Yes, it is very different, if we are talking about core motivations. The main point of powdered cyborg food is to be cool for transhumanist hacker types (by virtue of being convenient, useful, inexpensive, cognition-boosting, and liberating oneself from the conventional norms and hassles of food dependency), and not to save helpless suffering animals.
However, just because cyborg food is not motivated by animal rights does not mean that it does not serve the interests of animal rights. The main competitors in the cyborg food market are soy and whey, neither of which is flesh based (although some whey contains rennet from calf stomach). Contrast to conventional food, where veggie burgers play second fiddle to aggressively marketed and addicting meat products.
Whether the whey based version is harmful for animal rights is debatable, given its status as a waste product from cheesemaking. Purchasing whey does support the dairy industry, but since we are talking about replacing meals that contain cheese, it could actually reduce demand for cheese and thus reduce milk production overall. Under current market conditions, casein (cheese protein) is more expensive than whey protein, despite representing 80% of the protein content of cow’s milk.
If it were to become a primary food product (as opposed to a niche bodybuilding product), particularly if there was a reduced demand for cheese, I expect that whey protein would become more expensive, and thus would probably be disfavored as a base for cyborg food on grounds of cost. Thus it is probably not straightforwardly analogous to the chicken wing example in Peter’s post.
Yes, it is very different, if we are talking about core motivations. The main point of powdered cyborg food is to be cool for transhumanist hacker types (by virtue of being convenient, useful, inexpensive, cognition-boosting, and liberating oneself from the conventional norms and hassles of food dependency), and not to save helpless suffering animals.
However, just because cyborg food is not motivated by animal rights does not mean that it does not serve the interests of animal rights. The main competitors in the cyborg food market are soy and whey, neither of which is flesh based (although some whey contains rennet from calf stomach). Contrast to conventional food, where veggie burgers play second fiddle to aggressively marketed and addicting meat products.
Whether the whey based version is harmful for animal rights is debatable, given its status as a waste product from cheesemaking. Purchasing whey does support the dairy industry, but since we are talking about replacing meals that contain cheese, it could actually reduce demand for cheese and thus reduce milk production overall. Under current market conditions, casein (cheese protein) is more expensive than whey protein, despite representing 80% of the protein content of cow’s milk.
If it were to become a primary food product (as opposed to a niche bodybuilding product), particularly if there was a reduced demand for cheese, I expect that whey protein would become more expensive, and thus would probably be disfavored as a base for cyborg food on grounds of cost. Thus it is probably not straightforwardly analogous to the chicken wing example in Peter’s post.