"Let me get this straight…instead of teaching generations how to raise and grow food and expanding agricultural infrastructure…we’re spending millions of dollars on turning plasticoil into 3D printed engineered fake food."
"We have to use all the resources we have."
There's always Soylent Green....
_________________________________________________________________________ “A man’s treatment of a dog is no indication of the man’s nature, but his treatment of a cat is. It is the crucial test. None but the humane treat a cat well.” -- Mark Twain, 1902
October 06, 2026, 01:16 PM
BigSwede
Microbe poop?
Why do they need a printer? Why not just splooge it on a plate and eat it
October 06, 2026, 02:41 PM
architect
The science fiction community saw this coming a long time ago, from "dole yeast" to recycled human flesh, and everything in between. As usual, follow the money. If it is cheaper, it is inevitable.
October 06, 2026, 05:54 PM
tatortodd
The university academics are failing the keep it simple stupid (KISS) principle. Universities excel at proving feasibility (e.g., "Look, we turned a plastic bottle into protein!"). They are notoriously terrible at analyzing reliability, maintainability, and failure modes. They assume clean feedstocks, perfect maintenance intervals, and flawless operator intervention.
In the real world:
maintenance intervals get extended/missed due to availability of consumables, technicians forging documentation, managemenet cutting budgets, etc.
operators monitoring large scale processes 24/7/365 miss alarms, get overwhelmed with number of alarms, have to pee, have to eat, get distracted by a phone call or conversation, and have brain farts (e.g. do it right 300 times in a row but do it wrong the 301st time).
mechanical filters clog, degrade, or suffer from seal bypass which if not instantly detected would allow PET oligomers, microplastics, ethylene glycol, etc to directly be fed into the yeast harvesting tank.
engineered bugs (e.g. yeast) die, mutate, and sometimes produce secondary toxic metabolites which would mean the system is outputting poison.
Their system blends a highly toxic chemical synthesis loop (breaking down plastics) directly with a human ingestion loop breaks a fundamental rule of process safety of maximum physical separation between toxic process streams and human environments. Merging them into a single machine is a massive risk.
Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity
DISCLAIMER: These are the author's own personal views and do not represent the views of the author's employer.
October 06, 2026, 06:22 PM
Lunasee
Cool. I was hoping that we would get to a Star Trek food replicator before I died.
October 07, 2026, 06:11 AM
gearhounds
Sounds like the choice is now between bugs and plastic for the hoi polloi.
“Remember to get vaccinated or a vaccinated person might get sick from a virus they got vaccinated against because you’re not vaccinated.” - author unknown
October 07, 2026, 06:43 AM
sourdough44
I have a relative, recent, first time mom, daughter now just over 2. Among other things, she has a plastic phobia, won’t let her daughter even sip from a plastic cup or straw.
I don’t think she’d be big on this plastic cookie.
