Exactly this ... or you forgot their favorite F word, Fascism

I wouldn't say favorite but it's definitely been a useful one recently.

To me it seems to be when it's irrational reactionary overreach. If it's deeply unpopular why is it so threatening and why does it need to be banned before it even becomes a real thing? Won't the market quickly show that "bugs and lab-grown abominations" can't stand?

> If it's deeply unpopular why is it so threatening

Because of who is behind the unpopular thing, and who has power to make (thing) happen.

Nuclear weapons are also deeply unpopular.

> Won't the market quickly show that "bugs and lab-grown abominations" can't stand?

The market won't have a say when bureaucrats pass a law mandating every burger or sausage should contain a % of lab-grown meat, with the % increasing every year. If there's anything the recent years have showed is that slippery slope isn't a fallacy.

> Because of who is behind the unpopular thing, and who has power to make (thing) happen.

Who? The government that's currently banning it?

> Nuclear weapons are also deeply unpopular.

Consumers can't just not buy nuclear weapons and cause them to stop existing. This has nothing to do at all with a food product.

> The market won't have a say when bureaucrats pass a law mandating every burger or sausage should contain a % of lab-grown meat, with the % increasing every year.

Why would they do this? And wouldn't the people who had to do this be the same Italian government that's clearly anti-lab grown meat? If they switch to that stance won't this ban be easily rescinded anyways? If there's a lab meat boogie man with the power to make new laws what does this ban really do?

Nearly all (if not literally all) of the dystopic sounding stuff being pitched as the way of the future is coming from the World Economic Forum [1]. 'Eat the bugs', "Lockdowns are quietly improving cities around the world", "You will own nothing, and be happy", are some of the more visible positions/slogans put out by the WEF. It's primarily made up of a global 'alliance' of the ultra-rich, politicians, large multinational corporations, and banks. An upstanding, ethical, and socially minded collection if I've ever seen one.

Reversing a law, especially one that would be exceptionally popular is unlikely to succeed. By contrast, so long as e.g. lab meat remains legal - there are lots of ways to work behind the scenes to achieve your ends. One of the easiest is labeling. By allowing lab meat to simply be labeled as meat, consumer choice can be largely eliminated. Pair this with artificial subsidies to the lab meat industry, and you completely undermine the market in a rather quiet fashion. It all has the same effect, without the same degree of outrage, as trying to overturn a popular law would.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Economic_Forum

Oh good, we have our WEF boogie men, who I guess the Italian government is currently taunting. I expect they'll experience some comeuppance from the WEF? Or is this one of those "the enemy is both powerful and weak" situations where the WEF has incredible promised power, but still seems utterly ineffective? The same shadowy forces can easily change the definition of what constitutes lab grown meat, circumventing the law and introducing it into the system. You're not guaranteeing anything with this law.

> By allowing lab meat to simply be labeled as meat, consumer choice can be largely eliminated.

By making lab meat illegal, consume choice HAS been eliminated. This is literally the exact same problem that's being suggested as a slippery slope in plain view.

The WEF messaging is not a secret, neither is their membership list (at least for corporations). They're pushing for lab meat hard. [1] And that sample is just a fragment of what's out there. Just do a quick search for something like "site:weforum.org lab grown meat". And so this really changes this issue. For instance, in America Kroger is not only the largest grocery chain but also affiliated with the WEF [2].

So if you're an American farmer, you should expect Kroger (among other WEF affiliated businesses) to treat lab meat in an unfairly preferential way. Even if you would feel comfortable competing against lab meat on a "level" playing field, this changes the game, and creates a much bigger motivation for things exactly like what's happening in Italy right now.

[1] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/10/will-we-eat-lab-grown...

[1] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/06/you-will-be-eating-re...

[1] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/11/how-a-new-approach-to...

[2] https://www.weforum.org/organizations/kroger

Are you saying the American farmer doesn't have massive lobbying power and government support? And again, this is taking away consumer choice by explicitly siding with the Italian farmer. It's explicitly anti-consumer.

I also think you have the push/pull the wrong way - Kroger wants a say in WEF's decisions, it's not controlled by the WEF. It's always going to do what's best for Kroger.

> The market won't have a say when bureaucrats pass a law mandating every burger or sausage should contain a % of lab-grown meat, with the % increasing every year. If there's anything the recent years have showed is that slippery slope isn't a fallacy.

Sure, but they're currently demonstrating this in the exact opposite way: the market won't have a say when bureaucrats mandate everything has a maximum percentage of lab-grown meat, and that proposed percentage is "zero".

> If there's anything the recent years have showed is that slippery slope isn't a fallacy.

What are you referring to?

Their personal delusions after consuming far right propaganda on Nazi incubator social media like 4chan.

You seem to forget that brainwashing and propaganda are a thing

I didn't forget that. Isn't that another strike against populism? Or is the idea here that the change in diet will still succeed due to nefarious brainwashing, implying that the majority of the people will succumb, but that this is contrary to the REAL will of the people? The will of the majority of the people should be listened to now because they are clearly not brainwashed when they have an idea I agree with, but will be at some indeterminate point in the future when it's something I don't like?

That seems ideologically inconsistent but terribly convenient.

"Lab grown abominations" are the only way I, as a vegetarian, get to enjoy hard cheese.

GM bacteria rennet.

Of course, part of why I'm vegetarian is that the idea of scraping off the stomach lining of a baby cow in order to turn milk into a convenient solid is, to me, also an abomination…

It's not an abomination to eat natural food. Any carnivore/omnivore would eat a cow if it could.

The fact that you perceive something natural as an abomination is a symptom of a society that's too successful and needs to invent problems where there are none.

> It's not an abomination to eat natural food. Any carnivore/omnivore would eat a cow if it could.

If the cow could speak, I believe their opinion would be otherwise.

Humans don't generally appreciate it when lions, tigers, and bears beat them to the top of the food chain.

Perfectly natural, that hypocrisy; as natural as your face being eaten by leopards.

> The fact that you perceive something natural as an abomination is a symptom of a society that's too successful and needs to invent problems where there are none.

Lots of natural stuff has been "an abomination" to one group or another since writing existed, regardless of how successful the societies have been.

Examples in Leviticus, amongst other ancient texts.

Shellfish are natural.

Most loving things don't want to die, whether it's to be a meal for something else or any other reason. I don't see how that refutes what looks like the natural drive, at least based on how many have been doing it for how long, of predators to eat meat.

Because I wasn't even attempting to; rather the point is to demonstrate that natural things can be abominations.

> If the cow could speak, I believe their opinion would be otherwise.

Except cows... Don't speak? That's kind of the whole point. We can't apply human value judgements to other species that work in a fundamentally different way.

> Humans don't generally appreciate it when lions, tigers, and bears beat them to the top of the food chain.

It's safe to say no carnivore/omnivore denies that animals suffer. And I'd bet most of us are not happy that they do. It's just not a deal breaker, seeing as it's outweighed by many benefits.

> It's just not a deal breaker, seeing as it's outweighed by many benefits.

Obviously so.

You'll note I said "vegetarian" above rather than "vegan", despite the reasons (I could quote PETA but I won't bother) that milk itself can be well described as an abomination.

Thing is though, as we become better artisans, the comparative benefits of "natural" over artificial are ever reduced.

The ban proposed in the link reminds me of the early years of motorcars, when they were limited to a few miles per hour lest they scare the horses.

The term "abomination" is not useful at all in this conversation. It's 100% up to individual interpretation. To be fair, so is "natural". Many of the traditional things we do to food is hard to frame as natural.

If you force them to define their argument, it doesn't have a foundation. I have yet to find a lab-grown meat that doesn't make me feel a little ill, but it is religiously charged to call it "an abomination." If the core argument is that this individual's interpretation of their specific Magic Book says it's bad, well, I just don't find that a useful discussion.