I have respect for Vegans despite being a huge meat lover. What I mean by extremism is that Vegans are extreme and controversial form certain philosophies and eating habits and those serious about Veganism more often than not claiming that people who eat meat are murderers and should be treated as such, framing this as "Us the spotless goodies vs them unredeemable baddies". In my books, that's extremism.
But hey, I get your point and I'm more than excited about lab grown burgers so we can have all the meat we want without harming the animals.
We already have Quorn burgers and they're great. The problem with going vegan isn't burgers; it's decent cheese, and milk to put in my tea. And something to replace eggs in cake. And something to make boots out of if veganism is to go beyond food. I hope these problems will be solved one day.
We can't stop animals from getting harmed. They harm each other in the wild in terrible ways. All we can do is keep our own hands and mouths clean and avoid trashing the environment with livestock farming on an industrial scale.
Those other things are actually easier than lab-grown meat. There are startups right now working on lab-grown milk, egg whites, and leather, expecting to get products to market in the next couple years. For details, see the excellent new book Clean Meat.
It is already true that most (nearly all?) breeds of domestic animal are no longer used for food: they are kept as pets, in effect, in farms that specialise in preserving unusual breeds and displaying them to the public, with notices next to the pens explaining how there are only 150 of them left and feeding time is at 3.30pm if you want to watch. The same fate awaits today's popular "production" breeds, whether they are replaced by Quorn or by an improved breed.
I have respect for Vegans despite being a huge meat lover. What I mean by extremism is that Vegans are extreme and controversial form certain philosophies and eating habits and those serious about Veganism more often than not claiming that people who eat meat are murderers and should be treated as such, framing this as "Us the spotless goodies vs them unredeemable baddies". In my books, that's extremism.
But hey, I get your point and I'm more than excited about lab grown burgers so we can have all the meat we want without harming the animals.