Worldbuilding Thoughts: Food Ethics So, I've been giving thought to a worldbuild for a near future world / or giving a prediction to how things will be in the near future regarding the consumption of lab-grown meat. It's already a thing, albeit in very small amounts that are not cost-effective as yet, plus there are other issues to work out, such as texturing and so forth, so I've heard, but I have heard of 3D printed chicken. I once wrote a short story taking place in a near-future in which lab-grown meat / factory-grown cloned meat / meat that never had brains attached to it becomes cost-effective and common. It's just about a guy taking a security guard job and dealing with spooky things going on with the robot animal chassis the factory grows the meat on. I played a little bit with the perception of such grown-meats against traditional "came from a once living animal" meats. Anyway, I got to thinking - both in regards to setting more work with this universe (and into the other universe I started writing and just decided to graft the above story onto as backstory, which works) - and about the near-future in general... What would certain ethics look like in regards to this new food? These are my thoughts as follows: Meat-Eaters: Soulflesh Eaters - These are people who ONLY want to eat animals / birds / fish that were independent and once-living. There are two types: Some of these people are hunters / live a traditional lifestyle of some manner - homesteaders / generational farmers / people keeping to their peoples' culture. The second type of Soulflesh Eaters are, of course, the rich, who don't do hunting or farming themselves, but will pay a premium for meat that has been farmed or hunted from living animals once the cloned meat becomes more common and becomes the cheap option. For the rich, it's a status symbol to have a dinner of calves' liver taken from a calf that had to be killed for it or a real, whole lobster. General Meat-Eaters - Can incorporate those who eat "soulflesh" now and again, that is "mostly get meat from the store (your common chuck roast is cloned now), but you got your elk this year out hunting." Very often, the general meat eaters are just eating cloned meat because it's affordable and they aren't hunters or farmers. Ex-Vegetarians / Non-Vegetarians - These are people who, if meat was not cloned, they would not eat it, but since meat is cloned and was never attached to a living animal, feel no moral qualms about eating it. Not all vegetarians and vegans are so for ethical reasons (I have a friend who just doesn't like the taste of meat. Her life would not change in this world), but for those ethical-reasons-alone vegetarians, now burgers are no longer off the menu and they go for it. Vegetarians / Vegans: These are two types - Those who won't even eat the cloned meat for reasons of health / taste / don't particularly care if others eat some clone-chicken nuggets. The second type are the same kind of "evangelical vegans" that exist today who think even the cloned meat is immoral and people are evil for eating it because "those cells ONCE came from an animal!" and it doesn't matter that the meat had no brain and the cells have been on a clone-matrix for 20 years - they are still the pure ones who will look down on even their easygoing vegetarian / vegan counterparts who just refuse to bother the non-soulflesh general cloned meat eaters.
