18:58,119 --> 00:19:02,080 Speaker 1: about lab grown human burgers, we're not just proposing a 270 00:19:02,119 --> 00:19:06,159 Speaker 1: new food. We're poking at a sacred object. I mean, 271 00:19:06,200 --> 00:19:08,400 Speaker 1: just zoom in on the way that every human culture 272 00:19:08,800 --> 00:19:13,159 Speaker 1: has rituals around the body. Look at how cultures bury 273 00:19:13,200 --> 00:19:17,240 Speaker 1: their dead or handle the remains. Some cultures wash and 274 00:19:17,400 --> 00:19:21,040 Speaker 1: dress the body with reverence. Others burn it or freeze 275 00:19:21,080 --> 00:19:24,159 Speaker 1: it or bury it or leave it for vultures. But 276 00:19:24,240 --> 00:19:27,119 Speaker 1: what they all share is the sense that what we 277 00:19:27,359 --> 00:19:31,320 Speaker 1: do with the body matters. It's more than just disposal. 278 00:19:31,520 --> 00:19:35,120 Speaker 1: It's a final act of communication with the person or 279 00:19:35,280 --> 00:19:39,800 Speaker 1: with the divine. That's what's being disrupted here. Lab grown 280 00:19:40,040 --> 00:19:44,439 Speaker 1: human meat scrambles this signal. It's not a body. It 281 00:19:44,480 --> 00:19:47,600 Speaker 1: never lived. But it feels like a violation because we're 282 00:19:47,640 --> 00:19:51,960 Speaker 1: so used to equating the flesh with the person. Now, 283 00:19:52,160 --> 00:19:55,240 Speaker 1: there are ways of getting around this category violation. Take 284 00:19:55,320 --> 00:19:58,679 Speaker 1: as an example Catholicism, where you have this ritual of 285 00:19:59,119 --> 00:20:04,560 Speaker 1: communion that involves eating bread and wine that's symbolically or 286 00:20:04,600 --> 00:20:09,520 Speaker 1: depending on your theology, literally becomes the body and blood 287 00:20:09,720 --> 00:20:14,399 Speaker 1: of Jesus Christ. It's an act of sacred consumption, and 288 00:20:14,400 --> 00:20:18,439 Speaker 1: no one flinches at it. Why because it's ritualized and 289 00:20:18,640 --> 00:20:22,720 Speaker 1: abstracted and sanctified. But what about eating the muscle tissue 290 00:20:22,760 --> 00:20:26,280 Speaker 1: of a stranger from a bioreactor. Suddenly we're not so sure. 291 00:20:26,400 --> 00:20:29,880 Speaker 1: The frame is gone. There's no ritual, there's no tradition, 292 00:20:30,000 --> 00:20:34,640 Speaker 1: it's just raw novelty. It's not that the act is immoral, 293 00:20:35,200 --> 00:20:40,639 Speaker 1: it's that it's unclassifiable. It steps all over this ontological boundary. 294 00:20:41,080 --> 00:20:45,560 Speaker 1: It doesn't fit our mental boxes. So we find ourselves 295 00:20:45,720 --> 00:20:50,240 Speaker 1: in this strange new territory where science gives us possibilities 296 00:20:50,640 --> 00:20:55,960 Speaker 1: that culture hasn't caught up with. So we've been talking 297 00:20:56,000 --> 00:20:59,320 Speaker 1: about how brains view bodies, but let's turn to the 298 00:20:59,359 --> 00:21:03,040 Speaker 1: other half of it, how do brains view food? Because 299 00:21:03,080 --> 00:21:05,240 Speaker 1: when you look across cultures, the thing that's clear is 300 00:21:05,280 --> 00:21:10,760 Speaker 1: that food is deeply ingrained into our cultural identity. Food 301 00:21:10,840 --> 00:21:13,679 Speaker 1: is how we say I love you without using words. 302 00:21:13,720 --> 00:21:18,960 Speaker 1: It's how we connect across generations. It's the childhood recipe 303 00:21:18,960 --> 00:21:22,480 Speaker 1: that your grandmother never wrote down but everyone remembers. It's 304 00:21:22,560 --> 00:21:25,280 Speaker 1: the thing that your partner cooks when they know that 305 00:21:25,280 --> 00:21:28,480 Speaker 1: you've had a hard day. It's birthdays, it's first dates, 306 00:21:28,520 --> 00:21:31,800 Speaker 1: it's funerals. Food is how we mark time. But it's 307 00:21:31,840 --> 00:21:34,600 Speaker 1: also how we define who we are and who we 308 00:21:34,640 --> 00:21:38,080 Speaker 1: are not. From a cultural perspective, food gives one of 309 00:21:38,119 --> 00:21:42,439 Speaker 1: the clearest examples of in group versus outgroup behavior. The 310 00:21:42,720 --> 00:21:48,639 Speaker 1: human brain is intensely tribal. We're wired for group membership, 311 00:21:48,680 --> 00:21:53,280 Speaker 1: for affiliation, for categorizing us and them. There have been 312 00:21:53,280 --> 00:21:55,840 Speaker 1: lots of studies in my lab and others about the 313 00:21:55,920 --> 00:21:59,639 Speaker 1: brain regions involved when we think about other people, especially 314 00:21:59,680 --> 00:22:02,199 Speaker 1: when we assess whether they're in our group or not 315 00:22:02,320 --> 00:22:04,600 Speaker 1: in our group, whether they are like us or not 316 00:22:04,880 --> 00:22:07,960 Speaker 1: like us. Please check out episodes sixteen and twenty for 317 00:22:08,080 --> 00:22:12,600 Speaker 1: much more on that. Anyway, what someone eats is one 318 00:22:12,600 --> 00:22:15,000 Speaker 1: of the first cues that we notice. Think about when 319 00:22:15,000 --> 00:22:19,760 Speaker 1: someone tells you they are vegan or halal or paleo, 320 00:22:20,240 --> 00:22:23,399 Speaker 1: or that they only eat locally sourced food. That's not 321 00:22:23,480 --> 00:22:28,800 Speaker 1: just nutritional information. It's moral positioning. It's cultural identity, it's 322 00:22:28,840 --> 00:22:33,200 Speaker 1: a worldview. Even among people with similar values, food becomes 323 00:22:33,200 --> 00:22:36,639 Speaker 1: a way to fine tune social belonging. Think of the 324 00:22:37,080 --> 00:22:42,080 Speaker 1: complex subtribes just inside the category of ethical eaters. There's 325 00:22:42,119 --> 00:22:46,720 Speaker 1: the raw food movement, the regenerative agriculture crowd, the zero 326 00:22:46,840 --> 00:22:51,200 Speaker 1: waste Lokovores, the flexitarians who only eat meat on weekends. 327 00:22:51,520 --> 00:22:55,240 Speaker 1: Each group has different rules, different values, different aesthetics, and 328 00:22:55,280 --> 00:22:58,440 Speaker 1: they can instantly recognize who is in and who is out. 329 00:22:58,720 --> 00:23:03,880 Speaker 1: The neuroscientists Antonio Demasio talks about how somatic markers, which 330 00:23:03,920 --> 00:23:08,320 Speaker 1: are bodily feelings linked to past experiences, how these guide 331 00:23:08,440 --> 00:23:13,639 Speaker 1: are decisions. Our preferences around food are often somatic. In 332 00:23:13,680 --> 00:23:16,280 Speaker 1: other words, they're not just tied to reason, but to 333 00:23:16,800 --> 00:23:22,600 Speaker 1: emotion and memory and identity. So when lab grown meat 334 00:23:22,760 --> 00:23:25,919 Speaker 1: enters the picture, it doesn't just disrupt the food system, 335 00:23:26,000 --> 00:23:30,320 Speaker 1: it disrupts the identity system. Say that you're at a 336 00:23:30,400 --> 00:23:33,520 Speaker 1: dinner party and everyone has their own plate, someone's got 337 00:23:33,560 --> 00:23:37,160 Speaker 1: tofu someone else has grass fed steak, someone's trying oat 338 00:23:37,160 --> 00:23:40,200 Speaker 1: milk for the first time, and then you you brought 339 00:23:40,560 --> 00:23:44,640 Speaker 1: the lab grown koala bear sliders. Now what have you done. 340 00:23:44,800 --> 00:23:48,960 Speaker 1: You've stepped outside the norm, You've broken the script. You 341 00:23:49,040 --> 00:23:53,360 Speaker 1: haven't just introduced a new food, You've introduced a new category. 342 00:23:53,720 --> 00:23:58,320 Speaker 1: Your koala bear slider isn't from the eucalyptus forest in Australia. 343 00:23:58,400 --> 00:24:02,240 Speaker 1: It isn't from a factory. It isn't from tradition. It's 344 00:24:02,400 --> 00:24:07,120 Speaker 1: from the future. It's synthetic. It happens to be ethical, 345 00:24:07,160 --> 00:24:11,159 Speaker 1: but it's deeply weird. And that changes how people see you. 346 00:24:11,680 --> 00:24:15,720 Speaker 1: Because we don't just eat for ourselves. We eat with 347 00:24:16,000 --> 00:24:19,680 Speaker 1: an audience in mind. Even when no one's watching, your 348 00:24:19,760 --> 00:24:22,919 Speaker 1: meal is part of your internal narrative. Your brain is 349 00:24:23,040 --> 00:24:28,040 Speaker 1: constantly simulating how others will perceive you. This involves a 350 00:24:28,119 --> 00:24:32,560 Speaker 1: process called mentalizing, which is about understanding yourself in terms 351 00:24:32,560 --> 00:24:37,240 Speaker 1: of other people's mental states. This kind of mentalizing is 352 00:24:37,280 --> 00:24:41,200 Speaker 1: what allows us to predict social reactions or to feel 353 00:24:41,480 --> 00:24:46,440 Speaker 1: embarrassment or pride. It's why people carefully curate what they 354 00:24:46,640 --> 00:24:49,720 Speaker 1: order on a first date. So now I ask yourself, 355 00:24:49,960 --> 00:24:54,080 Speaker 1: what are people mentally simulating when you bite into a 356 00:24:54,320 --> 00:24:58,840 Speaker 1: zebra burger or a lab grown nugget of Albert Einstein. 357 00:24:59,280 --> 00:25:18,040 Speaker 1: It's not about the nutrients, It's about the narrative. Something 358 00:25:18,040 --> 00:25:22,119 Speaker 1: else to note is that food is also ritualized. So 359 00:25:22,280 --> 00:25:28,600 Speaker 1: birthdays mean cake, Thanksgiving means turkey, Sunday dinner might mean pasta. 360 00:25:29,080 --> 00:25:32,080 Speaker 1: We have particular things we do, and we have particular 361 00:25:32,160 --> 00:25:36,000 Speaker 1: things we don't do. You don't serve sushi at a 362 00:25:36,040 --> 00:25:40,639 Speaker 1: funeral or scrambled eggs at a wedding. We eat in 363 00:25:40,800 --> 00:25:45,240 Speaker 1: patterns because it gives us structure, and because repetition gives 364 00:25:45,320 --> 00:25:50,320 Speaker 1: us meaning. These food rituals are encoded in your brain's 365 00:25:50,359 --> 00:25:54,520 Speaker 1: memory systems, like the hippocampus, but also more deeply, like 366 00:25:54,560 --> 00:25:59,280 Speaker 1: in the basal ganglia, which governs habit formation. In other words, 367 00:25:59,600 --> 00:26:03,480 Speaker 1: meal are engraved deeply in the system. They become part 368 00:26:03,520 --> 00:26:07,240 Speaker 1: of how we structure time, how we mark transition, sometimes, 369 00:26:07,320 --> 00:26:09,399 Speaker 1: how we know where we are in the week or 370 00:26:09,440 --> 00:26:12,560 Speaker 1: the year or the life cycle. So what happens when 371 00:26:12,600 --> 00:26:16,679 Speaker 1: you introduce a food that has no ritual context? What 372 00:26:16,880 --> 00:26:20,600 Speaker 1: happens when you show up with a we Burger to 373 00:26:20,720 --> 00:26:25,920 Speaker 1: your wedding or serve a lab grown Neanderthal brisket at 374 00:26:25,960 --> 00:26:31,479 Speaker 1: your child's graduation? Presumably there's confusion and uncertainty because food 375 00:26:31,920 --> 00:26:37,480 Speaker 1: carries symbolic gravity, and new symbols take time to stabilize. 376 00:26:37,720 --> 00:26:41,200 Speaker 1: Until they do, they're going to feel strange. That doesn't 377 00:26:41,240 --> 00:26:44,400 Speaker 1: mean they won't catch on. It just means our neural 378 00:26:44,600 --> 00:26:50,520 Speaker 1: maps for meaning haven't yet caught up. So here we are. 379 00:26:50,680 --> 00:26:54,840 Speaker 1: Scientific progress is handing us away to eat meat without death, 380 00:26:55,000 --> 00:26:58,399 Speaker 1: a way to separate flesh from suffering, a way to 381 00:26:58,520 --> 00:27:01,679 Speaker 1: pull burgers from a bio reactor instead of a body. 382 00:27:01,760 --> 00:27:04,760 Speaker 1: And we've looked at disgust and culture and food. But 383 00:27:04,840 --> 00:27:09,840 Speaker 1: now the societal questions begin, because even if something is 384 00:27:10,080 --> 00:27:14,080 Speaker 1: physically safe, and even if it's technically possible, who gets 385 00:27:14,119 --> 00:27:17,399 Speaker 1: to decide if it's okay? Who decides what you're allowed 386 00:27:17,440 --> 00:27:20,679 Speaker 1: to eat, what cells can be used, whose body is 387 00:27:20,720 --> 00:27:24,760 Speaker 1: off limits, what it means to own a piece of yourself, 388 00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:28,840 Speaker 1: because in this future world of lab grown meat, we 389 00:27:28,960 --> 00:27:32,919 Speaker 1: need to consider the implications through the lenses of law 390 00:27:33,119 --> 00:27:36,520 Speaker 1: and power. So start with a basic question. If somebody 391 00:27:36,840 --> 00:27:40,639 Speaker 1: swabs your cheek and grows a burger from it, do 392 00:27:40,800 --> 00:27:44,800 Speaker 1: you own it? It's your DNA, your biological signature, but 393 00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:49,400 Speaker 1: is it your property? Legally speaking? This isn't hypothetical. There 394 00:27:49,400 --> 00:27:53,280 Speaker 1: have been many court cases where people's cells were taken 395 00:27:53,320 --> 00:27:57,119 Speaker 1: without consent and used in research or commercial products. The 396 00:27:57,160 --> 00:28:01,000 Speaker 1: most famous case is from Henrietta Las nineteen fifty one. 397 00:28:01,080 --> 00:28:04,080 Speaker 1: She was a woman whose cancer cells were biop seed 398 00:28:04,400 --> 00:28:07,359 Speaker 1: and then used without her knowledge. Those cells became the 399 00:28:07,400 --> 00:28:11,439 Speaker 1: first immortal human cell line, known as HeLa cells, and 400 00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:14,600 Speaker 1: ever since they've been used in everything from polio vaccines 401 00:28:14,640 --> 00:28:19,160 Speaker 1: to cancer research to biotech patents. Her family didn't learn 402 00:28:19,200 --> 00:28:22,080 Speaker 1: about this until decades later, but she and they had 403 00:28:22,280 --> 00:28:25,880 Speaker 1: never given permission. So if a company today takes one 404 00:28:25,920 --> 00:28:28,800 Speaker 1: of your cells, just one, and turns it into a 405 00:28:28,880 --> 00:28:33,720 Speaker 1: thousand steaks, is that exploitation? Is it theft or is 406 00:28:33,760 --> 00:28:38,920 Speaker 1: it fair game? Biologically cells are cheap, but ethically they 407 00:28:38,960 --> 00:28:43,400 Speaker 1: are loaded, and when food enters the picture, the lines 408 00:28:43,480 --> 00:28:46,640 Speaker 1: blur even more so. Here's the scenario. Let's say a 409 00:28:46,800 --> 00:28:50,800 Speaker 1: startup offers you a contract, you donate a cell, and 410 00:28:50,840 --> 00:28:54,840 Speaker 1: in exchange, they create a line of you burgers. You 411 00:28:54,880 --> 00:28:59,200 Speaker 1: get royalties, they get a product. Everyone wins. Now, flip it. 412 00:28:59,240 --> 00:29:02,160 Speaker 1: What if they did? Ask? What if someone scraped your 413 00:29:02,280 --> 00:29:06,600 Speaker 1: DNA from a coffee cup and cultured it and released 414 00:29:06,600 --> 00:29:08,880 Speaker 1: it as a new product. Let's say you found out 415 00:29:08,920 --> 00:29:12,720 Speaker 1: that someone is marketing you stakes in your name. Would 416 00:29:12,720 --> 00:29:17,680 Speaker 1: that feel like an honor or a violation? In many jurisdictions. 417 00:29:18,240 --> 00:29:22,240 Speaker 1: Once your cells leave your body, you no longer legally 418 00:29:22,360 --> 00:29:26,640 Speaker 1: control them. They become discarded tissue. They are trash. They 419 00:29:26,640 --> 00:29:30,080 Speaker 1: are not yours. But what if that trash becomes a 420 00:29:30,160 --> 00:29:34,040 Speaker 1: million dollar food item? What if a celebrity's skin cells 421 00:29:34,080 --> 00:29:38,240 Speaker 1: are pirated and sold as premium cuts. Now this is 422 00:29:38,280 --> 00:29:41,480 Speaker 1: not impossible. We already have the infrastructure, we already have 423 00:29:41,600 --> 00:29:44,600 Speaker 1: the appetite for novelty, and we already live in an 424 00:29:44,640 --> 00:29:49,920 Speaker 1: AI world where increasingly your identity can be commodified your voice, 425 00:29:49,920 --> 00:29:53,440 Speaker 1: your face, your data. So maybe the next frontier is 426 00:29:53,480 --> 00:29:56,920 Speaker 1: your flesh. Of course, when things get murky, the law 427 00:29:57,000 --> 00:30:01,800 Speaker 1: eventually steps in. It always does, just slower than the technology. 428 00:30:02,160 --> 00:30:05,960 Speaker 1: So just think about the new legal landscape. Do we 429 00:30:06,040 --> 00:30:11,400 Speaker 1: need flesh copyrights? Can you trademark your DNA? Will we 430 00:30:11,480 --> 00:30:15,600 Speaker 1: need consent agreements before anyone can pick up your coffee cup? 431 00:30:16,080 --> 00:30:19,360 Speaker 1: Will there be legal lists of people whose cells can 432 00:30:19,400 --> 00:30:23,320 Speaker 1: never be grown, like saints or Nobel laureates or political leaders? 433 00:30:23,800 --> 00:30:28,240 Speaker 1: What about cultural boundaries? Would a lab grown burger made 434 00:30:28,280 --> 00:30:32,280 Speaker 1: from the cells of a historical figure be illegal? What 435 00:30:32,360 --> 00:30:35,960 Speaker 1: about someone from an indigenous community? What if the cells 436 00:30:36,040 --> 00:30:39,880 Speaker 1: came from a culture that considers the body untouchable after death. 437 00:30:40,320 --> 00:30:42,800 Speaker 1: Pretty soon, if you squint in your eyes and look 438 00:30:42,840 --> 00:30:46,840 Speaker 1: into the future, you'll see this becomes not about burgers, 439 00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:52,480 Speaker 1: but about cultural sovereignty, about biopolitics, about the strange new 440 00:30:52,600 --> 00:30:58,440 Speaker 1: terrain where bodies and identities and technologies collide. There's even 441 00:30:58,480 --> 00:31:00,960 Speaker 1: another factor that's going to be a play here, which 442 00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:06,920 Speaker 1: is intent attribution. Our brains are hyper tuned to detect intention, 443 00:31:07,560 --> 00:31:10,360 Speaker 1: even in abstract patterns like dots moving on a screen. 444 00:31:10,640 --> 00:31:14,440 Speaker 1: We tend to assign agency and purpose and will. This 445 00:31:14,600 --> 00:31:17,600 Speaker 1: means we don't just react to what someone does. We 446 00:31:17,680 --> 00:31:21,240 Speaker 1: react to why we think they did it. So if 447 00:31:21,280 --> 00:31:26,280 Speaker 1: someone eats a burger, grown from Nelson Mandela's cells. As 448 00:31:26,320 --> 00:31:29,640 Speaker 1: a political statement, that gets one reaction. If they do 449 00:31:29,680 --> 00:31:33,120 Speaker 1: it for shock value, that's a different one. If they 450 00:31:33,120 --> 00:31:37,440 Speaker 1: do it reverently as part of a memorial, that's something else. Entirely, 451 00:31:38,040 --> 00:31:42,120 Speaker 1: the mental model we construct around the act changes our 452 00:31:42,240 --> 00:31:46,480 Speaker 1: judgment of the act itself. So really the legality is 453 00:31:46,560 --> 00:31:50,240 Speaker 1: just the surface, because underneath is our brain's endless attempt 454 00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:55,480 Speaker 1: to infer motive and assign blame and detect disrespect. That's 455 00:31:55,480 --> 00:31:57,840 Speaker 1: why this issue will become so much more than just 456 00:31:57,920 --> 00:32:03,320 Speaker 1: a binary law, going to require individual analysis in each case. 457 00:32:03,720 --> 00:32:07,520 Speaker 1: And this brings us to another question, which is who 458 00:32:07,600 --> 00:32:11,160 Speaker 1: gets to eat whom? Because for all of human history, 459 00:32:11,560 --> 00:32:15,680 Speaker 1: food has mapped onto power. The rich eat the rare, 460 00:32:16,360 --> 00:32:20,720 Speaker 1: the poor eat the scraps. Colonial powers brought their own animals, 461 00:32:20,760 --> 00:32:23,520 Speaker 1: their own foods, their own values, and they imposed them. 462 00:32:23,920 --> 00:32:29,240 Speaker 1: So what happens in the future where meat is biologically democratized, 463 00:32:29,320 --> 00:32:33,040 Speaker 1: where anyone can eat panda or pope or pangle in. 464 00:32:33,480 --> 00:32:36,840 Speaker 1: Is that going to flatten social hierarchies or is it 465 00:32:36,880 --> 00:32:40,120 Speaker 1: going to deepen them? Will food become a playground for 466 00:32:40,200 --> 00:32:45,320 Speaker 1: the powerful, where celebrities sell edible versions of themselves or 467 00:32:45,440 --> 00:32:50,240 Speaker 1: billionaires hold exclusive rights to exotic cell lines. So will 468 00:32:50,240 --> 00:32:54,080 Speaker 1: this technology actually liberate us in undo centuries of inequality? 469 00:32:54,520 --> 00:32:57,800 Speaker 1: Or will it export the same dynamics under new names 470 00:32:57,840 --> 00:33:02,800 Speaker 1: with different packaging, and return to the original question, not 471 00:33:03,360 --> 00:33:08,280 Speaker 1: what's possible, but what's permissible? In this new world, flesh 472 00:33:08,320 --> 00:33:11,880 Speaker 1: is no longer finite, pain is no longer required, death 473 00:33:11,960 --> 00:33:15,480 Speaker 1: is no longer the entry ticket to dinner. But the 474 00:33:15,560 --> 00:33:19,040 Speaker 1: steaks are higher than ever because now we're deciding something 475 00:33:19,120 --> 00:33:24,000 Speaker 1: much bigger than dinner. We're deciding the future of personhood, 476 00:33:24,520 --> 00:33:28,240 Speaker 1: of consent and of meaning, and the laws we write 477 00:33:28,280 --> 00:33:33,680 Speaker 1: today will shape the menus of tomorrow. So let's put 478 00:33:33,720 --> 00:33:37,520 Speaker 1: ourselves some decades in the future and imagine that this 479 00:33:37,640 --> 00:33:42,680 Speaker 1: all becomes normal. The awkwardness has faded, the novelties worn off, 480 00:33:42,680 --> 00:33:46,640 Speaker 1: the headlines have moved on. Lab grown meat is now 481 00:33:46,760 --> 00:33:50,320 Speaker 1: just meat. Your grocery store sells everything from urd varc 482 00:33:50,360 --> 00:33:54,040 Speaker 1: to zebra. You can order a heritage steak cultured from 483 00:33:54,160 --> 00:33:58,840 Speaker 1: cells of extinct cattle, or a Dali Lama burgher. Or 484 00:33:58,880 --> 00:34:02,160 Speaker 1: you can order a me loaf grown from your own 485 00:34:02,320 --> 00:34:06,880 Speaker 1: cells and pan seared your children's children. They don't find 486 00:34:06,880 --> 00:34:10,120 Speaker 1: this strange. They've grown up in a world where meat 487 00:34:10,239 --> 00:34:14,520 Speaker 1: doesn't come from ranches but from labs, and maybe where 488 00:34:14,560 --> 00:34:18,440 Speaker 1: meals are tailored to your genetic deficiencies, and your kitchen 489 00:34:18,800 --> 00:34:23,520 Speaker 1: knows your microbiome and your mood. And now perhaps something 490 00:34:23,600 --> 00:34:28,640 Speaker 1: unexpected happens. As suffering is removed from the equation, the 491 00:34:28,840 --> 00:34:32,360 Speaker 1: meaning of eating comes back in because now that you 492 00:34:32,360 --> 00:34:36,200 Speaker 1: can eat without harm, you begin to choose with intent. 493 00:34:36,560 --> 00:34:40,000 Speaker 1: You eat not just to consume, but to connect. And 494 00:34:40,040 --> 00:34:42,080 Speaker 1: so in the future you might find that people are 495 00:34:42,360 --> 00:34:45,040 Speaker 1: not just eating for pleasure and nutrition, but they're eating 496 00:34:45,160 --> 00:34:49,760 Speaker 1: to remember a loved one, to honor a hero of theirs, 497 00:34:50,320 --> 00:34:54,359 Speaker 1: to merge with their bride or groom. Burgers in this 498 00:34:54,440 --> 00:34:58,279 Speaker 1: future are more than fast food, but a medium of 499 00:34:58,640 --> 00:35:02,080 Speaker 1: emotional exchange. So maybe in the end, the real question 500 00:35:02,239 --> 00:35:04,719 Speaker 1: isn't would you eat a human burger? The question is 501 00:35:05,040 --> 00:35:08,200 Speaker 1: what would you want that meal to mean? Because that 502 00:35:08,320 --> 00:35:12,719 Speaker 1: future is coming fast, The bioreactors are humming, the boundaries 503 00:35:12,960 --> 00:35:16,480 Speaker 1: are blurring, and we'll each have to decide when every 504 00:35:16,600 --> 00:35:22,000 Speaker 1: cell is quickly reproducible, when what was previously sacred can 505 00:35:22,040 --> 00:35:26,240 Speaker 1: be commoditized. What is the table we're going to set 506 00:35:26,280 --> 00:35:30,320 Speaker 1: for ourselves. If anyone is miraculously listening to this old, 507 00:35:30,520 --> 00:35:34,440 Speaker 1: archived podcast in one hundred years from now, please let 508 00:35:34,520 --> 00:35:38,040 Speaker 1: my descendants know if any of today's predictions panned out 509 00:35:38,160 --> 00:35:40,960 Speaker 1: or not, And if so, I hope you'll raise a 510 00:35:41,040 --> 00:35:45,680 Speaker 1: toast and celebrate at one of your weird futuristic barbecues. 511 00:35:51,160 --> 00:35:51,520 Speaker 2: You know to. 512 00:35:51,480 --> 00:35:54,360 Speaker 1: Eagleman dot com slash podcast for more information and to 513 00:35:54,400 --> 00:35:58,600 Speaker 1: find further reading. Join the weekly discussions on my substack 514 00:35:59,160 --> 00:36:01,880 Speaker 1: and check out some ribed Inner Cosmos on YouTube for 515 00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:06,719 Speaker 1: videos of each episode and to leave comments. Until next time, 516 00:36:06,840 --> 00:36:09,640 Speaker 1: I'm David Eagleman, and this is Inner Cosmos