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There seem to be two main points of criticism in this article, neither of which holds up: 1. "Rhinehart does not know much about nutrition and he cannot learn

There seem to be two main points of criticism in this article, neither of which holds up: 1. "Rhinehart does not know much about nutrition and he cannot learn everything he needs to know from Wikipedia and textbooks." True, but irrelevant. Soylent's basic proposition is that you can make a food substitute like this one work and they are iterating on a promising candidate. Who is to say they cannot or will not partner with various nutritional specialist in the future to improve the recipe and mitigate risks? You get the best of both worlds: Enthusiastic creativity powered by some necessary naivety combined with extensive domain knowledge. This formula can work amazingly well. Case in point: Elon Musk/SpaceX. 2. Nutritional needs are specific to each person and change over time. Again, true - but if anything, this is an argument in favour of Soylent. In the future, it could easily and automatically be tweaked to everyone's individual habits, biomedical indicators or even genetic tests. As others have pointed out, most people currently eat extremely sub-optimal and are typically not keeping track of their nutritional intake. Soylent in its current form will give a well-rounded base level that is surely more healthy than the average food intake in developed countries. With an individualised formula it has the potential to among others thing be a convenient to consume a more healthy and balanced diet.

russelluresti 13y ago
The problem with people is that they tend to have the thought process of "that's how it is today so that's how it will always be." Like you said, when he mentioned that everyone's nutritional needs were unique, my mind also went immediately to bio-feedback devices that would not only indicate what you needed but also create a meal plan and order the food for you. There's no reason this also couldn't be done with Soylent. But because these things don't exist today people assume that they'll never exist.

russelluresti 13y ago

The problem with people is that they tend to have the thought process of "that's how it is today so that's how it will always be." Like you said, when he mentioned that everyone's nutritional needs were unique, my mind also went immediately to bio-feedback devices that would not only indicate what you needed but also create a meal plan and order the food for you. There's no reason this also couldn't be done with Soylent. But because these things don't exist today people assume that they'll never exist.