Entropy Rising

The Future of Food, Farming, and Space Agriculture

• Jacob and Lucas • Episode 43

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How will humanity feed billions of people on Earth—and eventually millions more in space?

In this episode of Entropy Rising, we explore the past, present, and future of agriculture. From AI-powered tractors, autonomous drones, and laser weed killers to vertical farming, hydroponics, lab-grown meat, and orbital agriculture, we examine how one of humanity's oldest industries has become one of its most technologically advanced.

We discuss why only a tiny fraction of the population now produces food for everyone else, how automation transformed farming long before AI, and what future food production might look like in O'Neill cylinders, space stations, and interstellar colonies.

Could future apples grow on vines instead of trees? Could space farms look more like factories than fields? And what happens when every square meter of growing space matters?

Join us as we explore the technologies that may one day feed an interplanetary civilization.

Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
00:00 Modern Agriculture and Automation
00:00 AI, Drones, and Precision Farming
00:00 Vertical Farming and Hydroponics
00:00 Space Agriculture
00:00 Engineering Future Crops
00:00 Lab-Grown Meat and Future Food Production

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Website: https://www.entropy-rising.com/

Jacob:

w- why are you growing this entire tree just to make an apple if you can just grow the apple? Especially in places where space is very limited.

Lucas:

Yeah. It is a crazy idea, but we have already modified things so much and in to such an insane way that it really isn't that far-fetched.

Jacob:

Hello and welcome to Entropy Rising, a podcast exploring the possibilities of the future and, uh, the role that we might play in that. I'm your host Jacob, and joining me is my wonderful co-host, Lucas. Lucas, how are you doing today? Doing wonderful, Jake. And yourself? I'm doing well. Can't complain.

Lucas:

I love to

Jacob:

hear that. Oh, yeah, absolutely. So would you like to introduce today's topic, or would you like me to?

Lucas:

Yeah. Today's topic, we are going to dive into agriculture and food, what we're currently doing, the challenges it faces, and what we can do going into the future, both near and far.

Jacob:

Yeah. This sounds, I think, on the surface almost maybe like a dull topic, but when you actually dive into it, uh, the agricultural industry is one of the most technological industries there is. I mean, it's in many ways in the forefront of science. It was on the forefront of biology and, , genetic engineering, and we see a lot of innovations in that space, and feeding the populace is not a, a dull task. It's something that is going to affect how we travel in space. It's going to affect how we live in cities, if certain concepts like ecumenopolises are even possible. So while it might not seem like the most fun on the surface and the most technological on the surface, I think many people think of farms as like little red farmhouse in a field, even if that's very far from the truth now. Uh, I do think it's gonna be an interesting one, so I hope that the, the actual topic doesn't turn anyone off and they, they stay on and listen to see if it catches your interest.

Lucas:

Yeah, definitely. They surely do get a bad rap. You think of, you know, the farmer John with his straw hat riding down on his old tractor.

Jacob:

Yeah. What they fail to mention is that the tractor's probably got AI built into it, costs multi-millions of dollars, and Farmer John is fighting software companies for the right to repair it. It's, it's a much more complex industry than I think most people realize, unless you have some level of exposure to it, uh, or you work with it On some type.

Lucas:

Oh, yeah. No. It's, it's a whole different world that, that involves a lot of robotics and crazy stuff to produce the food that ends up on your table. Yeah. So I think it's a super interesting topic to dive into.

Jacob:

Absolutely. And you know, speaking of agriculture, agriculture is also interesting because it has been one of the most affected- areas of our life since the Industrial Revolution. We went through an agricultural revolution that doesn't even really get talked about. People talk about the Industrial Revolution, uh, but kinda forget about the agricultural revolution. Almost 100 years ago, most people farmed. I, I forget the exact statistics, but over the past 200 years we've seen a shift from, like, agriculture representing 90% of what people do to being less than 2% of what people do, and that all came from technology and innovation that removed people from the process and allowed for us to increase yields of food, which is a huge thing. It's why modern society is even possible.

Lucas:

Yeah, no. it's really crazy, and I think that what you said, is, like, the Industrial Revolution was at the forefront but agriculture wasn't, is because the industrial side of things is very noticeable, is very apparent, while agriculture you see it happens mostly behind the scenes. You'll see the front face, like maybe a small farmhouse, but what you don't see is the millions of dollars of farm equipment that are right behind that tree line. And you can see it especially here in North Carolina. When you're driving down the road and you have your maps open, it's just miles of farmland hidden by a slim amount of trees. Yeah. It's really, really crazy what happens back there. And because of those innovations that bring it down to 2%, most people don't see it. Most people don't know a farmer or are friends with one because they're so rare.

Jacob:

Yeah. Actually, that statistic where we went from 90% to 2% is something that gives me a little bit of hope when we think about AI because we're facing kind of a similar shift in demographics. We're losing a bunch of jobs. So it is, at least for me, a little peaceful to know that we've seen something like that happen in the past, and it's one of the few things that gives me hope about overcoming AI and, uh, coming out on the other end of it being a better society than we went into it. At least, I hope so.

Lucas:

Yeah. I mean, as do I.

Jacob:

Yeah, me too. What,

Lucas:

what's the alternative?

Jacob:

Vast unemployment. Oh, boy. With that being said though, so some of the, the innovations of course that made farming what it is today is, in, in no doubt of course things like tractors, but also, uh, a better understanding and control of biology. We now know effectively what plants need, unlike the people in Idiocracy, we actually do know what plants crave now, and we've gone through some fairly bad ecological disasters, the Great Dust Bowl being an example of that- Mm-hmm uh, to get where we are. But we do have a really good understanding of what plants need, and we've gotten a better understanding of chemistry. And really, like, the, the changes that happened early on was fertilizers and, of course, pesticides, and then, uh, starting in, like, the '80s and onward, of course, actually genetically engineering, plants, which is interesting how that works. It was mostly just, uh, inducing them to a bunch of, like, mutation, causing things like radiation or chemicals, uh, and then picking out the ones that just happen to have randomly good mutations, and that's kind of how genetic engineering worked in the, the early days. And then we got a little bit better at actually introducing new genes to the, the genome of the plant, uh, to make them. And then also with modern technology, too, uh, we're seeing some, some changes, right? Like, obviously the chemical side of the agricultural industry has became, uh, unfortunately an issue. We're seeing issues with runoff causing algal blooms. We're seeing issues with herbicides, uh, causing ecological issues. And so that's, that's an area we need to address in the future with agriculture, for sure.

Lucas:

Yeah. I mean, as those problems persist, they damage the Earth, and it ultimately reduces the sustainability of something that must be sustained for us to survive. Yeah, we don't have an option on that. No, we do not. We can't just not

Jacob:

agriculture.

Lucas:

Yes. And as people continue to, become healthier, live longer, our population increases. You know, we're in the eight billions right now, but as we increase, we go up to 10, 12, maybe 15 billion people living on our planet. We would have to produce as much food as we've produced over the last 8,000 years just every year to feed those amount of people.

Jacob:

Yeah, and we need to do that with a fixed amount of land.

Lucas:

Yes. And, uh, at our current rates, if we were to produce it just in our current level of agriculture, not introducing, you know, any kind of innovation, we would use 130% of our current usable land, so more than what we have. And that, that's including farming and husbandry, just to clarify. Um

Jacob:

Yeah, the, the, the- I know that number you're referencing. That's specifically referencing if we were to feed everyone what Americans eat now. Yes. Um, we would need more land than there is on Earth. That's not because we can't meet the caloric need of everyone on Earth. We far exceed it even now. The issue is,, Westerners, and Americans particularly, move up that energy ladder of food, you need a lot more agriculture and, and plant products to support beef, uh, than if everyone just ate plants alone. So if everyone ate the American diet, uh, there effectively isn't enough land to support that. So that is something worth considering, and that's why we need to look at the future of human diets and not just the future of how we farm that food.

Lucas:

Absolutely. And that, that'll be interesting to get into. but it- the only reason why I reference the American diet is as the world progresses, and things become more plentiful, and assuming we don't go in a dystopian direction, people will consume what they can, right? You, you go into this era of overconsumption just like how we see in America today. That would be prevalent across the entire world if nothing changes.

Jacob:

Potentially. Potentially. People do tend to eat variety of food as they get more money, but there's also cultural aspects to consider as well. Mm-hmm. Uh, there are countries where, like in, in India, for example, I don't expect them to all start eating meat just because it becomes more available. There are cultural reasons that might not be the case, but you are correct in the sense that as we develop and as we get more prosperous, you would expect people to consume not just more food calorically but also, other foods that traditionally would be more expensive. Mm-hmm. So yeah. No, that's, that's a fair consideration. But now, uh, you know, I think we've, we've set up the premise pretty well. I kinda wanted to talk about where we're going, where we are in the future, like, where we are now and what innovations we see that are kind of interesting. Oh, absolutely. I feel like that's the real meat and potatoes.

Lucas:

Yeah. Well No pun intended. None, none accepted. Pun, pun accepted.

Jacob:

Uh, Lucas, you actually, before we had started recording, you mentioned a concept that I didn't even know existed- Mm …uh, that kind of marries some modern technologies that already exist to deal with pests. So do you wanna, you wanna talk about that?

Lucas:

Oh, yeah. Um, so the Netherlands is at the forefront of technological advancement, both in the way that our food is structured, the way that our technology for creating new foods happens, but also in pesticides. Now, we referenced it earlier. Pesticides are one of the things that make farming so unsustainable right now. they are developing, and this is super cool for our channel, are… They, they have already developed really a micro drone that is able to target these specific moths that plague, uh, most crops where they produce a larva that eats them. It eats their leaves, which, uh, makes them die because they can't produce energy. This drone is able to discern them, target the moths, and then attack them with its blades, killing them without any chemicals, but just in a much more brutal way.

Jacob:

Yeah. No, that's really cool. and the introduction of drones into agriculture has been something we've seen a lot. I, I've seen some basically giant agricultural drones that, You know, the like the quadcopters that exist already? Mm-hmm. They're those, but big enough to lift a, a human person, like a full-grown man. They can lift like 200 or 300 pounds, and those are now being used to spray crops with pesticides, herbicides, what have you, or even just to fly over and scan the field with, uh, with AI and imagery to identify issues before it even exists. I think I saw one system where they can fly over with a drone and actually map the field and, uh, estimate where nutrients are needed, and then you can send in one of these drones to basically spot cover and, and treat, uh, plants on the spot. And then micro drones to treat pest is, is really interesting.

Lucas:

I mean, it's… It really is crazy. Like, imagine how much time that saves scanning the field where, just 40 years ago, when you would overview a field, especially of, like, a larger crop like corn, you would have to comb through the entire field to spot any kind of problem- Absolutely … before it became a massive issue, just because of, you know, your angle. Or you would fly over it with a crop duster. Now, drones are able to just fly out there and do it almost instantly while also, killing pests, maintaining the chemicals that the crops need, uh, to continue. You can really see why that decline from 90 to 2% happened.

Jacob:

Absolutely. And I think the main thing with that, too, is more targeted exposure of the, either herbicide or pesticide. You're not having to spray your entire field. Mm-hmm. You can actually send these drones out, scan the field, identify target issues, and then treat them on the spot, or even with herbicides or with the small drones you were talking about, send those out to find individual pests and deal with them. It's not hard to imagine a future where perhaps you're fitting these drones with minor offensive weapons. Or right now they're using their, their blades, but imagine if they had a small laser, and they could actually send hundreds of them or thousands of them out to fly around your field and look for, maybe they're looking for eggs that get laid or pests that are, are eating the plant, and they just, you know, basically, uh, shine a laser on them to, to destroy the eggs or maybe use their blades or what have you, to destroy that pest on the spot. And you don't have to use any herbicides or even human labor. You just send them out into the field, and you know your field's protected. And imagine what that also does for the knock-on effects for human health, right? Right now, there's a big push for natural foods, right? Foods that don't use herbicides and pesticides. Uh, but that's, that's a challenge because you need much more people involved. That makes it very expensive. But potentially with technology, things like these drones that we're talking about, all food could be pesticide-free, and that, that's a huge advantage.

Lucas:

it is. Uh, especially when you're talking about, Your nutrition, your, your safety. You don't have to worry about every single thing being covered in a, a chemical even though, you know, the companies claim that it's not dangerous towards humans. It's been modified to only, uh, ta- target a certain thing. You, you don't really know that, and it scares a lot of people. Um-

Jacob:

Yeah. Another thing too that people consider is a lot of people think about themselves, but you don't think about the farmhands actually in the field working with these- plants that are covered in pesticides, so it's also safer working conditions for the people who still interact with our agricultural environment.

Lucas:

Yeah, which is huge because most of the people that are farmers nowadays are highly specialized, very valuable members of society. If they're gone, we all are.

Jacob:

Yeah, absolutely. I think there is actually some ongoing, uh, lawsuits with Roundup about this exact issue, right? People who were exposed to Roundup on the field. Mm-hmm.

Lucas:

And then we find out 40 years later, whoops, that's, uh, that causes issues. Yeah, and of course, Roundup claimed originally, just like with a lot of things that are horrible for you way down the line, that, um, oh, it's been targeted towards a certain thing. You're f- probably fine.

Jacob:

Yeah, I think the issue was it was safe for the end consumer. It wasn't safe for the people who were working with it on a daily basis, which kind of ends up being the issue with a lot of these things. Yeah. Um, another system I've seen that's really cool, and I believe this is deployed e- even if it's not super common, uh, is I, I think John Deere is the one who patented this, which we'll talk about farming patents definitely. Uh, but they have a system where effectively same thing, it uses cameras to identify pest, but it's effectively a giant bar that you can mount on your tractor, and you drive through your field, and it can use cameras, and I'm sure AI at this point, to identify weeds, and it zaps them with lasers. Oh. And it burns them down to the root, and the idea is you can actually fit this o- on your tractor while you're doing any other activities. You can fit it while you're doing seeding, you can fit it just doing spot checks, and as you drive through your field, you're killing all of the weeds without the worry of any pesticides or any herbicides. So again, it, it ties into what we were talking about. Even with the drones, you- even if you… I think nano drones are maybe a bit unrealistic. This is a, a technology that

Lucas:

exists now. I mean, it, it really is crazy to think you have this massive tractor with this bar that essentially is just loaded with weapons, uh, th- running a route that's probably pre-programmed. Yeah. There's nobody in the tractor, and then it's using AI to obliterate, you know, a- essentially replacing herbicides while your drones fly over and destroy all the moths and pests- that are living. Like, like, like, it's… You see what we mean when we say it's like it is a crazy technologically advanced, uh- I think the weirdest part

Jacob:

of this is we're- we haven't gotten into the future part of the episode yet. This is stuff that could happen today. These are technologies- Yeah … that exist right now.

Lucas:

Insane. Absolutely insane. It's at, it's at the forefront really because it's such a pressing issue. Like, people need food and they need it every day and they need it in abundance. So it's, uh… Yeah, it definitely has a lot of, a lot of future technologies being implemented in it that aren't implemented anywhere else.

Jacob:

Absolutely. And then speaking of course of the future of farming, I don't think you can talk about the future of farming without like, the most futuristic concept we see all the time, which is vertical farming. I feel like that's always presented right in future- Oh, yeah you see, like, there's skyscrapers that are growing food. And of course that's not a new concept, that's not a novel concept, and it's not even impossible. It does exist. There are vertical farms that exist right now. but I, I, I did wanna talk about them because I- they're not always the solution they seem like. They, they seem like they're this wonderful fix. You plop up a skyscraper in the middle of your city and now you're growing fresh food to feed your local population and it takes up a much smaller footprint than a farm. That's the idea. Mm-hmm. But there, there do tend to be some issues with them. For one is that, um, I, I don't know, do you have any thoughts on these before I dive in?

Lucas:

Well, I know, you know, whenever you have to move especially liquids up and down, skyscraper, you're, that's, that's a lot of resources and energy used right there. You have waste runoff that comes from those. Where does that go in a highly populated city? Coming out of a skyscraper that's meant to feed all of them- Mm-hmm is insane. and then, you know, you also have, like, like how do you move all of that product, you know, in and out of that, that facility? It, it, it all comes with the pressing issue of if it isn't, spread across a large amount of land, you're going to have some kind of force that acts against you.

Jacob:

Fair. Fair. actually, some of those have been addressed. The runoff issue isn't as big as you would expect. Okay. Because a large issue with runoff is that, uh, runoff has a lot of nutrients needed for plants, and when you spray it on a field, it runs into nearby lakes and streams, and it feeds algae. You get algal blooms that basically smother all of the life that was existing in that ecosystem. Uh, but with buildings, you actually have the ability to capture all of that and then recycle it. So it's effectively you capture it, you sterilize it, because you don't want any contamination, and then you just re-feed it to the plants, and any leftover nutrients, uh, just get reused up. Okay. So you basically run it through your plants, they take what they need, you collect it in collecting tanks, sterilize it, pop it back off, and then you use it for the next round of plants. All right. So that, that one's actually not as bad as you would think.

Lucas:

Yeah, no, that, I mean, that's great. That's actually one of the larger problems that I saw.

Jacob:

Yeah. You know? Now, distribution, of course, is what it is, but distribution in a city is always a pain, so that's nothing new. Either way- Sure … whether it's coming from that building or coming from farms, you've still gotta get the food into the city. Mm-hmm. So, um, that's an issue regardless. And maybe drones. That's true. Just have drones flying around, drone delivery. Um, but no, actually the biggest issue is power because, and this is one of the biggest handicaps that we've seen with vertical farming for the longest time. The sun is free. And so long as land is reasonably cheap, it's always gonna be cheaper to grow food with free solar energy than it is going to be to pay the power company to turn on grow lights. Yeah. And in most indoor farming environments, not greenhouses of course, but fully sealed off contained, structures, the biggest expense is energy. It's the energy needed to run those lights. And because of this, for the longest time, one of the biggest hampering factors for, uh, indoor growing and for, like, vertical farming has been, uh, cost competitiveness. You really can't grow things like staple crops. You're not growing corn in an indoor greenhouse. Mm-hmm. What you can grow, and what has worked and has already worked, is high profit margin foods. Things like lettuce is easy because it has a decent profit margin and it grows really quick and it's, it's really small footprint, so that's a great one. Uh, so a lot of, like, salad crops.

Lucas:

Yeah. I know, I know cabbage is, actually mo- a lot of cabbage and lettuce is grown in shipping containers already. Oh, is

Jacob:

it? Yeah. Already?

Lucas:

Yeah. I didn't know that. Like, they, you'll see these stacks of them and they, they grow all the cabbage in them and then they just ship the whole farm, pull out the cabbage and start- That's crazy growing it again.

Jacob:

Yeah. And those, those represent the, the type of crops you see growing inside all the time because- relatively small footprint. They grow fast. You can grow them in a city, You also see some fruits, I think, growing like this. Strawberries are a good example'cause they grow on smaller bushes. Mm-hmm. And so, you know, things like apple trees are fully different. We'll talk about that later. But strawberries would be a good example. So that's kinda been the biggest handicap of vertical farming so far. That's not to say in the future it couldn't become better. Right. Right now it doesn't make sense to grow staple crops in a vertical farm because land is cheap. You can just go out to Nebraska, buy a ton of land for next to nothing, um, and then grow a bunch of far- uh, corn. That might not always be the case. We're eventually gonna reach a crossover point where land continues to get more and more and more expensive, and especially if we have breakthroughs In power production. I mean, see our episode on nuclear fusion, right? Mm-hmm. Uh, we could eventually get to a point where energy gets cheap, land gets expensive, and you reach this crossover point where it makes sense to grow more and more crops in a smaller footprint. Absolutely. So that's really what's gonna drive the, I think, the adaptation of vertical farming more than anything else. I don't really think we're at a point right now where, except for in some very specific use cases it makes sense, but in the future it could start to make sense.

Lucas:

Yeah.\ We also see, like, all the These super controlled greenhouses. right now they are very expensive to produce. Absolutely. But if you could create, Them cheaper and then stack them and be able to completely control that environment, it might also become worth it at that point.

Jacob:

Yeah, that's effectively the same concept for vertical farming. Mm. You get to fully control the environment, 'cause vertical farms do typically have higher yield, higher production than traditional farms. By a lot. And c- because you control every part of that environment. Y- they've always got the exact sunlight they need, the exact nutrients they need. Those are huge advantages. Mm-hmm. Disadvantages are typically that, uh, pests spread very easily- Yes … and contamination, 'cause they're usually on a shared water supply. Mm-hmm. But those are challenges you can overcome. Absolutely.

Lucas:

disease as well- Yeah, disease… can kill the entire thing because, like you said, same water supply.

Jacob:

but- But the nice thing, I would think, is in an internal controlled environment it's easier to- You basically sterilize everything and restart. Where in a, in an outdoor environment, that's much trickier. You might completely sterilize your field, but, uh, are there some lingering, on your neighbor's field, maybe there's still some blight lingering or on some of the outskirts that could come back in and recontaminate. Where the nice thing with with a controlled en- environment, you could sterilize everything and quarantine.

Lucas:

Absolutely. It's, uh, it's actually funny that you mention that because I came across a, a company that had failed, uh, about a year ago. They were producing shipping containers that could produce large amounts of any desired food that you wanted using advanced hydroponics. and then they were displaying all of their stuff. They were actually on Kickstarter- Oh, of course … displaying the way all of their, you know, hydroponics worked, and it seemed like a great idea. They had a huge backing. I think it was like $300 million. Like, like it was massive. they weren't able to deliver because a del- a disease spread through their whole facility, a massive facility, and it killed every single thing So it is a scary thought. We would need to master, especially diseases and pests before we got to a point to where we, you know, had an entire city relying on a building like that.

Jacob:

Yeah, and it, you probably wouldn't be relying on one, and you would have multiple around and, and some backup sources as well. Of course, yeah. But that does kind of get us into some other topics, too,'cause of course the next n- step from vertical farming, I think, is, is the all famous space farming- Hmm what we have thought about forever. Now, obviously that's gonna be the next step, and you need to master all of the issues with vertical farming and then some.

Lucas:

Well, you know, when you get into space and you get into zero gravity, it comes up with new challenges, but it also, you know, fixes some things. Like, you can base entire farms around a huge area now that our sun is able to produce to get the energy to, you know, produce that food. But then you also have new challenges like what does zero-G do to our plants, Moving that food from that huge area to the people that need it, things like that. Yeah. For one, it doesn't have to

Jacob:

be zero-G. Uh, you can definitely put these in a spin station and grow them under whatever gravity you want, maybe zero-G, maybe one G, probably somewhere in between. I'm sure there's gonna be some sweet spot. Mm-hmm. but actually while we're on the topic of space farming, something I do really wanna reiterate is that I think there's this idea of using orbital farms to feed the Earth, and I think that's wholly impractical. Yeah. I don't think that makes any sense because it's just so, it's kind of hard to imagine a more expensive way to grow food. It's just, Even if we reach an ecumenopolis like Coruscant where you have the entire planet covered in city, I still think vertical farming in skyscrapers is gonna be way more economically beneficial than orbital farms. Absolutely. So probably realistically, orbital farms are only gonna be used to feed people who live in orbit. And the second point is that when we think about O'Neill cylinders- Mm-hmm which is my mission to mention O'Neill cylinders in every episode, apparently. Uh, that's typically how we think about people living in orbit, is on the O'Neill cylinders. And I think there is this idea, because when you see them depicted a lot in renders or in fiction, it always looks like kinda rural farmland. You see a very dispersed population, and most people are, like, feeding themselves, and all the food for the O'Neill cylinder is grown on the O'Neill cylinder. I also just don't think that that's actually true. In my opinion, you're gonna do it in a couple of different ways. One of the ways that, to me, makes a lot of sense is that the farms are gonna be fully different structures, because they do not have the same design considerations that an O'Neill cylinder with people have. So you can build them much cheaper, use less shielding, have less safety measures, and grow the food that way, in maybe even lower gravity. Um, you can potentially keep them sterile. Uh, they don't have to look pretty, 'cause if you're, you know, trying to grow in the internal surface of your O'Neill cylinder, it needs to look nice. Uh, so you can get rid of all that, make it a fully self-contained, industrial facility that just grows food and then ships it over to O'Neill cylinders. And once you're in orbit, it's really easy to move things around between- Mm-hmm between structures, so long as they're in fairly similar orbits. So you probably have these farms existing, growing food in very industrial environments, and shipping it out for O'Neill cylinders, and then the cylinders themselves probably have a couple of gardens maybe for nice areas, maybe an apple orchard if people like that to go pick their own apples. But just like how most cities aren't growing their own food, most O'Neill cylinders probably aren't growing their own food.

Lucas:

Yeah. I mean, at, at that point, especially if you can have the, the farming cylinder right next to the, the housing one, and you could just move that back and forth no problem, and then because it's an entire man, you know, built structure, the redistribution of that throughout the cylinder would be easy through underground- Yeah you know, railways or, or pipelines. But however they built the logistics system, it would just make sense to not even clutter up the, the system with that. Yeah. And like you said, just leave it for things that are pleasant. Yeah, absolutely. Make life better.

Jacob:

Or I could also see if you did wanna grow it on your own O'Neill cylinder, or maybe you have an inter- uh, interstellar colony ship where the idea of an extra ship to feed you i- isn't possible, isn't practical, I could see you having an interior structure where the people live, and then maybe a layer outside surrounding that where you grow all of your food hydroponically, uh, through artificial light, artificial means. It's not gonna look like your idyllic farm. Again, gonna be, uh, an industrial space. And I think you would probably put that… Relatively, it'd be underneath of the living cylinder, right? It'd be closer to the outside, and I think you would do that for the main reason being, why not take advantage of it being extra shielding, right? Put it closer to the skin of the ship. That's another layer between your population and the outside of space, soak up a little more radiation, and, uh, i- in the event of, like, a micrometeor strike or, uh, a strike, uh, maybe you lose some farmland, but that's better than, you know, puncturing the inside of your hull. Yeah. So I could see that happening too, or you could even go the opposite approach if you wanted. You know, we imagine these O- O'Neill cylinders having an internal cylinder which would represent the sky, right? Mm-hmm. Uh, perhaps that low-gravity area could also be utilized to, house some of your agriculture. Yeah,

Lucas:

no, I mean, you definitely could, and it's a, it's a really interesting thought, like, like using it as walls or shielding. But it's also would be a great design because when you build vertically, you don't have to build… You know, like, I feel a lot of people think of, like, stacking floors, but you can actually build in columns. Yeah, absolutely. And those columns inside of them have water feeding plants on both sides. It's actually a more efficient way to do it.

Jacob:

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Now, when we think about not just growing in space, but I guess growing on Earth, especially in the future, we also have to think about what we're gonna grow, and right now, I would actually argue a lot of plants are rather inefficient, right? Like, we've already made food way more efficient than it used to be, right? Like, if you look at what corn used to look like several hundred years ago to what we've turned it into now, or if you look at medieval paintings of, like, watermelons. Have you ever seen that, by the way? Yeah. They're, they're not, like, full of melon. They're actually, like, pockets of melon surrounded by basically, like, this rind. And so I think also as we progress into the future, we're going to further refine food to produce more and more food per unit of energy- Mm absorbed. And I was thinking of some ways we can do that with both agricultural and, um, horticultural products. For example, When we think about growing food indoors, whether it's vertical farming, whether it's a space farm, uh, we tend to think about hydroponics, and it's- that's, like, the gold standard, 'cause it's more efficient, and it generally is. Um, but there are some plants that just don't lend themselves to be grown that way, and a great example of that would be anything that grows on a tree, right? Like apples, peaches, uh, you name it. So it wouldn't surprise me in the future if we actually started genetically engineering these fruits to grow on more, like, vines or bushes or things that are suitable to grow in smaller, confined areas, and especially hydroponically, and take up less space, especially if we're gonna be growing them on uh, interstellar spaceships or in space farms.

Lucas:

Yeah. I mean, that would absolutely make sense. If we could actually take, the thing that makes the, the tree a tree, like, like we're talking layers of bark, heavy, heavy materials, and break it down to just essentially the structure that grows the fruit, then we can introduce that onto ships to produce, you know, these, these fruits. And what you were saying before, too, is we structure the fruits to produce more fruit. Then it just becomes more efficient all around.

Jacob:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, w- why are you growing this entire tree just to make an apple if you can just grow the apple? Especially in places where space is very limited.

Lucas:

Yeah. It is a crazy idea, but we have already modified things so much and in to such an insane way that it really isn't that far-fetched.

Jacob:

Yeah, it's really not. And then e- this is a little more dystopian, but you could do the same thing with animals. And I know there's already the idea of lab-grown meats- Mm-hmm and 3D-printed meats, and I think those are great. Which exists. You can order a 3D-printed steak right now. What, you can order that now?

Lucas:

Yes.

Jacob:

It's very expensive, though. I was gonna

Lucas:

say, it's gotta be obscenely

Jacob:

expensive. Yeah. It's, I,

Lucas:

I think it's, like,$500

Jacob:

a steak. Oh, Jesus. Um- So yeah, that already exists, and I think that's gonna continue to exist now. Do we just culture the animal cells in, like, a vat, and then you just, what, extrude them onto- Yes

Lucas:

Yeah, that makes perfect sense … it, you, you essentially grow… You take scrapes of, uh, real beef, and then you use, you know, uh, weight methods of multiplying it in a safe way to where it doesn't break down or rot, and then you feed that into what is essentially a meat printer, and the steak comes out with sinews, and they actually can even add in your own custom marbling. Oh, my goodness. But the steak looks very obviously fake.

Jacob:

Yeah. Well, I imagine it has that, like, 3D-printed, uh - Yes, it has,

Lucas:

like, the lines of a printer- That's

Jacob:

amazing … going throughout it. Yeah, that's absolutely one thing you could do. But, I mean, that's arguably so much more ethical. It's way more energy efficient, too, and this kinda ties back to what we were talking about with, like, apples. Like, why are you growing an entire tree to make an apple if you can just grow the apple? Why are you growing an entire animal to make a steak if you can just make the steak? Mm-hmm. That's such a huge loss of energy, and that's one of the reasons why, you know, you're spending so much energy to grow a cow, uh, to harvest it for food. Whereas if you were to eat the food that the cow ate- uh, you, you could feed so many more people. Now, it's gonna be a limiting factor with growing things like meat in the future, especially on spaceships and space stations. So having the option to just culture the cells directly is gonna be hugely advantageous, and might be the only thing that allows you to have meat-based products in things like interstellar ships or even space farming.

Lucas:

Absolutely. but, there, there are some, you know, efficiency, um, issues that we run into with, culturing that. But you had a very interesting idea that we talked about before where what if you're not just culturing the cells in a Petri dish, but you're culturing, uh, essentially a creature that has no soul?

Jacob:

Yeah. That's one way to put it. Uh, this actually was not my idea. I- but I did see… It was actually funny. It's a YouTube video. You can, like, find it. I, I forget how to reference it. I'll put a link in the description if I remember when I actually upload this.

Um, but the idea was this:

What if you were to take an animal, right? The only thing you want out of the animal is the, the muscle- Mm-hmm usually. And you basically stripped away everything you didn't want. Specifically, what they talked about was stripping away the nervous system, taking away the brain, and just leaving, uh, basically a brain stem, uh, to do all of the basic functions to keep it alive, and then a digestive system to turn inputs into outputs, which for this case would be meat. Uh, and then you, you grow this thing, and it's basically a giant meat fruit, if you wanna think about it that way, like a a meat plant. There's no brain. There's no nervous system. It's impossible for there to be cruelty, and then you grow it and you harvest it. And it's, interesting because it seems like a crime against nature. And I think the YouTube video where they made it, it, it very much, like, it sparked some interesting con- Like, I'll link it below. It, it sparked some interesting conversations in the description because on one hand it seems like a crime against nature and it seems immoral. But on the other hand, the current agricultural industry with animals is horribly immoral. They're treated horribly, and it seems like if you could remove all the suffering from that by removing their ability to feel suffering, that's gotta be a net benefit even if it, uh, looks grotesque in actuality.

Lucas:

Yeah. I mean, um, just to specify, we are, you're growing the creature without the nervous system, not, um, removing the nervous system from the creature as it develops. Correct. Sorry, what

Jacob:

I meant was you're removing it from the template of the animal- Yes … which you would then grow.

Lucas:

Now, um, the… And me and Jake, we were talking about this a little bit before we started recording. for me, it makes it a little bit more palatable, if you imagine you're, like, growing- Is that a pun? No. Um, it makes it a little bit more, um, palatable if you remove the head of the creature. And I know that that also sounds grotesque, but imagine instead of, like, growing, like a whole creature and it just is essentially brain dead, you're, you're growing, like Jake said, like a, like a fuzzy meat fruit.

Jacob:

Yeah. A- and then the depictions this, this video had, they were effec- effectively just a tube of meat.

Lucas:

Yeah. And, uh, and that tube of meat has a digestive tract because you need to feed it, um, something to produce that. Because if we didn't do that, then we're just right back to producing lab-grown meats where we're feeding it nutrient through, like, a nutrient solution, which is inefficient. the actual body can produce muscular structure easier by you feeding a digestive system. so yeah, we would just have meat tubes. And if it doesn't look like an animal, and it's just, you know, like a, a steak tube, it's not too bad. It's definitely food for thought. Yeah. It's, you know, it's not, it's not too bad. It's, it's like, it's like I feel like it would definitely be an adjustment period. I think the

Jacob:

most interesting thing to me when I stumbled across this video was the comments because some people were very much grossed out by this, and they were like, "Yeah, this is horrible." But a lot of people did point out that this is arguably more morally acceptable than the current practices that we're, we're engaging in, which is where we're taking incredibly smart animals, things like, you know, pigs are very smart, cows are very smart, and, uh, subjecting them to horrible conditions. So if you can remove their ability, to feel anything and then, you know, remove all of that, does, does that alleviate, uh, the ethical concern? And I can't make that distinction for anyone. Uh, that's gotta be your own call. Some people I think are more ethically bothered by changing an animal to such an extreme extent, uh, than by the suffering going on. But for me, I, I agree with you, I do think it makes it more palatable, so to speak.

Lucas:

Yeah. We commit an atrocity against nature to not commit a million atrocities a day by doing what we do to a, a living creature that had a life.

Jacob:

I'm interested to hear what people have to say. Comment below. Let me know what you think 'cause I… That one is one where I saw a lot of, uh, back and forth. People feel very strongly about it.

Lucas:

Yeah.

Jacob:

With that being said, I think we're gonna leave you all on that wonderful thought and wrap this episode up. Uh, join us next week where we're gonna be talking about nanotechnology and how that will affect things like medicine, of course agriculture, terraforming, and maybe even, uh, robotics and living metals. If that sounds interesting for you, uh, join and maybe subscribe on whatever platform, uh, you choose to listen to us on. Thanks, guys. Take care.

Lucas:

Bye-bye.

Contributor

Lucas

Co-host