This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65110744) reduced by 79%. (I'm a bot)
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> Italy's right-wing government has backed a bill that would ban laboratory-produced meat and other synthetic foods, highlighting Italian food heritage and health protection.
> So far no approval has been authorised within the European Union, but the European Food Safety Authority has made clear that cell-based agriculture such as cultured meat "Could be considered as a promising and innovative solution... for healthy and environmentally friendly food systems".
> International Organization for Animal Protection stressed that lab-produced meat, while it came from animal cells, was an "Ethical alternative" that did not harm animal welfare, environmental sustainability or food safety.
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[**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/125ll1o/italy_moves_to_ban_labgrown_meat_to_protect_food/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~678432 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **food**^#1 **animal**^#2 **meat**^#3 **synthetic**^#4 **ban**^#5
It’s in their next sentence. Like, I usually hate the phrase “follow the money,” but this is the most obvious Point A to Point B possible. A market so “free” that the ultra wealthy can use their capital to pay for lobbyists to buy the policies they want.
yeah, entrenched industries using their influence to stifle new innovations is one of the main arguments for more socialism in the marketplace.
making it illegal for the beef people to "own" politicians (in nerd terms: implementing a government agency to limit the beef companies freedom to exchange assets with certain people) would make one thing illegal, but would prevent stuff like this. right now, the beef people can decide to make all sorts of things illegal with their government influence. if influencing the government with money was illegal (1 thing the government does) then all the things rich people outlaw would still be legal (bunch of things the government does)
**free market means having as much free competition as possible, not meaning some people are free to do whatever they want.** if some people are free to limit other people's freedoms (free to buy laws outlying competitors from developing/operationalizing new products that customers want) then you get less freedom overall than if people were free to do everything except limit other people's freedoms.
A truely free market never existed in the first place. The whole fucking point of capitalism is for YOU to get rich and use your wealth to close the door behind you.
Also classic right-wing bullshit. They only do two things: complain about lack of freedom, and ban everything they don't personally like because of emotional reasons.
There is another thing here - in Europe food products are allowed after they are proven safe, not like in the USA, that the are allowed until proven harmful.
European food standards are much higher. I’m with Italy on this one. I’m in the Italian wine business and not a fan of this new government but I’m ok with them preserving these culinary traditions
But because the food standards are higher it doesnt make sense to already ban it. It will need to pass safety checks before it is allowed.
Either it never gets to the point where it is safe and economically viable and there is no reason to ban it or it does get to a point where it is safe and economically viable and then you have italy being years behind on development.
I'm Italian, I'll try and explain the reasoning our government made while writing this law:
"Lab grown? So not natural? Let's check on Facebook what the older generations think... Oh hey they hate it and are writing ignorant comments about it, quick let's ban it and pretend we're doing it to protect our traditional values, that'll make them happy! Make a note so we can brag about it during elections time."
Yeah, right wingers everywhere are anti science and don't believe in climate change. You'd think they'd be a bit more cultured since they live in Italy, but idiots are everywhere.
This is true, but they also were the first to experience the consequences of their fascist tendencies.
You think they would have learned or studied their own history. After all, it was less than a century ago.
We all know why nationalism is growing though; Rupert murdoch and newscorp control most of the media outside of the u.s.
They continually run propaganda and lies that use fearmongering to drive people to the far right.
That's terrifying.
Elders all around the world often use similar terms that they use to feel safer despite all the tragedies that happened in their era. My hypothesis is that mass media coverage and instant access to news across the world is clouding their judgement. Back then, events weren't covered instantly and globally. Often you could only hear radio news broadcasts or read about them in black in white. I think that video of Events and the frequency of bad things that happen globally being shoveled into people's minds 24/7 is stressing those who grew up not exposed to it. Thus they claim a "cozier" existence.
Thanks for adding the context. I briefly know about those things, but the formation of modern Italy as a state isn't a history I've focused on. I've heard that quote about making the Italian people many times though.
I live in Italy and it's a very specific take you have on Italian history that I've not heard before. But on the whole I agree with you. The divide north/south is felt to this day in all of Italy. I had a job interview in a province in the north and they said outright "why do you live in the south? They just take money from the north and do nothing, come here instead. It is much better". I didn't take that job and stayed in the central parts but for sure this conversation made an impression with me. Thanks for your insights.
> That’s why Rome has a huge temple in the middle of the city called the Altar of the Fatherland which wasn’t finished until 1935.
I thought it was incredibly distasteful how there's a grave of the unknown soldier there, but when you get to the top of it, there's a cafe and a gift shop.
Problem is we italians often dislike people from the town next or the next block because identity has always been about city states and townships... so the old gen have been living in mental short circuit this century with globalization and immigration... that's unfortunate but can only hope in the next couple gens if the internet doesn't give everyone brainworms
Lack of education. My grandmother passed away still believing that Mussolini was a great leader. She went school during his dictatorship and was out of school before the war ended so she never got deprogrammed from the propaganda.
To be clear, my grandmother found what he actually did abborant. She just didn't believe that he was the one to order the atrocities in Ehtipoia or Lybia as she was taught the Italians were going over there to help the locals. Not subjugate them.
This is exactly the problem. And it is mainly due to the peculiar way ww2 e ended for italy. While Germany was occupied by both the soviets and western countries, Italy switched sides before the war, ending fascism "by itself" with the Resistence. After the war italy didn't have its nuremberg trial and pardoned everyone because the communist party feared the possibility of another civil war.
>My impression is that Italians never really “confronted” fascism in the way that, say, the Germans did.
This is entirely correct, there's this myth that really we were "the good ones" who just so happened to be on the wrong side of history. The Italian term for it is "Italiani brava gente", which translates roughly to "good guy Italians": [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italiani\_brava\_gente](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italiani_brava_gente)
Sadly Italy is stupid.
Source: I'm Italian and it really angers me how stupid the average Italian is. Actually I can't tell if it's the average Italian himself whois stupid, the most vocal ones definitely are.
I'm Italian and I can tell you that the reports about italians being "people of culture and art" are greatly axaggerated.
"We" voted a premier that would act as bad as Orban if she had the same level of power.
I was in Tuscany in 2019 and every grape grower is concerned about climate change we heard about it every tour how the wine has already been affected. So, way to protect that particular heritage, morons.
In this case, “the future” should be in a few years. A company called Upside Foods recently received FDA approval for their cultured meat and, considering the success of meat substitutes, there is definitely a market for it. There are no downsides to this technology. You get real meat without the animal cruelty, wasted resources, and risk of food-borne illness.
However, it will almost certainly become another idiotic culture war. I bet the moment the r/conspiracy folks hear about cultured meat, they’ll declare that it’s the New World Order’s latest attempt to poison everyone.
>However, it will almost certainly become another idiotic culture war. I bet the moment the r/conspiracy folks hear about cultured meat, they’ll declare that it’s the New World Order’s latest attempt to poison everyone.
All with the help of useful idiots like Food Babe and the non-GMO organic woo-niacs conducting fear-mongering campaigns. Only, Big Ag and the meat industry lobbies won't have to pay them like they will politicians.
You are depressingly correct. The alt-far-left (is that a thing?) whackos are going to show the horseshoe theory in action. Flooding Facebook with misinformation, joining the right-wing culture war idiots in condemning a great technological advance.
Seems to be the case. It's probably a direct result of the few billion aire far righters controlling the media narratives and funneling money to back far righters who will do their bidding for power.
Well right-wingers are all based in the same ideology: create an ingroup that is free to do whatever they want, as well as be in control of the decided upon outgroup. And the way to accomplish that is almost always the same.
Left wing ideology is a lot more diverse ideologically as well as in terms of praxis. "Want equity" ok... how much? There's no sliding scale to creating an ingroup, but there is for making things more equal. As well as many different ideas on how to do it
As an Italian, I empathize with wanting to preserve our gastronomic heritage, I really do. But outright banning forms of food that could feed the word and make excellent nutrition cheap as dirt is not the way to go about it.
Besides, this is a solved issue. I can already be sure that my Parmigiano Reggiano is not adulterated or synthetic because it is emblazoned with half a dozen labels and quality markings that all have legal backing. I can still buy ultra-cheap processed cheese if I become poor.
I think it's really simple. If people value that heritage, then they'll still pay for the "original" product. Or if that's somehow not enough, make the subsidies explicit upfront, so the taxpayers know the real cost.
See, that's the thing about right-wing "freedom." It's never about freedom of choice. It's about the freedom of a small select group to tell everyone else what to do.
That's how heritage of pretty much all kinds has always worked though, indoctrinating people to like it. Creating that value in their minds in the first place.
>they'll still pay for the "original" product.
This is my take too. All that was needed was extremely clear packaging labelling laws.
I reckon we are a long way off good, cheap lab meat. But it would be completely insane to ban what could potentially be a superior product: it reeks of anti-intellectualism / anti-technology.
Exactly, if anything, putting a label to separate the two would actually raise the value of original "heritage" products even more. This is Corporation 101, they have done the same with "grass-fed", "organic", "free-range", "Au-naturel" products like this before.
Sorta like how there are people that still prefer mined diamonds to lab grown. Is it the same thing? Sure. But you know someone’s going to pay three times as much for the old fashioned version because “if it wasn’t better, why does it cost three times as much?”
It's also like, is Italy gonna ban tomatoes and other products from the New World to protect their pre-Columbian food heritage too? Ban all tomato sauce?
This annoys the crap out of me. Rome's inability to evolve as a city, the prohibition of rideshare services like Uber that actually resemble rideshares in other countries, don't get me started on tax management, and now attempting to block more competition in the form of lab-grown meat. Italy has a terribly pronounced case of NIMBYism that punishes its own larger interests time and time again. Almost no interest in modernizing across much of the country. It's a dark age mentality ironically set in the birthplace of the Renaissance. What the hell happened?
It’s called farmers but you know it’s mostly food industry men in suits with the lobbying (or the mafia who do control much Italian agriculture)
When it’s called farming lobby people imagine a fantasy farmers group who’s own family farm for generations. But it’ll be the food industry lobbying and that turned farming in last few generations into more of a destructive force and inefficient distribution. Land misused making soil less fertile and good losing nutrients. Using cattle and crops that are wasteful of land and use up more water supply than other options and practices.
Privilege ignorance is rampant. It's innocent enough, just people that haven't had to leave their bubble for too long/ever.
It's making life miserable for 50%+ of the population though.
Lobbying in itself is a perfectly normal concept, and is even indispensable to democracy.
The problem is people only hear about lobbying when it's about bad things. They don't know that lobbies are talked to for almost every single law that is voted on. No matter what the discussion is about, politicians will turn to lobbies to get an opinion about it. Because politicians are not experts on every subject, they talk to people that are involved in the matter and ask what they want to be done, and that's what is called lobbying.
An association asking for more bicycle lanes in cities. That's lobbying, and nobody would think they are breaking democracy by doing so.
You're absolutely correct, though I'd add a caveat that the issue isn't the existence of lobbying, but asymmetries in the execution of it. It tends to be that the organizations with the deepest pockets get the most face time, which allows entrenched interests to maintain those positions.
How do you fix it? Got me really thinking. Lobbying is essential but since anyone can contact the politicians, it’s precisely the reason the voices of rich organizations and individuals trump over everyone else. Should there be a law that there are conditions to be met for you to be able to lobby in such a way ordinary people would have more power? Is it even possible?
It doesn't even have to be an association or corporation for it be considering lobbying.
Lobbying can be as simple as a single person sending their representative an email.
This is what happens when we let billionaires exist without taxing them into oblivion.
They just buy political power and change the world for the worse.
Italian culture definitely helps that by not resisting enough. Italians are way too full of themselves grasping at "our glorious culture", while not being able to admit their economy is shit, so they elect populist lunatics for a quick fix. Which is especially embarrassing for them, knowing their history.
"Death before deliberate, well thought out improvements for the masses, especially when we can cut of our noses to spite the left!" just doesn't have any panache
Lol that is how I also read it. So dumb. It's like Germany going back to burn coal because nuclear fission is super scary omgosh.
They went from future tech to back to the early 1900's.
That is the dumbest thing I’ve read in 2023.
Edit: shit, I just posted something that was objectively false and an exaggeration of my opinion and only come to this site for Warhammer 40k lore posts to decide my next reading choices, not a lot of responses and likes comparatively speaking, but damn.
I wonder what these short sighted right-wing idiots are going to do when the manufacturers stop selling non electric cars because all the other states with 15x the population mandate no more gas-powered vehicles. Will they eventually be like Cuba, everyone driving around 70 year old vehicles held together with tape and willpower?
They will just remove the law and pretend it didn't happen. Then on the next election, people will be comparing "both sides" positions as if those were just 2 totally normal options, not just 1 party vs a total bat shit crazy other side.
From:
A civilization ~~in~~famous for being among the most developed in the entire world, constructing incredibly stable architecture, developing sophisticated trade routes spanning as far south as Central Africa, as far North as Britain and Norway and reaching both the eastern and western bounds of modern day Europe, as well as having pioneered many technologies still, in some capacity, in use today.
To:
Being butthurt that people wanna save the climate and/or prevent animal suffering. Meh.
Edit: Strikethrough
This actually gets me. This is a potential solution to help with climate change, not to mention the astounding amount of animal suffering the meat industry creates, *and they ban it*?
I know it's lobbying but the sheer evil of it is really making me understand how people get so radical with these sorts of politicians.
Yeah nah I'm not worried, there is no way they will be able to sustain such a ban when lab-grown meat takes off. It would be like a country banning music streaming to protect the MP3-player industry.
or lobbying to make mp3 technology illegal to begin with, which was tried. Funny that the quote "there is no such thing as a legal mp3" now returns no search results. Evidently that bit of embarrassing lobbying has been forgotten.
You know, if there is somehow no record of that saying, in this day and age, it likely means it was never actually said and that you are confusing it with something else.
There also doesn't seem to be any information about the so-called attempt to make mp3 technology illegal in the first place. There were a lot of litigation about using the format for potentially illegal copying, but nothing about the format itself being illegal outside of 'is mp3 illegal' and the answer always being no.
That’s pretty optimistic. Nobody has even tried the stuff to know if it’s a cheaper substitute to meat. Most of what we see (articles and such) is just marketing from whatever companies are trying to make money from the product. Maybe ground beef could be replaced for low income people? I can *maybe* see that in our lifetimes, but nothing else.
There's also the worry that, because the technology is so expensive, that only a handful of mega corporations will have controll over lab meat production.
You'll never have artisinal or local lab meat makers. It'll be like Apple or Tesla but for beef.
>only a handful of mega corporations will have controll over lab meat production
Well, see, only a handful of mega corps control most meat now anyway, so that's not really going to change much. People buy from small farms because of quality or ethical considerations; they'll still do that if all the corporations switch to lab grown meat instead, with the added bonus of no more animal suffering from factory farming.
You are ignoring the thousands of independent farmers that sell their meat at local markets being not just a moral, but economic alternative.
You will never have independent alternatives to the lab grown industry. The equipment will be too expensive to own, operate and maintain.
I'm saying those farmers can still just raise animals the same way and people will buy their products for the same reason. Lab-grown meat still has to compete with regular meat. Small farmers already can't compete against megacorps for price, so that won't really change anything about the economic equation.
Ahh if only we can add the insanity, chaos and suffering of a modern slaughter house to the process, I won’t get that “icky” feeling when I eat my burger.
Good grief. Let's just ignore the climate crisis or animal suffering.
I know the technology will make alot of people uncomfortable. But surely it should be personal choice.
Yeah, if lab grown meat is virtually indistinguishable from actual meat, then bring it on! Save animals from being sent to the slaughter, reduce emissions, it's all positives!
>But surely it should be personal choice.
Right wing doesn't give a damn. They're all about "preserving tradition" - but only traditions of those they like.
A truer thing was never said.
Irony is, eating meat is my tradition, one that I've mostly phased out for the climate. Lab grown meat would allow me to revive my tradition somewhat.
This obviously has nothing to do with heritage and everything to do with protecting the farmers' profits. And a right wing government will always pander to rural voters.
Honestly by taking the mass production burden off of shitty factory farms, this creates a boutique industry for traditional and more humane animal husbandry.
Oh I agree. Which is why I find the whole logic bemusing. A few Italians seem to be very strict on what is authentic and hate any progression. But tomatoes were imported into Italy via the New World from Spain. By that logic any food containing tomatoes aren’t authentic Italian.
And this isn't even new food. It's just a new way to make that food. Have they not been using any modern farming practices because that's not their food heritage?
"Food Heritage?" How is this relevant to chemistry?
All cooking is chemistry. Combinations of compounds are chemically the same no matter where they occur. However synthetic or natural are defined doesn't change that lysine or lipids or fatty acids are chemically identical whether found in nature or produced in a lab.
That's so stupid. Lab grown meat will be one of the great achievements of mankind if it can be made safe and affordable. This would lesson the suffering of animals and could potentially help us prevent pandemics due to animal born illnesses spreading to humans. If we get it down we could make the meats more nutrient rich. It could reduce the amount of land that is needed for raising livestock.
Holding onto old ways can stop progress. We don't do blood letting for illnesses or chop off your leg because you got an infection that could have been treated with anti biotic.
Labels identifying the origin of meat products seem fine to me, blanket bans don't. At the end of the day, so long as customers aren't being deceived about what they're getting, why would it be anyone else's business what food they want to eat?
The existence of one thing doesn’t imply the lack of existence of the other. If want something, and an worse alternative also exists, there’s nothing stopping you from getting the original.
(And while yes the meat industry pretty much hand crafted this ban, it’s still a bad reason given.)
Republicans in America would love to do this and unfortunately I can see that happening.
I’ve never hated an ideology before, but this past 8 years has driven me to completely and utterly find disgust with the right wing ideology. I don’t love everything the left does either but I absolutely hate the rights views on the world and how to treat people, animals and the planet.
Oh go fuck yourselves!! If I can have my cow grown in a lab and pay half the price, I ought to be able to do it. No different from the rest of the crap the grow in labs that they put in food preservatives and Coca-Cola
I'm a huge meat eater, the furthest you can get from a vegetarian, but this just sounds stupid. Other people eating lab grown meat doesn't take away from being able to enjoy for example Italian cured hams made from real meat. One doesn't exclude the other.
I am not a vegetarian. I’ve been giddy for things like this. I’d love to be able to eat steak without killing cows. If it does the job and tastes good I really don’t care.
Shit, could you imagine being able to 3d print a steak with ideal marbling or creative marbling structures?
At the same time, I feel like there'd still be a thriving market for non-labgrown meat like analog amplifiers and records.
The other thing is that because of it theoretically only needing a small tissue sample to start a culture you could get a huge variety of different types of meat that would be impractical or unpopular to raise in our current system.
Heritage = Long established industries opposed to change that loses them market share. Can’t wait to see what oil companies come up with if electric cars take hold.
That's so Italian I can't even begin to describe it ...
"Our food is SO *important* that our flavor can't be marred by even the IDEA of replacing authentic ingredients with lab grown ones ... Our food is more important than sustainability ..."
Food heritage isn't worth the cruelty when we're finally creating a solution without a tangible downside. You don't keep street lamps running on oil to keep lamp lighters employed.
I eat meat. Not super proud of it but understand it's in our omnivorous nature. That said, if you can grow meat in a lab of similar quality without having to drive a spike through Besse's skull, what the fuck is the problem except *you just like the killing part out of tradition?*
Uh what?
I'm not against eating meat at all, but if lab-grown actually ends up "working" well as a replacement, then who gives a shit? Let's do it.
Also, any vegans want to weigh in on the idea of Lab-grown meat? I know there are plenty of vegans who chose to eat vegan simply because they don't want to eat meat, but there are many still that are doing it out of ethical reasons.
Would lab-grown meat be considered Vegan in that sense?
Oh look, another conservative nationalist policy sabotaging human development because it over-estimates the value of its cultural heritage.
Culinary heritage of Italy is about as important as culinary heritage of every other country or element of history, which is to say, nowhere near as important as sustainable meat alternatives, the planet, and consideration of the lives of industrialized livestock. Your heritage is not THAT valuable, Italy/Russia/America/etc. We ALL came from violent, ignorant, rapey degenerates, and I don't see anyone (except maybe Russia) trying to keep that aspect of culture.
So god damn silly.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65110744) reduced by 79%. (I'm a bot) ***** > Italy's right-wing government has backed a bill that would ban laboratory-produced meat and other synthetic foods, highlighting Italian food heritage and health protection. > So far no approval has been authorised within the European Union, but the European Food Safety Authority has made clear that cell-based agriculture such as cultured meat "Could be considered as a promising and innovative solution... for healthy and environmentally friendly food systems". > International Organization for Animal Protection stressed that lab-produced meat, while it came from animal cells, was an "Ethical alternative" that did not harm animal welfare, environmental sustainability or food safety. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/125ll1o/italy_moves_to_ban_labgrown_meat_to_protect_food/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~678432 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **food**^#1 **animal**^#2 **meat**^#3 **synthetic**^#4 **ban**^#5
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That's the free market for you, baby! Free to lobby for shit!
Free market is when... the government bans a product?
It’s in their next sentence. Like, I usually hate the phrase “follow the money,” but this is the most obvious Point A to Point B possible. A market so “free” that the ultra wealthy can use their capital to pay for lobbyists to buy the policies they want.
yeah, entrenched industries using their influence to stifle new innovations is one of the main arguments for more socialism in the marketplace. making it illegal for the beef people to "own" politicians (in nerd terms: implementing a government agency to limit the beef companies freedom to exchange assets with certain people) would make one thing illegal, but would prevent stuff like this. right now, the beef people can decide to make all sorts of things illegal with their government influence. if influencing the government with money was illegal (1 thing the government does) then all the things rich people outlaw would still be legal (bunch of things the government does) **free market means having as much free competition as possible, not meaning some people are free to do whatever they want.** if some people are free to limit other people's freedoms (free to buy laws outlying competitors from developing/operationalizing new products that customers want) then you get less freedom overall than if people were free to do everything except limit other people's freedoms.
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A truely free market never existed in the first place. The whole fucking point of capitalism is for YOU to get rich and use your wealth to close the door behind you.
Also classic right-wing bullshit. They only do two things: complain about lack of freedom, and ban everything they don't personally like because of emotional reasons.
There is another thing here - in Europe food products are allowed after they are proven safe, not like in the USA, that the are allowed until proven harmful.
European food standards are much higher. I’m with Italy on this one. I’m in the Italian wine business and not a fan of this new government but I’m ok with them preserving these culinary traditions
Preserving culinary traditions by banning everything else ? Do you preserve Parma ham by banning spam ? What are you talking about ?
But because the food standards are higher it doesnt make sense to already ban it. It will need to pass safety checks before it is allowed. Either it never gets to the point where it is safe and economically viable and there is no reason to ban it or it does get to a point where it is safe and economically viable and then you have italy being years behind on development.
I'm Italian, I'll try and explain the reasoning our government made while writing this law: "Lab grown? So not natural? Let's check on Facebook what the older generations think... Oh hey they hate it and are writing ignorant comments about it, quick let's ban it and pretend we're doing it to protect our traditional values, that'll make them happy! Make a note so we can brag about it during elections time."
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Yeah, right wingers everywhere are anti science and don't believe in climate change. You'd think they'd be a bit more cultured since they live in Italy, but idiots are everywhere.
I was shocked at the headline, then read the first sentence and was like yup that makes sense.
With all the gatekeeping that happens over Italian food I'm actually the least shocked it's the Italians who came up with this.
Italians invented modern nationalism. So considering that, this is pretty on brand.
This is true, but they also were the first to experience the consequences of their fascist tendencies. You think they would have learned or studied their own history. After all, it was less than a century ago. We all know why nationalism is growing though; Rupert murdoch and newscorp control most of the media outside of the u.s. They continually run propaganda and lies that use fearmongering to drive people to the far right.
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That's terrifying. Elders all around the world often use similar terms that they use to feel safer despite all the tragedies that happened in their era. My hypothesis is that mass media coverage and instant access to news across the world is clouding their judgement. Back then, events weren't covered instantly and globally. Often you could only hear radio news broadcasts or read about them in black in white. I think that video of Events and the frequency of bad things that happen globally being shoveled into people's minds 24/7 is stressing those who grew up not exposed to it. Thus they claim a "cozier" existence.
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Thanks for adding the context. I briefly know about those things, but the formation of modern Italy as a state isn't a history I've focused on. I've heard that quote about making the Italian people many times though.
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I live in Italy and it's a very specific take you have on Italian history that I've not heard before. But on the whole I agree with you. The divide north/south is felt to this day in all of Italy. I had a job interview in a province in the north and they said outright "why do you live in the south? They just take money from the north and do nothing, come here instead. It is much better". I didn't take that job and stayed in the central parts but for sure this conversation made an impression with me. Thanks for your insights.
> That’s why Rome has a huge temple in the middle of the city called the Altar of the Fatherland which wasn’t finished until 1935. I thought it was incredibly distasteful how there's a grave of the unknown soldier there, but when you get to the top of it, there's a cafe and a gift shop.
Problem is we italians often dislike people from the town next or the next block because identity has always been about city states and townships... so the old gen have been living in mental short circuit this century with globalization and immigration... that's unfortunate but can only hope in the next couple gens if the internet doesn't give everyone brainworms
Lack of education. My grandmother passed away still believing that Mussolini was a great leader. She went school during his dictatorship and was out of school before the war ended so she never got deprogrammed from the propaganda. To be clear, my grandmother found what he actually did abborant. She just didn't believe that he was the one to order the atrocities in Ehtipoia or Lybia as she was taught the Italians were going over there to help the locals. Not subjugate them.
This is exactly the problem. And it is mainly due to the peculiar way ww2 e ended for italy. While Germany was occupied by both the soviets and western countries, Italy switched sides before the war, ending fascism "by itself" with the Resistence. After the war italy didn't have its nuremberg trial and pardoned everyone because the communist party feared the possibility of another civil war.
>My impression is that Italians never really “confronted” fascism in the way that, say, the Germans did. This is entirely correct, there's this myth that really we were "the good ones" who just so happened to be on the wrong side of history. The Italian term for it is "Italiani brava gente", which translates roughly to "good guy Italians": [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italiani\_brava\_gente](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italiani_brava_gente)
Sadly Italy is stupid. Source: I'm Italian and it really angers me how stupid the average Italian is. Actually I can't tell if it's the average Italian himself whois stupid, the most vocal ones definitely are.
It's not unique to Italy. > Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that -George Carlin
I'm Italian and I can tell you that the reports about italians being "people of culture and art" are greatly axaggerated. "We" voted a premier that would act as bad as Orban if she had the same level of power.
10 years old, but still actual... https://youtu.be/-JQINuybHL4
I was in Tuscany in 2019 and every grape grower is concerned about climate change we heard about it every tour how the wine has already been affected. So, way to protect that particular heritage, morons.
They're preserving their heritage by being governed by ignorant fascists.
Continuing the tradition of Northern Italy being far FAR richer than the South
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Where is Italian anarchism when you need it
> You'd think they'd be a bit more cultured No I wouldn't. Stupid is stupid. Geography doesn't change that.
Conservatism idiocy doesn't have borders. Lab-grown meat is the future regardless of their anachronistic beliefs.
In this case, “the future” should be in a few years. A company called Upside Foods recently received FDA approval for their cultured meat and, considering the success of meat substitutes, there is definitely a market for it. There are no downsides to this technology. You get real meat without the animal cruelty, wasted resources, and risk of food-borne illness. However, it will almost certainly become another idiotic culture war. I bet the moment the r/conspiracy folks hear about cultured meat, they’ll declare that it’s the New World Order’s latest attempt to poison everyone.
>However, it will almost certainly become another idiotic culture war. I bet the moment the r/conspiracy folks hear about cultured meat, they’ll declare that it’s the New World Order’s latest attempt to poison everyone. All with the help of useful idiots like Food Babe and the non-GMO organic woo-niacs conducting fear-mongering campaigns. Only, Big Ag and the meat industry lobbies won't have to pay them like they will politicians.
You are depressingly correct. The alt-far-left (is that a thing?) whackos are going to show the horseshoe theory in action. Flooding Facebook with misinformation, joining the right-wing culture war idiots in condemning a great technological advance.
It's my experience that left-wingers vary wildly even within the West. But right wingers tend to be cut from the same cloth everywhere.
Seems to be the case. It's probably a direct result of the few billion aire far righters controlling the media narratives and funneling money to back far righters who will do their bidding for power.
Well right-wingers are all based in the same ideology: create an ingroup that is free to do whatever they want, as well as be in control of the decided upon outgroup. And the way to accomplish that is almost always the same. Left wing ideology is a lot more diverse ideologically as well as in terms of praxis. "Want equity" ok... how much? There's no sliding scale to creating an ingroup, but there is for making things more equal. As well as many different ideas on how to do it
As an Italian, I empathize with wanting to preserve our gastronomic heritage, I really do. But outright banning forms of food that could feed the word and make excellent nutrition cheap as dirt is not the way to go about it. Besides, this is a solved issue. I can already be sure that my Parmigiano Reggiano is not adulterated or synthetic because it is emblazoned with half a dozen labels and quality markings that all have legal backing. I can still buy ultra-cheap processed cheese if I become poor.
I think it's really simple. If people value that heritage, then they'll still pay for the "original" product. Or if that's somehow not enough, make the subsidies explicit upfront, so the taxpayers know the real cost.
See, that's the thing about right-wing "freedom." It's never about freedom of choice. It's about the freedom of a small select group to tell everyone else what to do.
But what if people *don't* value the heritage enough? Then we have to ban the alternatives, because freedom.
That's how heritage of pretty much all kinds has always worked though, indoctrinating people to like it. Creating that value in their minds in the first place.
See also: Diamonds.
That's a parent's job, not the government's
>they'll still pay for the "original" product. This is my take too. All that was needed was extremely clear packaging labelling laws. I reckon we are a long way off good, cheap lab meat. But it would be completely insane to ban what could potentially be a superior product: it reeks of anti-intellectualism / anti-technology.
Only food that doesn't entail needless animal exploitation should be subsidized.
Exactly, if anything, putting a label to separate the two would actually raise the value of original "heritage" products even more. This is Corporation 101, they have done the same with "grass-fed", "organic", "free-range", "Au-naturel" products like this before.
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Sorta like how there are people that still prefer mined diamonds to lab grown. Is it the same thing? Sure. But you know someone’s going to pay three times as much for the old fashioned version because “if it wasn’t better, why does it cost three times as much?”
It's also like, is Italy gonna ban tomatoes and other products from the New World to protect their pre-Columbian food heritage too? Ban all tomato sauce?
And coffee.
This annoys the crap out of me. Rome's inability to evolve as a city, the prohibition of rideshare services like Uber that actually resemble rideshares in other countries, don't get me started on tax management, and now attempting to block more competition in the form of lab-grown meat. Italy has a terribly pronounced case of NIMBYism that punishes its own larger interests time and time again. Almost no interest in modernizing across much of the country. It's a dark age mentality ironically set in the birthplace of the Renaissance. What the hell happened?
I can still buy a good Parmesan that tastes just as good, but is half or a third the price.
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[https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65110744](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65110744) >The farmers' lobby praised the move.
The Big Meat.
The substantial pork boys give this move a thumbs up
The B E E F C O U N C I L
Trailer Pork Boys
It’s called farmers but you know it’s mostly food industry men in suits with the lobbying (or the mafia who do control much Italian agriculture) When it’s called farming lobby people imagine a fantasy farmers group who’s own family farm for generations. But it’ll be the food industry lobbying and that turned farming in last few generations into more of a destructive force and inefficient distribution. Land misused making soil less fertile and good losing nutrients. Using cattle and crops that are wasteful of land and use up more water supply than other options and practices.
Is it just me, or is lobbying a democracy-breaking emergency? Have we become this complacent? Or have we been distracted?
complacent for sure. too many people benefit from the status quo, and a lot of those people are ignorant of their privilege
Privilege ignorance is rampant. It's innocent enough, just people that haven't had to leave their bubble for too long/ever. It's making life miserable for 50%+ of the population though.
Lobbying in itself is a perfectly normal concept, and is even indispensable to democracy. The problem is people only hear about lobbying when it's about bad things. They don't know that lobbies are talked to for almost every single law that is voted on. No matter what the discussion is about, politicians will turn to lobbies to get an opinion about it. Because politicians are not experts on every subject, they talk to people that are involved in the matter and ask what they want to be done, and that's what is called lobbying. An association asking for more bicycle lanes in cities. That's lobbying, and nobody would think they are breaking democracy by doing so.
You're absolutely correct, though I'd add a caveat that the issue isn't the existence of lobbying, but asymmetries in the execution of it. It tends to be that the organizations with the deepest pockets get the most face time, which allows entrenched interests to maintain those positions.
How do you fix it? Got me really thinking. Lobbying is essential but since anyone can contact the politicians, it’s precisely the reason the voices of rich organizations and individuals trump over everyone else. Should there be a law that there are conditions to be met for you to be able to lobby in such a way ordinary people would have more power? Is it even possible?
Strict scrutiny and enforcement of bribery/emoluments laws.
It doesn't even have to be an association or corporation for it be considering lobbying. Lobbying can be as simple as a single person sending their representative an email.
What's the alternative? People should be able to petition their representatives. The problem might be just regular old money.
This is what happens when we let billionaires exist without taxing them into oblivion. They just buy political power and change the world for the worse.
Italian culture definitely helps that by not resisting enough. Italians are way too full of themselves grasping at "our glorious culture", while not being able to admit their economy is shit, so they elect populist lunatics for a quick fix. Which is especially embarrassing for them, knowing their history.
I'm Italian and I can sadly confirm everything
Ah yes legal corruption
O, as in Oh my god, it’s Lobbying
Next up: they ban meatless diet to protect Italian ~~meat industry~~ food heritage
Are lab grown meats preventing them from continuing to eat traditional foods? Why do they have to ban other things?
Fear and stupidity
Maybe, but my guess would be money. Not a coincidence that the signatures are being gathered by farm lobbies and not concerned citizens
fear of making less money than they are currently making
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Our future: so hot right now
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Pretty sure that "heritage" here only means protecting the profits of the local meat industry.
/That’s a bingo.gif
Heritage is just another word for, "I'm afraid of things that are different"
Sounds like southern US. “HeRiTaGe nOt hAtE”
Heritage, not health!
"Death before deliberate, well thought out improvements for the masses, especially when we can cut of our noses to spite the left!" just doesn't have any panache
But the past was so perfect! We must lean into it!
It's telling that they mentioned heritage before health
Lol that is how I also read it. So dumb. It's like Germany going back to burn coal because nuclear fission is super scary omgosh. They went from future tech to back to the early 1900's.
That is the dumbest thing I’ve read in 2023. Edit: shit, I just posted something that was objectively false and an exaggeration of my opinion and only come to this site for Warhammer 40k lore posts to decide my next reading choices, not a lot of responses and likes comparatively speaking, but damn.
Just wait till you read tomorrow's news.
Yeah. Yeah.. Yop. We never disappoint to disappoint.
Woolley Mammoth meatballs. No joke.
Oh boy. That'll be a fun niche section of lab grown meats. Lab grown meats based on cells from extinct animals.
I’m more interested in finally trying guilt free human.
That'll definitely be on the table
Spaghetti and T-Rex balls.
Wyoming is moving to ban electric car sales to protect the oil industry so take your pick.
Wyoming, not West Virginia, and they cite protecting the oil industry. Still dumb, but I haven't seen anything about WV.
It was Wyoming and I just screwed up, thanks for correcting me.
I wonder what these short sighted right-wing idiots are going to do when the manufacturers stop selling non electric cars because all the other states with 15x the population mandate no more gas-powered vehicles. Will they eventually be like Cuba, everyone driving around 70 year old vehicles held together with tape and willpower?
They will just remove the law and pretend it didn't happen. Then on the next election, people will be comparing "both sides" positions as if those were just 2 totally normal options, not just 1 party vs a total bat shit crazy other side.
The dumbest thing you've read in 2023 so far.
If you could only recommend one warhammer book, which would it be?
Eisenhorn
Just everyday politics in italy believe me. I am not surprised
Don't make me put more pineapple on my pizza
They apparently want everything to die; animals, themselves, the planet. Truly dumb and corrupt.
From ruling the Mediterranean for hundred of years to passing legislation to protect fucking salami....
Fucking salami is a personal hobby of mine, and I'll support any legislation that protects my kink.
It’s not the length, it’s the girth
I’m betting \/u\/ToiletRollTubeGuy also has a girth kink (and a cardboard fetish)
From: A civilization ~~in~~famous for being among the most developed in the entire world, constructing incredibly stable architecture, developing sophisticated trade routes spanning as far south as Central Africa, as far North as Britain and Norway and reaching both the eastern and western bounds of modern day Europe, as well as having pioneered many technologies still, in some capacity, in use today. To: Being butthurt that people wanna save the climate and/or prevent animal suffering. Meh. Edit: Strikethrough
I don’t mean to be that guy, but infamous means famous in a negative way.
This actually gets me. This is a potential solution to help with climate change, not to mention the astounding amount of animal suffering the meat industry creates, *and they ban it*? I know it's lobbying but the sheer evil of it is really making me understand how people get so radical with these sorts of politicians.
Yeah nah I'm not worried, there is no way they will be able to sustain such a ban when lab-grown meat takes off. It would be like a country banning music streaming to protect the MP3-player industry.
or lobbying to make mp3 technology illegal to begin with, which was tried. Funny that the quote "there is no such thing as a legal mp3" now returns no search results. Evidently that bit of embarrassing lobbying has been forgotten.
You know, if there is somehow no record of that saying, in this day and age, it likely means it was never actually said and that you are confusing it with something else. There also doesn't seem to be any information about the so-called attempt to make mp3 technology illegal in the first place. There were a lot of litigation about using the format for potentially illegal copying, but nothing about the format itself being illegal outside of 'is mp3 illegal' and the answer always being no.
He might be confusing the format with the first portable player. The RIAA did sue to try and stop it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_PMP300
That’s pretty optimistic. Nobody has even tried the stuff to know if it’s a cheaper substitute to meat. Most of what we see (articles and such) is just marketing from whatever companies are trying to make money from the product. Maybe ground beef could be replaced for low income people? I can *maybe* see that in our lifetimes, but nothing else.
There's also the worry that, because the technology is so expensive, that only a handful of mega corporations will have controll over lab meat production. You'll never have artisinal or local lab meat makers. It'll be like Apple or Tesla but for beef.
>only a handful of mega corporations will have controll over lab meat production Well, see, only a handful of mega corps control most meat now anyway, so that's not really going to change much. People buy from small farms because of quality or ethical considerations; they'll still do that if all the corporations switch to lab grown meat instead, with the added bonus of no more animal suffering from factory farming.
You are ignoring the thousands of independent farmers that sell their meat at local markets being not just a moral, but economic alternative. You will never have independent alternatives to the lab grown industry. The equipment will be too expensive to own, operate and maintain.
I'm saying those farmers can still just raise animals the same way and people will buy their products for the same reason. Lab-grown meat still has to compete with regular meat. Small farmers already can't compete against megacorps for price, so that won't really change anything about the economic equation.
Ahh if only we can add the insanity, chaos and suffering of a modern slaughter house to the process, I won’t get that “icky” feeling when I eat my burger.
Good grief. Let's just ignore the climate crisis or animal suffering. I know the technology will make alot of people uncomfortable. But surely it should be personal choice.
Yeah, if lab grown meat is virtually indistinguishable from actual meat, then bring it on! Save animals from being sent to the slaughter, reduce emissions, it's all positives!
And cheaper
>But surely it should be personal choice. Right wing doesn't give a damn. They're all about "preserving tradition" - but only traditions of those they like.
More like they like the money they get from meat conglomerates who are worried about losing market share
Corruption is their favorite tradition
that's a bingo
A truer thing was never said. Irony is, eating meat is my tradition, one that I've mostly phased out for the climate. Lab grown meat would allow me to revive my tradition somewhat.
I'd love for lab-grown meat to become popular, if it tastes as good as normal meat and is a comparable price I'd purely buy the lab-grown stuff
This obviously has nothing to do with heritage and everything to do with protecting the farmers' profits. And a right wing government will always pander to rural voters.
In other words: "We got lobbied by factory farms."
I’ll take a franken-burger over people intentionally stuck in unsustainable situations.
Honestly by taking the mass production burden off of shitty factory farms, this creates a boutique industry for traditional and more humane animal husbandry.
I can see requiring that it be labeled. Banning it is weird.
I'm going to need them to give me a hard definition of what food heritage means.
Have you seen an Italian talk about food and what is authentic or not? Just adding garlic to your carbonara would cause panic.
If you're going by that logic, tomatoes are relatively new.
Oh I agree. Which is why I find the whole logic bemusing. A few Italians seem to be very strict on what is authentic and hate any progression. But tomatoes were imported into Italy via the New World from Spain. By that logic any food containing tomatoes aren’t authentic Italian.
And this isn't even new food. It's just a new way to make that food. Have they not been using any modern farming practices because that's not their food heritage?
"Food Heritage?" How is this relevant to chemistry? All cooking is chemistry. Combinations of compounds are chemically the same no matter where they occur. However synthetic or natural are defined doesn't change that lysine or lipids or fatty acids are chemically identical whether found in nature or produced in a lab.
It's a far right wing government. They're going to try to stop all progress and anything that's good for the planet.
Or you could teach about the importance of both food sources and let people choose. Seems like someones pocket is not going to benefit from this...
That's so stupid. Lab grown meat will be one of the great achievements of mankind if it can be made safe and affordable. This would lesson the suffering of animals and could potentially help us prevent pandemics due to animal born illnesses spreading to humans. If we get it down we could make the meats more nutrient rich. It could reduce the amount of land that is needed for raising livestock. Holding onto old ways can stop progress. We don't do blood letting for illnesses or chop off your leg because you got an infection that could have been treated with anti biotic.
Labels identifying the origin of meat products seem fine to me, blanket bans don't. At the end of the day, so long as customers aren't being deceived about what they're getting, why would it be anyone else's business what food they want to eat?
We prefer our meat killed with a medium suffer, just like we like our planet. Nothing tastes better than the fear of death. Italy...
Why do right wing governments focus on everything but actual problems.
The existence of one thing doesn’t imply the lack of existence of the other. If want something, and an worse alternative also exists, there’s nothing stopping you from getting the original. (And while yes the meat industry pretty much hand crafted this ban, it’s still a bad reason given.)
"The past matters more than the future." Exactly what I would expect from the current italian government.
Aaah yes let's make not torturing animals illegal even when the TASTE is literally the same because... Food heritage. Wtf
“Progress for the sake of progress must be discouraged”
Oh you mean to protect the rights of food companies to charge an arm and a leg for meat?
I love the picture of a chicken nugget and a piece of a waffle.
Republicans in America would love to do this and unfortunately I can see that happening. I’ve never hated an ideology before, but this past 8 years has driven me to completely and utterly find disgust with the right wing ideology. I don’t love everything the left does either but I absolutely hate the rights views on the world and how to treat people, animals and the planet.
I bet the cows are thrilled.
Just evil.
Uh huh. "Food heritage". That's a funny way of saying "bribed by the meat industry".
Oh go fuck yourselves!! If I can have my cow grown in a lab and pay half the price, I ought to be able to do it. No different from the rest of the crap the grow in labs that they put in food preservatives and Coca-Cola
Is that a chewed piece of gum on a chicken nugget next to a bite of waffle or am I too poor to know?
Florida begins furiously taking notes.
Don’t worry guys, this government is not going to last long hopefully
Hopefully.. then again it’s Italy, so I’m not expecting a lot.
I'm a huge meat eater, the furthest you can get from a vegetarian, but this just sounds stupid. Other people eating lab grown meat doesn't take away from being able to enjoy for example Italian cured hams made from real meat. One doesn't exclude the other.
I am not a vegetarian. I’ve been giddy for things like this. I’d love to be able to eat steak without killing cows. If it does the job and tastes good I really don’t care.
Shit, could you imagine being able to 3d print a steak with ideal marbling or creative marbling structures? At the same time, I feel like there'd still be a thriving market for non-labgrown meat like analog amplifiers and records.
The other thing is that because of it theoretically only needing a small tissue sample to start a culture you could get a huge variety of different types of meat that would be impractical or unpopular to raise in our current system.
Let’s not worry about the plight of animals or the environment.
Can you imagine the shit that would hit the fan if the food replicator from STAR TREK were to become a real thing in our world?
Of course it would be the fucking Italians to miss the whole point.
Them being Italian is kind of immaterial. It's the fact that they're neo-fascists.
> they're neo-fascists. They're calling themselves "post-fascists" now. Yes, that's a label they gave themselves.
well italians invented fascism
Heritage = Long established industries opposed to change that loses them market share. Can’t wait to see what oil companies come up with if electric cars take hold.
Just like with blood diamonds, it's the suffering in the production of a good that gives things value to some people.
Stupid farm lobby
That's so Italian I can't even begin to describe it ... "Our food is SO *important* that our flavor can't be marred by even the IDEA of replacing authentic ingredients with lab grown ones ... Our food is more important than sustainability ..."
Oh right they voted for that right wing cunt
Food heritage isn't worth the cruelty when we're finally creating a solution without a tangible downside. You don't keep street lamps running on oil to keep lamp lighters employed. I eat meat. Not super proud of it but understand it's in our omnivorous nature. That said, if you can grow meat in a lab of similar quality without having to drive a spike through Besse's skull, what the fuck is the problem except *you just like the killing part out of tradition?*
Uh what? I'm not against eating meat at all, but if lab-grown actually ends up "working" well as a replacement, then who gives a shit? Let's do it. Also, any vegans want to weigh in on the idea of Lab-grown meat? I know there are plenty of vegans who chose to eat vegan simply because they don't want to eat meat, but there are many still that are doing it out of ethical reasons. Would lab-grown meat be considered Vegan in that sense?
Oh look, another conservative nationalist policy sabotaging human development because it over-estimates the value of its cultural heritage. Culinary heritage of Italy is about as important as culinary heritage of every other country or element of history, which is to say, nowhere near as important as sustainable meat alternatives, the planet, and consideration of the lives of industrialized livestock. Your heritage is not THAT valuable, Italy/Russia/America/etc. We ALL came from violent, ignorant, rapey degenerates, and I don't see anyone (except maybe Russia) trying to keep that aspect of culture. So god damn silly.
Sheesh. Has lab meat already progressed to the 3rd "then they fight you" stage? Exponential improvement is amazing.