@pganssle The word 'identical' carries a *lot* of water in all of these discussions.

I'm highly skeptical of our ability to achieve something lab-cultured that is *actually* identical across all nutritionally-relevant axes. (Further--I'm skeptical of our ability to identify, much less *measure*, all nutritionally-relevant axes.)

@btskinn I mean, it doesn't carry any water in this case, since I'm asking about how meat being cultured affects people's willingness to eat it at all.

If you are in the "I'd pay 10x for identical" group, you're probably in a group that would pay 2x for a "close enough" simulacrum. If you're in the <1x group, you might be convinced with extra enticements (e.g. "it's not exactly the same, but you can get a close simulacrum of this ultra-rare and expensive delicacy for the same price as beef").

@btskinn I do recognize that it's a problem, though, that people are simply *terrible* at evaluating hypothetical situations. Their brains sort of pattern match to something else and use heuristics that don't apply, so you can't really trust them to decouple the things that you are explicitly asking them to decouple.

@pganssle Oh, sorry - that was meant to be an explanation for why I voted "<1", not to poke at anything deeper or make a broader argument about how people *should* feel about it.

@pganssle I hadn't even been thinking about it from the "low cost replica of a rare/unique experience" angle. That would probably change my answer.

@btskinn Well, "low cost replica of a rare/unique experience" is another way of saying, "I'd only take it if were cheaper."

Since if you're like, "I'd eat a cultured version of that $1000 fish if I could get it for $20", that's a price difference of 0.02x.

@btskinn If you voted <1 because you aren't convinced that it would be identical, you are answering a different question than the one I asked, but like I said, people are terrible at decoupling these things, so I assumed the data would be noisy in this regard.

It's actually good to have some confirmation that at least some of the "only if it's cheaper" folks are just answering a different question.

@pganssle Yeah, I'm not able to get past the questions begged by the "otherwise identical" assertion.

@btskinn It's an explicitly stated premise.

If I said, "A genie comes out and is willing to offer you $200,000 a year for life, or $2M lump sum right now" it would be very weird to say, "I dunno, genies don't exist, and why would he want to give me money?"

@btskinn I recognize that people don't actually respect the premises of hypotheticals when they answer questions, but it feels... cognitively dissonant to me to explicitly recognize that you are doing it and to be unwilling to engage the question otherwise.

Then again, I am a high [decoupler](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7cAsBPGh98pGyrhz9/decoupling-vs-contextualising-norms), so it is very natural for me to think this way.

@pganssle Huh, <nod>, I see your point.

What happened here was that I was in enough of a hurry, and feel strongly enough about the matter, that I didn't take the time/effort to push through my rejection of the premise and seat myself into the actual hypothetical.

And then reacted/voted/replied without noticing that that's what I'd done.

So... Yeah, apologies for that. :-/

@pganssle in other words, I can walk into any grocer and find poorly fabricated meats and seafood that were "farm" raised, organic, free-range, etc. It doesn't mean anything really. If it's not properly raised, developed, fabricated, packed, and handled all the way down the food line, then it impacts the quality of your cooking or recipe. If someone improperly cuts several mignon steaks out of a filet of beef, you can't do much about it afterwards. And so on...

@djzap I'm asking if you assume that the resulting thing is identical, at what price point would you choose cultured meat over animal meat.

If you only care about quality then I'd say answer either 1x or >1x. I am inclined to say that if you are truly indifferent for a given quality level, the answer should be 1x.

@pganssle and I’m saying that “nothing” is identical. They’re merely approximate. Industrialization attempts “uniformity” or “standardization”, but I don’t think that of true “value” in quality foods, as much as it’s associated with economy and fast food.
If I gave you a bag of machine-cut carrots, do you really think it’s “identical” to organic whole carrots or baby carrots? Why would it be different for meat proteins?

@pganssle even if I purchased “printed” meat, or farm-raised, I wouldn’t assume it’s all the same, identical in value to similar products, or even that of “traditional” products. All food products are like this, no matter their nutritional source, regional origin, branding, etc.

@djzap I'm saying it's a premise of the question. I'm asking people to hold quality constant.

If you want to imagine it as "the distribution of quality outcomes with the cultured meat are the same as the distribution of quality outcomes from a butcher" that is fine.

The point is to assume that on all relevant metrics the product is the same, except that one was cultured as the other came from a farm. Would you be willing to pay the same for it, less for it or more for it, and by how much?

@djzap The idea isn't to trick you into liking bad meat or something, it's to measure the intrinsic worth you place on the source of the meat.

If you are incapable of engaging in hypothetical thought experiments of that kind that is ok, you do not need to answer the question.

@pganssle I studied sociology and anthropology, as well as Culinary Arts… so I think I’m more than capable of hypothetical thought and experimentation. I can also see through a bad or poorly implemented survey. Plus, I have a long history in social organizing, participatory engagement, writing, blogging, social media, etc. Then… that says nothing of my background and heritage in the overall food business.