3 ms·

Because his optimization is at the expense of all other considerations. He even admits to being pleasantly surprised that his glop tastes good. That means he'd

by rosser 14y ago

Because his optimization is at the expense of all other considerations. He even admits to being pleasantly surprised that his glop tastes good. That means he'd have consumed it even if it didn't — taste is secondary to convenience. He's taking what we currently believe to be true about the human body's nutritional requirements, dumping that into a blender all chemistry-set-style (it even has oligosaccharides!), and calling it good, because he thinks eating like a human takes too much time and effort. Maybe it will work out for him. I'm certainly interested to see what happens. But if what happens turns out to be some previously unknown (because everyone else has been busy eating at least some actual food) analogue of scurvy or something, I'm not going to be the least bit surprised. I'll probably even have nontrivial schadenfreude. Simply, we do not know enough about nutrition at this point to be making this kind of optimization. It's therefore premature. (Edited)

tantalor 14y ago
Hypothesis: "soylent" contains everything your body needs. If consumption of "soylent" reveals some nutritional deficiency, then you should be surprised, because that means our hypothesis is incorrect! Your expectation should confirm the hypothesis, not negate it.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
jessaustin 14y ago
But if [he gets some] analogue of scurvy or something, I... will probably even have nontrivial schadenfreude. That is the most conservative thing I've heard in at least a year, and I live in the Midwest. With a mindset so diametrically opposed to that of the hacker, how can you stomach HN?
- rosser 14y ago
  Wow, thanks for the judgement, and for quoting selectively to imply actual malice on my part. So I'm "conservative" and have "a mindset diametrically opposed to that of a hacker" because I think someone is more likely than not to get shit wrong in trying to replace the human diet, evolved over aeons, with something he makes in his blender? I'm all for challenging convention, disruption, experimentation, growth, and such. More than a little revolution, more than merely now and then, is more than just a good thing, in my book. Frankly, I think there are more human institutions that are moribund at best — and more likely actively harmful to the human condition — and desperately in need of replacement than not. IMO, diet — or at least a healthy diet, where one eats actual food — is not among those things. It seems pretty clear to me that eating plants, and to a lesser extent, things that eat plants, or things that eat things that eat plants... is what our bodies have evolved to do, and correlates very strongly with health and longevity. It's equally clear that eating processed things correlates incredibly highly with all kinds of malady and morbidity. Now, along comes someone who thinks he knows better than that. I wish him luck. I really, honestly do. I just don't have high hopes for his experiment. And, yes, while I probably will have some schadenfreudey, "Well, you probably should have seen that coming" if he gets it wrong badly enough to suffer some harm, I most certainly don't actually wish that upon him. We see on practically a weekly basis some new and exciting way in which our understanding of human nutrition has been wrong all along. "Soylent Dude" is basing his recipe on that understanding, which has been demonstrated over and over and over again to be incomplete, misguided, based on faulty information — and even deliberate misinformation — and just plain wrong. Given all that, please tell me how he's not likely to be missing something, getting something wrong, and potentially doing serious harm to himself, because I just don't see it.

by rosser 14y ago

tantalor 14y ago

Hypothesis: "soylent" contains everything your body needs. If consumption of "soylent" reveals some nutritional deficiency, then you should be surprised, because that means our hypothesis is incorrect! Your expectation should confirm the hypothesis, not negate it.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

jessaustin 14y ago

But if [he gets some] analogue of scurvy or something, I... will probably even have nontrivial schadenfreude. That is the most conservative thing I've heard in at least a year, and I live in the Midwest. With a mindset so diametrically opposed to that of the hacker, how can you stomach HN?

rosser 14y ago
Wow, thanks for the judgement, and for quoting selectively to imply actual malice on my part. So I'm "conservative" and have "a mindset diametrically opposed to that of a hacker" because I think someone is more likely than not to get shit wrong in trying to replace the human diet, evolved over aeons, with something he makes in his blender? I'm all for challenging convention, disruption, experimentation, growth, and such. More than a little revolution, more than merely now and then, is more than just a good thing, in my book. Frankly, I think there are more human institutions that are moribund at best — and more likely actively harmful to the human condition — and desperately in need of replacement than not. IMO, diet — or at least a healthy diet, where one eats actual food — is not among those things. It seems pretty clear to me that eating plants, and to a lesser extent, things that eat plants, or things that eat things that eat plants... is what our bodies have evolved to do, and correlates very strongly with health and longevity. It's equally clear that eating processed things correlates incredibly highly with all kinds of malady and morbidity. Now, along comes someone who thinks he knows better than that. I wish him luck. I really, honestly do. I just don't have high hopes for his experiment. And, yes, while I probably will have some schadenfreudey, "Well, you probably should have seen that coming" if he gets it wrong badly enough to suffer some harm, I most certainly don't actually wish that upon him. We see on practically a weekly basis some new and exciting way in which our understanding of human nutrition has been wrong all along. "Soylent Dude" is basing his recipe on that understanding, which has been demonstrated over and over and over again to be incomplete, misguided, based on faulty information — and even deliberate misinformation — and just plain wrong. Given all that, please tell me how he's not likely to be missing something, getting something wrong, and potentially doing serious harm to himself, because I just don't see it.