I had no idea things like this existed. I’m hopeful that we will continue to trend in this direction if we normalize it and demand more transparency from the food industry. It’s going to take a lot of work but organizations like Methuselah Foundation will hopefully push the industry down a positive path. Great article, Elle. Very interesting read!
Transparency from the food industry would be welcome, but I think that would require new business models for several large companies. There's just too much money to be made in our current society by only disclosing the very minimum needed unless your product benefits from being open. We need to figure out how to encourage more products to do that.
I so agree. To create a better society, a lot of industries will need to pivot. I think our progress has been halted by the need to keep enormous industries alive (the meat industry, oil and gas, fashion) As long as capitalism is the driving force, then the only way to upend it is to come up with something more financially lucrative (could electricity replace gas? could the fake meat industry disrupt the meat industry? Could secondary retail upend retail?)
Of course, that’s not to say we can’t upend capitalism altogether. There’s certainly a trend among younger generations in which buying something new is seen as a bad look. Or think about the “climate criminals” trend. If that continues, and it’s no longer a good look to eat meat and wear fancy clothes and drive a gas guzzling car, maybe the pursuit of wealth and goods won’t be the driver anymore?
If that becomes the case, companies that don’t get on board (like food companies who aren’t transparent) will die.
I wonder if what we’ll see is a halving of the markets and the hybrids that will emerge. I say this because with most large corporations functioning within the status quo, they have a holdover of a lot of the wealth and can throw money at a problem until they “adapt”. While new upstart companies generally have to fight on low budgets to survive but inspire cost efficient modes of functioning due to the very nature of not having money to begin with. Once that legacy money enters the equation, one would hope that despite the origin of that money, it could go toward advancing competitive rates, encouraging mass adoption and driving down costs for everyone to enjoy. I guess a major problem that could occur is getting everyone on the planet to agree on what systems need to change. I can see oil companies (natural gas subsidiaries) working in tandem with electric power plants to help maintain a consistent flow of power during peak seasons of demand (I think some states do this already). That’s what I meant in regards to hybrid systems.
That definitely already exists. For example: oil companies who diversify into windfarms, conventional farms that diversify into organic farming. Smart companies are hedging their bets that in the future people may shift away from one thing and toward another. There's only so far throwing money at a problem will solve things if public perception changes.
This also raises the old question of how will this knowledge the used? Will corporations use data to exclude people from access to health or other insurance or even employment because AI says they’re a threat to profit margins?
Insurance companies already use credit scores to set insurance rates for auto and property coverage. Your credit score dips below a certain number and suddenly you’re setting your house on fire and crashing your car into a tree.
The key to utopia I think is the role that our current brand of capitalism continues to play in the economy. Will be able to create a society in which wellness and the common good eclipses profit?
I don’t know that the common good needs to eclipse profit, but that profit can be used for the common good. And that has become increasingly the case which each successive generation!
I had no idea things like this existed. I’m hopeful that we will continue to trend in this direction if we normalize it and demand more transparency from the food industry. It’s going to take a lot of work but organizations like Methuselah Foundation will hopefully push the industry down a positive path. Great article, Elle. Very interesting read!
Transparency from the food industry would be welcome, but I think that would require new business models for several large companies. There's just too much money to be made in our current society by only disclosing the very minimum needed unless your product benefits from being open. We need to figure out how to encourage more products to do that.
I so agree. To create a better society, a lot of industries will need to pivot. I think our progress has been halted by the need to keep enormous industries alive (the meat industry, oil and gas, fashion) As long as capitalism is the driving force, then the only way to upend it is to come up with something more financially lucrative (could electricity replace gas? could the fake meat industry disrupt the meat industry? Could secondary retail upend retail?)
Of course, that’s not to say we can’t upend capitalism altogether. There’s certainly a trend among younger generations in which buying something new is seen as a bad look. Or think about the “climate criminals” trend. If that continues, and it’s no longer a good look to eat meat and wear fancy clothes and drive a gas guzzling car, maybe the pursuit of wealth and goods won’t be the driver anymore?
If that becomes the case, companies that don’t get on board (like food companies who aren’t transparent) will die.
I wonder if what we’ll see is a halving of the markets and the hybrids that will emerge. I say this because with most large corporations functioning within the status quo, they have a holdover of a lot of the wealth and can throw money at a problem until they “adapt”. While new upstart companies generally have to fight on low budgets to survive but inspire cost efficient modes of functioning due to the very nature of not having money to begin with. Once that legacy money enters the equation, one would hope that despite the origin of that money, it could go toward advancing competitive rates, encouraging mass adoption and driving down costs for everyone to enjoy. I guess a major problem that could occur is getting everyone on the planet to agree on what systems need to change. I can see oil companies (natural gas subsidiaries) working in tandem with electric power plants to help maintain a consistent flow of power during peak seasons of demand (I think some states do this already). That’s what I meant in regards to hybrid systems.
That definitely already exists. For example: oil companies who diversify into windfarms, conventional farms that diversify into organic farming. Smart companies are hedging their bets that in the future people may shift away from one thing and toward another. There's only so far throwing money at a problem will solve things if public perception changes.
So true. Incentives and pressure. But you’re right, major changes would need to be made and the whole system is going to resist said changes.
That’s why we need books about utopia to encourage people to change.
On it!!!!
Some of the discoveries we are making are truly fascinating. I'll be sharing more from Methuselah in a couple of weeks!
(Also I'm so glad you liked it, I was so nervous posting something that was not about publishing!)
This also raises the old question of how will this knowledge the used? Will corporations use data to exclude people from access to health or other insurance or even employment because AI says they’re a threat to profit margins?
Insurance companies already use credit scores to set insurance rates for auto and property coverage. Your credit score dips below a certain number and suddenly you’re setting your house on fire and crashing your car into a tree.
The key to utopia I think is the role that our current brand of capitalism continues to play in the economy. Will be able to create a society in which wellness and the common good eclipses profit?
I don’t know that the common good needs to eclipse profit, but that profit can be used for the common good. And that has become increasingly the case which each successive generation!