16 ms·

One of the best parts about this whole Soylent debacle is getting to watch well-known people make complete fools of themselves by commenting on things that they

One of the best parts about this whole Soylent debacle is getting to watch well-known people make complete fools of themselves by commenting on things that they clearly know absolutely nothing about, but still feel like they have the right to make authoritative statements on.

jacques_chester 13y ago
Funnily enough, that's the whole pitch for Soylent. "I'm just a smart guy with a fresh pair of eyes who spent a few weekends reading undergrad textbooks and skimming pubmed". Not: "we're a large company with deeply-interested professionals who've made this their life's work, our own multi-million dollar labs and decades of accumulated experience in the development, testing, validation and manufacture of temporary food substitutes". Because that's boooorrrrinnnng. Basically it's getting buzz because of novelty (to people who didn't know there were existing products) and homophily (Rhinehart is "one of us"). The actual product is at this point nearly completely tangential to the marketing. It's a bit like a dietitian bursting in and saying "I've invented a new thing, I call it 'computertalk'. What you do is you 'type' your 'instructions' into your computer. It's going to change everything, you won't need programmers any more!"
- smacktoward 13y ago
  But can your computertalk run in the cloud? Please advise.
  - jacques_chester 13y ago
    Give me a million dollars and I will ship you a box full of randomly chosen words. You can see if they evaporate. That's a cloud, right?
  - scarecrowbob 13y ago
    FWIW this is an analysis of the rhetoric, not the science. As such, I think it's pretty accurate. It's like noting that with Rush Limbaugh advertising you get appeals to what he personally does or enjoys using, whereas on NPR advertising you get vague references to strange sounding companies.... you don't need to know about dietary supplements or supply chain management to understand the rhetorical distinctions.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- jlgreco 13y ago
  This Soylent thing is literally the SV techie equivalent of those "This School Teacher(tm) found one weird trick to [BLANK]... [BLANKERS] hate her!" advertisements that we all like to make fun of. Why do those ads use "school teachers"? Because it is relatable to the target audience and sufficiently anti-authoritarian that they don't question the credentials.
  - visakanv 13y ago
    Well it's like that story of Colonel H. McMaster, who DID technically find "one weird trick", and the Army DID pass him over for promotions, etc... I'm not for or against Soylent, and I usually find this kind of advertising annoying, but it's also entirely possible that people further down the chain of command in any system discover things that people higher-up won't or can't. That's part of the entire premise of why startups work, no?
    - namdnay 13y ago
      > people further down the chain of command in any system Here we're talking about people who aren't even in the same system!
      - julius 13y ago
        Einstein was a patent office guy. Yet his notable weird tricks (like constant speed of light) aren't even in the same system.
        jerf 13y ago
        Yeah, a "patent office guy" who knew nothing about physics at all until he suddenly overturned the entire world through sheer force of will. Certainly not a guy who already wanted to be a physics teacher with all the requisite training and credentials, including published papers in prestigious journals in his first year of working in the patent office, but had to find a job to make money in the meantime while he searched for one. Einstein was someone who went up the academic course for physics, but had a brief detour during a jobless interval. I imagine many of us here can relate to that. He's not some sort of quintessential outsider. (He's not a quintessential insider either; while the rumors about his poor grades are overstated, he did have a rough relationship with any academic subject he didn't really care about. He certainly wasn't the valedictorian type or a groomed, perfect academic from tip to toe. But neither was he an outsider. He's just an average everyday genius who combined tons of hard work with immense native talent.)
- samstave 13y ago
  While I have no ability to judge the veracity of the claims of Soylent.me -- let me tell you the only reason I am hopeful it works is for the same reason Jobs only wore black turtle-necks and jeans: simplicity. I want to be able to take a good fuel for my body and indulge in great food whenever I want. I want to be able to back-pack for a week with only a 4-pound food supply.
  - jacques_chester 13y ago
    > I want to be able to take a good fuel for my body and indulge in great food whenever I want. Then eat some meat and some vegetables. > I want to be able to back-pack for a week with only a 4-pound food supply. Then take trail mix.
    - samstave 13y ago
      jacques_chester, The Dream Killer. P.S.: I am currently eating Chicken I made with a side of snap-peas from my garden. I do what you say already -- I just also want an alternative which has incredible shelf-life, portability, cost-benefit, etc. etc. etc.
      - jacques_chester 13y ago
        Dream killer? Nah, merely a young curmudgeon. I need my 10,000 hours of grumping so that "get off my grass" really stings, y'know? By the way -- there are such alternatives already available. Have you bought any before?
        StavrosK 13y ago
        What are they? I'm interested in "I'm too lazy to cook today but don't want to eat unhealthy fast food" food.
        lsc 13y ago
        Seriously? You are unaware of meal replacement bars and drinks? https://www.google.com/search?q=meal+replacement+shakes https://www.google.com/search?q=meal+replacement+shakes Almost all of them are marketed to the diet crowd. There are a bunch of 'atkins' branded bars, too, if you are going the low-carb route. Slim-fast, I know, can be had in giant tubs for relatively little money per serving; I remember as a kid, looking through my grandparent's pantry and finding a giant tub of slim-fast. This is a huge industry. I mean, sure, marketing it to hackers is a new thing, and something I, personally, would have never considered, and the guy is doing a hell of a job of it, but yeah; the product itself is nothing new, even if he's selling to a group that has not yet been targeted.
- stackedmidgets 13y ago
  This is how Americans think, though. They believe that people who have no idea what they're doing are fonts of magic wisdom. It's part of their egalitarian faith.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- scotty79 13y ago
  > Not: "we're a large company with deeply-interested professionals who've made this their life's work, our own multi-million dollar labs and decades of accumulated experience in the development, testing, validation and manufacture of temporary food substitutes". Because that's boooorrrrinnnng. I think it's not because it sounds boring but because it sounds like a marketing bullshit. Guy in a suit tells you "trust us, we have a whole basement of experts and years of experience" but when you check them out, the company was funded few months ago and only one employee doesn't have some sort of "manager" or "director" in his job title. I guess openness of soylent and creator's low experience in bullshitting is what makes it attractive. Those of us who eat to live don't expect much from industry after McDonalds and sugar everywhere but we still desperately hope for something better. That hopes fuels enthusiasm for soylent.
  - DanBC 13y ago
    > I think it's not because it sounds boring but because it sounds like a marketing bullshit. Guy in a suit tells you "trust us, we have a whole basement of experts and years of experience" but when you check them out, the company was funded few months ago and only one employee doesn't have some sort of "manager" or "director" in his job title. But this is an aspect of the large nutrition companies that can be checked out. Unless you're talking about the other companies. They do have a lot of people with respected qualifications working for them; they do produce all these different products. The bullshit with these companies is that they push multivitamins as useful for everyone, when really there's a limited market. They push a bunch of other stuff as useful for all kinds of conditions, when really the evidence is weak at best. > Those of us who eat to live don't expect much from industry after McDonalds and sugar everywhere but we still desperately hope for something better. That hopes fuels enthusiasm for soylent. That's fair enough. It's your body, and you can make your own choices. You know that as well as Soylent there are a bunch of these liquid feeding products, so if you wanted to experiment now you can?
  - stcredzero 13y ago
    > don't expect much from industry after McDonalds and sugar everywhere Sometimes a fresh set of eyes are valuable, because the industry culture has developed some pathologies. Sugar in the food industry is a prime example. And sometimes, it's just a cover for charlatans.
- namdnay 13y ago
  It's brilliant marketing though, because they've managed to sell a $230/month system as cheap!
- asdasf 13y ago
  >to people who didn't know there were existing products Would you care to link to where people can purchase these existing products? It seems that every time someone makes that claim they are either referring to medical products not available to the public, or to crap like MET-Rx that doesn't provide a complete, balanced micro nutrient profile.
  - DanBC 13y ago
    > they are either referring to medical products Very few of these products are prescription only or even pharmacy only products. It is possible to persuade companies to sell to individuals. To answer your question - Ensure brand includes complete meal replacement products; the Fortisip range also includes suitable products. There are a bunch of others but these are easiest to obtain. Most companies are very careful about selling these products. Some people think that's a good thing.
    - asdasf 13y ago
      >Would you care to link to where people can purchase these existing products?
      - Retric 13y ago
        Did you even try google? Enshure: http://ensure.com/products/ensure-complete-shakes http://ensure.com/products/ensure-complete-shakes click buy online from the product page. Fortisip: http://www.fortisipdrink.co.uk/ http://www.fortisipdrink.co.uk/. Again, click the buy online link from there homepage. (Though I think this is a UK brand.) PS: You can find a wide product range at http://abbottstore.com/ http://abbottstore.com/
        asdasf 13y ago
        Did you try reading the thread you are attempting to participate in? The whole problem is vaguely claiming that there's already products that cover the use case of soylent, but not giving a specific. None of the products you linked to provide 100% of known essential nutrients. None of them are intended to be used as a replacement for food, and none of them can be used as such with long term safety. It is absurd to see people bitching about how unsafe soylent is while claiming that products we 100% for certain know are not nutritionally complete already make soylent useless.
beagle3 13y ago
That's true, from both the "for" and "against sides". Anyone who things that only happens on one of the sides should check their confirmation bias. And no, this is not an "every opinion deserves equal airtime" claim. The vast majority of nutrition and health experts draw on a mix of science, pseudo science and superstition, and assume it is all science. (Quick check: Think salt intake causes hypertension? That dietary cholesterol (and cholesterol in general) is bad for you? That you can only get B-12 from meat, or that cows make it? If you answered "yes", your answers are not based on science)
- goostavos 13y ago
  As a young-ish person with hyper tension who was told to cut back on the salt, I would love to see you back up your claims. Could you link to a few relevant medical studies?
  - MDS100 13y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt#Recommended_intake http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt#Recommended_intake Have a look at the relationship between potassium/nacl and Blood pressure. TLDR: Focus on unprocessed foods and foods you like that are rich in potassium. Lower your bodyfat percentage and exercise in same fashion regularly.
  - beagle3 13y ago
    http://www.menshealth.com/mhlists/food_myths/Salt_Causes_High_Blood_Pressure.php http://www.menshealth.com/mhlists/food_myths/Salt_Causes_Hig... was the first google answer. I am on a phone and can't do a real search, but the gist is: there's a small percentage of the population (estimates I am familiar with are 5-20%) for which, once hypertension appears, it IS related to salt intake. However, in general it's a sodium potassium balance. Analogy: peanut allergy is not caused by peanuts. But if you have it, you should avoid peanuts. It is possible that your hypertension is related to salt intake, in which the advice to cut back on salt is a good advice. But that's not generally true - not any more than general the advice to avoid peanuts is good.
  - mysterywhiteboy 13y ago
rlpb 13y ago
Nevertheless, I'm pleased that they're trying. In today's Internet age, there's no reason that the things they clearly know absolutely nothing about can't be made wider known, and they're helping to make that happen.
stcredzero 13y ago
> One of the best parts about this whole Soylent debacle is getting to watch well-known people make complete fools of themselves by commenting on things that they clearly know absolutely nothing about, but still feel like they have the right to make authoritative statements on. One of the worst parts is watching how ill equipped most of society is to detect something is off-kilter. This pretty much applies to anything requiring technical understanding beyond that required to visit a mall.
Fuzzwah 13y ago
I think the best part of all this is actually that more and more people are realizing that no human clearly knows what humans should be doing to get the most out of a human body. Maybe "no human" is over stating it.... I could easily just slot "the vast majority of intelligent adult humans" into the sentence and it should still be mind blowing. People have used their brains to explain nuclear physics, create a network of computers which spans the globe and landed a man on the moon. Yet no one can clearly tell me what I should be fueling my brain and body with?

jacques_chester 13y ago

Funnily enough, that's the whole pitch for Soylent. "I'm just a smart guy with a fresh pair of eyes who spent a few weekends reading undergrad textbooks and skimming pubmed". Not: "we're a large company with deeply-interested professionals who've made this their life's work, our own multi-million dollar labs and decades of accumulated experience in the development, testing, validation and manufacture of temporary food substitutes". Because that's boooorrrrinnnng. Basically it's getting buzz because of novelty (to people who didn't know there were existing products) and homophily (Rhinehart is "one of us"). The actual product is at this point nearly completely tangential to the marketing. It's a bit like a dietitian bursting in and saying "I've invented a new thing, I call it 'computertalk'. What you do is you 'type' your 'instructions' into your computer. It's going to change everything, you won't need programmers any more!"

smacktoward 13y ago
But can your computertalk run in the cloud? Please advise.
- jacques_chester 13y ago
  Give me a million dollars and I will ship you a box full of randomly chosen words. You can see if they evaporate. That's a cloud, right?
- scarecrowbob 13y ago
  FWIW this is an analysis of the rhetoric, not the science. As such, I think it's pretty accurate. It's like noting that with Rush Limbaugh advertising you get appeals to what he personally does or enjoys using, whereas on NPR advertising you get vague references to strange sounding companies.... you don't need to know about dietary supplements or supply chain management to understand the rhetorical distinctions.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
jlgreco 13y ago
This Soylent thing is literally the SV techie equivalent of those "This School Teacher(tm) found one weird trick to [BLANK]... [BLANKERS] hate her!" advertisements that we all like to make fun of. Why do those ads use "school teachers"? Because it is relatable to the target audience and sufficiently anti-authoritarian that they don't question the credentials.
- visakanv 13y ago
  Well it's like that story of Colonel H. McMaster, who DID technically find "one weird trick", and the Army DID pass him over for promotions, etc... I'm not for or against Soylent, and I usually find this kind of advertising annoying, but it's also entirely possible that people further down the chain of command in any system discover things that people higher-up won't or can't. That's part of the entire premise of why startups work, no?
  - namdnay 13y ago
    > people further down the chain of command in any system Here we're talking about people who aren't even in the same system!
    - julius 13y ago
      Einstein was a patent office guy. Yet his notable weird tricks (like constant speed of light) aren't even in the same system.
      - jerf 13y ago
        Yeah, a "patent office guy" who knew nothing about physics at all until he suddenly overturned the entire world through sheer force of will. Certainly not a guy who already wanted to be a physics teacher with all the requisite training and credentials, including published papers in prestigious journals in his first year of working in the patent office, but had to find a job to make money in the meantime while he searched for one. Einstein was someone who went up the academic course for physics, but had a brief detour during a jobless interval. I imagine many of us here can relate to that. He's not some sort of quintessential outsider. (He's not a quintessential insider either; while the rumors about his poor grades are overstated, he did have a rough relationship with any academic subject he didn't really care about. He certainly wasn't the valedictorian type or a groomed, perfect academic from tip to toe. But neither was he an outsider. He's just an average everyday genius who combined tons of hard work with immense native talent.)
samstave 13y ago
While I have no ability to judge the veracity of the claims of Soylent.me -- let me tell you the only reason I am hopeful it works is for the same reason Jobs only wore black turtle-necks and jeans: simplicity. I want to be able to take a good fuel for my body and indulge in great food whenever I want. I want to be able to back-pack for a week with only a 4-pound food supply.
- jacques_chester 13y ago
  > I want to be able to take a good fuel for my body and indulge in great food whenever I want. Then eat some meat and some vegetables. > I want to be able to back-pack for a week with only a 4-pound food supply. Then take trail mix.
  - samstave 13y ago
    jacques_chester, The Dream Killer. P.S.: I am currently eating Chicken I made with a side of snap-peas from my garden. I do what you say already -- I just also want an alternative which has incredible shelf-life, portability, cost-benefit, etc. etc. etc.
    - jacques_chester 13y ago
      Dream killer? Nah, merely a young curmudgeon. I need my 10,000 hours of grumping so that "get off my grass" really stings, y'know? By the way -- there are such alternatives already available. Have you bought any before?
      - StavrosK 13y ago
        What are they? I'm interested in "I'm too lazy to cook today but don't want to eat unhealthy fast food" food.
        lsc 13y ago
        Seriously? You are unaware of meal replacement bars and drinks? https://www.google.com/search?q=meal+replacement+shakes https://www.google.com/search?q=meal+replacement+shakes Almost all of them are marketed to the diet crowd. There are a bunch of 'atkins' branded bars, too, if you are going the low-carb route. Slim-fast, I know, can be had in giant tubs for relatively little money per serving; I remember as a kid, looking through my grandparent's pantry and finding a giant tub of slim-fast. This is a huge industry. I mean, sure, marketing it to hackers is a new thing, and something I, personally, would have never considered, and the guy is doing a hell of a job of it, but yeah; the product itself is nothing new, even if he's selling to a group that has not yet been targeted.
stackedmidgets 13y ago
This is how Americans think, though. They believe that people who have no idea what they're doing are fonts of magic wisdom. It's part of their egalitarian faith.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
scotty79 13y ago
> Not: "we're a large company with deeply-interested professionals who've made this their life's work, our own multi-million dollar labs and decades of accumulated experience in the development, testing, validation and manufacture of temporary food substitutes". Because that's boooorrrrinnnng. I think it's not because it sounds boring but because it sounds like a marketing bullshit. Guy in a suit tells you "trust us, we have a whole basement of experts and years of experience" but when you check them out, the company was funded few months ago and only one employee doesn't have some sort of "manager" or "director" in his job title. I guess openness of soylent and creator's low experience in bullshitting is what makes it attractive. Those of us who eat to live don't expect much from industry after McDonalds and sugar everywhere but we still desperately hope for something better. That hopes fuels enthusiasm for soylent.
- DanBC 13y ago
  > I think it's not because it sounds boring but because it sounds like a marketing bullshit. Guy in a suit tells you "trust us, we have a whole basement of experts and years of experience" but when you check them out, the company was funded few months ago and only one employee doesn't have some sort of "manager" or "director" in his job title. But this is an aspect of the large nutrition companies that can be checked out. Unless you're talking about the other companies. They do have a lot of people with respected qualifications working for them; they do produce all these different products. The bullshit with these companies is that they push multivitamins as useful for everyone, when really there's a limited market. They push a bunch of other stuff as useful for all kinds of conditions, when really the evidence is weak at best. > Those of us who eat to live don't expect much from industry after McDonalds and sugar everywhere but we still desperately hope for something better. That hopes fuels enthusiasm for soylent. That's fair enough. It's your body, and you can make your own choices. You know that as well as Soylent there are a bunch of these liquid feeding products, so if you wanted to experiment now you can?
- stcredzero 13y ago
  > don't expect much from industry after McDonalds and sugar everywhere Sometimes a fresh set of eyes are valuable, because the industry culture has developed some pathologies. Sugar in the food industry is a prime example. And sometimes, it's just a cover for charlatans.
namdnay 13y ago
It's brilliant marketing though, because they've managed to sell a $230/month system as cheap!
asdasf 13y ago
>to people who didn't know there were existing products Would you care to link to where people can purchase these existing products? It seems that every time someone makes that claim they are either referring to medical products not available to the public, or to crap like MET-Rx that doesn't provide a complete, balanced micro nutrient profile.
- DanBC 13y ago
  > they are either referring to medical products Very few of these products are prescription only or even pharmacy only products. It is possible to persuade companies to sell to individuals. To answer your question - Ensure brand includes complete meal replacement products; the Fortisip range also includes suitable products. There are a bunch of others but these are easiest to obtain. Most companies are very careful about selling these products. Some people think that's a good thing.
  - asdasf 13y ago
    >Would you care to link to where people can purchase these existing products?
    - Retric 13y ago
      Did you even try google? Enshure: http://ensure.com/products/ensure-complete-shakes http://ensure.com/products/ensure-complete-shakes click buy online from the product page. Fortisip: http://www.fortisipdrink.co.uk/ http://www.fortisipdrink.co.uk/. Again, click the buy online link from there homepage. (Though I think this is a UK brand.) PS: You can find a wide product range at http://abbottstore.com/ http://abbottstore.com/
      - asdasf 13y ago
        Did you try reading the thread you are attempting to participate in? The whole problem is vaguely claiming that there's already products that cover the use case of soylent, but not giving a specific. None of the products you linked to provide 100% of known essential nutrients. None of them are intended to be used as a replacement for food, and none of them can be used as such with long term safety. It is absurd to see people bitching about how unsafe soylent is while claiming that products we 100% for certain know are not nutritionally complete already make soylent useless.

beagle3 13y ago

That's true, from both the "for" and "against sides". Anyone who things that only happens on one of the sides should check their confirmation bias. And no, this is not an "every opinion deserves equal airtime" claim. The vast majority of nutrition and health experts draw on a mix of science, pseudo science and superstition, and assume it is all science. (Quick check: Think salt intake causes hypertension? That dietary cholesterol (and cholesterol in general) is bad for you? That you can only get B-12 from meat, or that cows make it? If you answered "yes", your answers are not based on science)

goostavos 13y ago
As a young-ish person with hyper tension who was told to cut back on the salt, I would love to see you back up your claims. Could you link to a few relevant medical studies?
- MDS100 13y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt#Recommended_intake http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt#Recommended_intake Have a look at the relationship between potassium/nacl and Blood pressure. TLDR: Focus on unprocessed foods and foods you like that are rich in potassium. Lower your bodyfat percentage and exercise in same fashion regularly.
- beagle3 13y ago
  http://www.menshealth.com/mhlists/food_myths/Salt_Causes_High_Blood_Pressure.php http://www.menshealth.com/mhlists/food_myths/Salt_Causes_Hig... was the first google answer. I am on a phone and can't do a real search, but the gist is: there's a small percentage of the population (estimates I am familiar with are 5-20%) for which, once hypertension appears, it IS related to salt intake. However, in general it's a sodium potassium balance. Analogy: peanut allergy is not caused by peanuts. But if you have it, you should avoid peanuts. It is possible that your hypertension is related to salt intake, in which the advice to cut back on salt is a good advice. But that's not generally true - not any more than general the advice to avoid peanuts is good.
- mysterywhiteboy 13y ago

rlpb 13y ago

Nevertheless, I'm pleased that they're trying. In today's Internet age, there's no reason that the things they clearly know absolutely nothing about can't be made wider known, and they're helping to make that happen.

stcredzero 13y ago

> One of the best parts about this whole Soylent debacle is getting to watch well-known people make complete fools of themselves by commenting on things that they clearly know absolutely nothing about, but still feel like they have the right to make authoritative statements on. One of the worst parts is watching how ill equipped most of society is to detect something is off-kilter. This pretty much applies to anything requiring technical understanding beyond that required to visit a mall.

Fuzzwah 13y ago

I think the best part of all this is actually that more and more people are realizing that no human clearly knows what humans should be doing to get the most out of a human body. Maybe "no human" is over stating it.... I could easily just slot "the vast majority of intelligent adult humans" into the sentence and it should still be mind blowing. People have used their brains to explain nuclear physics, create a network of computers which spans the globe and landed a man on the moon. Yet no one can clearly tell me what I should be fueling my brain and body with?