> I find it weird to postulate deal-breaking fundamental limits for a process that's a strict subset of a process we've been using and improving for thousands of years.

The process that they're talking about isn't anything like the one we've been using for thousands of years. "Lab grown meat" is about growing cells in vats. Very different. It almost feels like trying to make a car cheaper by not having tires and a windshield (and no substitute). Sure you might be able to get something that limps along, but the things you're dropping solve important problems. Trying to grow massive amounts of animal cells with no immune system seems just as foolish.

> It almost feels like trying to make a car cheaper by not having tires and a windshield (and no substitute).

The way I see it, it's like people were buying cars only to hook stuff up to the alternator to power it, and someone figured maybe we should just build a combustion engine in a box, optimized for electricity generation, so we don't have to deal with the rest of the car.

> The way I see it, it's like people were buying cars only to hook stuff up to the alternator to power it, and someone figured maybe we should just build a combustion engine in a box, optimized for electricity generation, so we don't have to deal with the rest of the car.

I don't think that's a good analogy, because it presumes the removed parts were unnecessary for the core function. Trying to find a perfect analogy is a waste of time, but I think yours would be closer to the truth if during their "optimization" they also removed the oil and air filters. After all, who needs those? We're running the engine to covert fuel to power, not filter air or lubricants (but without doing that the engine will get damaged).

With a lot of systems, you can't just remove any component you wish and still have something that functions well. The lab grown meat people appear to have "removed" far too much (i.e. petty much everything).

> Yes, but this also means it's going to be huge improvement over "regular" meat - they don't have to reinvent whole animals, just the parts that matter.

Meanwhile breeding will be working toward the same end from the other direction: minimizing unnecessary animal components. We have chickens that are impaired by the weight of their own overgrown breasts, and very possibly there are already other organs that are withering away under breeding pressure.

Both directions of advancement are disturbing. I think the breeding program, if it reaches this optimal efficiency conclusion, is probably more disturbing. But also much easier.