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I don't get it. Maybe as a casual soylent user I'm defensive myself, but I don't understand why the author is so personally offended by this? Disclosure: I stop

I don't get it. Maybe as a casual soylent user I'm defensive myself, but I don't understand why the author is so personally offended by this? Disclosure: I stopped reading part way through. Soylent is a meal replacement that can feed people a meal for under $3. With a year long shelf life. That's a pretty impressive product (I know one can diy and careful plan one's own "perfect" meal, but many won't, and many can't). The use of algal oil as a major source of macronutrients is _huge_, in environmental terms as well as our ability as a species to distribute sustenance to everyone. The personal choices of the founder really don't concern me. The value judgements the author uses to make his point just hurts the point itself. * Soylent _is_ liberating in a lot of ways, as are any other meal replacement. * It's still possible to love food and enjoy human contact, even while eating it for every planned meal. * Because he wants to get rid of his kitchen doesn't mean you have to. There's kind of a pernicious implication that soylent isn't "manly" enough (gendered language used by me for effect here; it's not incidental). Real men know how to grow food and hunt food and cook it over an open fire! You're all going to die because you relied on Soylent! You are not a real human being, you are a robot! I mean, I got carried away at the end there snarking back at the author, but that's exactly my point. How helpful is this snark other than as a rhetorical tactic to fill up space and manipulate people's points of view? Why can't we all, like, live and let live, dudes?

kstenerud 11y ago
It's not the soylent. You really have to read the whole article to see what he's talking about.
- ubercore 11y ago
  Ok, I just read the whole thing. Was this comment a troll to get me to read it? I still don't get it.
  - lost_name 11y ago
    The problem on both ends is the tone, I think. The soylent guy is using really strong language to get you to think things are better his way -- he replaces his clothes rather than cleaning them, he replaced his kitchen/fridge/groceries with his shakes, he replaced the need for preparing solid foods with eating out on every occasion. The author suggests he's disconnected from reality, because everything he says is only possible because he can afford it. In fact, soylent didn't permit him any of this, except possibly the ability to afford to live like this in the first place.
- eevilspock 11y ago
  This article has as much a chance of getting a fair or understanding reading on HN as a scathing critique of capitalism by readers of The Wall Street Journal.
  - ubercore 11y ago
    Can you help me understand what a fair or understanding reading of this looks like?
    - eevilspock 11y ago
      To do that you have to be open to and understanding of if not sympathetic to criticism of contemporary tech culture as well as hipster culture. That, understandably, is harder than usual for the HN community. Dismissing the article as "bitter" or "angry", as many comments on this page are doing, is hardly a refutation, and comes off as tit-for-tat bitterness and anger. Furthermore the HN community has no problem with bitterness and anger when it aligns with the ethos here. For example there's plenty of anger at government regulation, or at GitHub's new Code of Conduct[1]. Another example is this community's reaction to charges of sexism within tech culture. While many HN commenters agree that this is a real problem, many commenters here and on other tech publications again label women as "bitter" and "angry". To me that's very troubling. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10005473 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10005473 (I would love to hear your opinions on this issue on this thread.)
      - ubercore 11y ago
        So, I'd like to think I'm generally an understanding person, but I don't really follow how my opinions on GitHub censoring the word "retard" in repos (which I have no problem with; almost every use of the word I've seen is vile) impacts my ability to give this article a "fair or understanding" reading? The author of the article is essentially just lambasting someone that wrote from quite an abrasive and privileged (and often factually problematic) perspective in a blog post. And conflated it with both soylent the company and "tech" and "hipster" culture. And he basically tells them they're going to die because they're out of touch and will be put up on the wall in a firing line. I find it hard to read that kind of bombast fairly, and even putting that aside, really don't find any kind of insight in the article whatsoever.

kstenerud 11y ago

It's not the soylent. You really have to read the whole article to see what he's talking about.

ubercore 11y ago
Ok, I just read the whole thing. Was this comment a troll to get me to read it? I still don't get it.
- lost_name 11y ago
  The problem on both ends is the tone, I think. The soylent guy is using really strong language to get you to think things are better his way -- he replaces his clothes rather than cleaning them, he replaced his kitchen/fridge/groceries with his shakes, he replaced the need for preparing solid foods with eating out on every occasion. The author suggests he's disconnected from reality, because everything he says is only possible because he can afford it. In fact, soylent didn't permit him any of this, except possibly the ability to afford to live like this in the first place.
eevilspock 11y ago
This article has as much a chance of getting a fair or understanding reading on HN as a scathing critique of capitalism by readers of The Wall Street Journal.
- ubercore 11y ago
  Can you help me understand what a fair or understanding reading of this looks like?
  - eevilspock 11y ago
    To do that you have to be open to and understanding of if not sympathetic to criticism of contemporary tech culture as well as hipster culture. That, understandably, is harder than usual for the HN community. Dismissing the article as "bitter" or "angry", as many comments on this page are doing, is hardly a refutation, and comes off as tit-for-tat bitterness and anger. Furthermore the HN community has no problem with bitterness and anger when it aligns with the ethos here. For example there's plenty of anger at government regulation, or at GitHub's new Code of Conduct[1]. Another example is this community's reaction to charges of sexism within tech culture. While many HN commenters agree that this is a real problem, many commenters here and on other tech publications again label women as "bitter" and "angry". To me that's very troubling. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10005473 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10005473 (I would love to hear your opinions on this issue on this thread.)
    - ubercore 11y ago
      So, I'd like to think I'm generally an understanding person, but I don't really follow how my opinions on GitHub censoring the word "retard" in repos (which I have no problem with; almost every use of the word I've seen is vile) impacts my ability to give this article a "fair or understanding" reading? The author of the article is essentially just lambasting someone that wrote from quite an abrasive and privileged (and often factually problematic) perspective in a blog post. And conflated it with both soylent the company and "tech" and "hipster" culture. And he basically tells them they're going to die because they're out of touch and will be put up on the wall in a firing line. I find it hard to read that kind of bombast fairly, and even putting that aside, really don't find any kind of insight in the article whatsoever.