This is gonna be the thread where we talk about stuff

The ironic part is that in vitro meat will probably just cause a massive drop in the population of most livestock animals since most of them can't even survive in the wild on their own anymore and who's really going to want to spend huge amounts of money keeping all these useless animals around anyway?

Unless they discover a way to make a 100% perfect, no drawbacks whatsoever meat substitute tomorrow, even then livestock numbers wouldn't crash. Any new technique for meat-making would have start up costs, and moreover a practical limit to how much meat they can manufacture at once.

What we'd be likelier to see if they made Real Facon™ is a decline over a decade or so of how many animals are being recruited (born) and turned into burger. There would likely still be a market for Actual Flesh, albeit a rapidly-declining one. New Zealand's lamb industry has been on the decline for decades now already; dairy's considered a more profitable use of the land if it's cattle-able.

The trouble with that transition is bigger animals, subsequent greater expenditure of fertilisers and other chemicals for pasture health, which leads to more runoff and pollution of waterways than with sheep, and more cows means more green house gas emissions (from bigger smellier animals).

I know the state of the beef industry in the States, but I don't know what your dairy's like. Either way, you might be able to eat a steak guilt-free but not the cheese sauce on it.

Also if anyone unironically says grossly misinformed things about genetic modification I will choke you with an Arabidopsis. I might even explain a few things because that is one bit of blind stupidity I'm not gonna tolerate on these forums.

No joke.