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Soylent might, technically, work. It might be safe and healthy, it definitely looks simple and allows you to forget anything related to grocery shopping, cookin

by yuvadam 13y ago

Soylent might, technically, work. It might be safe and healthy, it definitely looks simple and allows you to forget anything related to grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning up afterwards. But thinking about the prospect of the future makes me sick to my stomach. Soylent paints a disgustingly frightening dystopia where humans are fed 100% "correct" food to allow them to continue being cogs in the business machine, not stop for lunch during the day in the office, and be able to pull those extra longs evenings and nights to get more work done. Not to mention the vanishing social and human aspects of eating, together with friends and family. Rob Reinhardt's assertions that organic cultivation of vegetables, fruits and legumes does not scale are downright FALSE, and only serve the Soylent marketing machine. Soylent is doing nothing more than accommodating to the needs of humanoids who continue the endless pursuit of some vague promise of capitalist fulfillment (work hard, be rich, be happy), ignoring the fact that the direct opposite of such a lifestyle leads to a much more healthier, happier life which remains in touch with our basic, primal human existence.

beambot 13y ago
Or... it could put humanity in a position to provide a balanced nutrition as a fundamental human right, delivered right to your doorstep by USPS. If the economics worked out it could be provided everywhere worldwide, and then other food consumption could be purely for enjoyment. There are always people who scream "dystopia!" every time a new technology arrives. That seems very pessimistic.
- fleitz 13y ago
  This is a very progressive idea, lets add housing to that, so that everyone will have a place to stay, something to eat and something to do. I can see the large halls feeding the masses, I've even heard tale of a boy named Oliver who wants even more soylent it's so delicious.
- stinkytaco 13y ago
  >it could put humanity in a position to provide a balanced nutrition as a fundamental human right, delivered right to your doorstep by USPS. If the economics worked out it could be provided everywhere worldwide, and then other food consumption could be purely for enjoyment. So... why not just do that with the food we've got? Drop a few packages of surplus food on the doorsteps of some African countries and call it good? The thing is, there is enough food to feed the world. The Western world has way too much of it and lots of the rest of the world has too little of it. Hell, even within the western world there's too much and too little at the same time within the same square mile. The issue is not balanced nutrition, it's making the economics work out, which they do not and never have. What this may solve is a distribution problem. Some of the food problem in major US cities is lack of access to grocery stores that sell real food. Soylent could be stocked in the convenience stores those areas have access to.
  - thaumasiotes 13y ago
    > Some of the food problem in major US cities is lack of access to grocery stores that sell real food. Assumed without evidence. http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1106078 http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=11060... From the conclusion to the paper: > In our longitudinal study, neighborhood supermarket availability was generally unrelated to both adherence to fruit and vegetable recommendations and overall diet quality (reflecting compliance with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans). They do claim that the paper supports zoning restrictions on fast food restaurants, because of their finding that among men, greater availability of fast food cooccurs with greater consumption of fast food. Among women, not even that.
- justin66 13y ago
  The interchangeability of dystopias and utopias is sometimes a theme in SF. A lot of it is based on perception. > Or... it could put humanity in a position to provide a balanced nutrition as a fundamental human right, delivered right to your doorstep by USPS. The notion of using this glop as a permanent solution to fix hunger (someplace the USPS delivers!!!) - well, the fact that anyone would seriously entertain it - is so sad to me that it's hard to articulate. So, classic utopia/dystopia material, I guess.
fleitz 13y ago
Exactly, this will be a huge hit for quantified self people who want to reduce their existence down to a spreadsheet.
lowboy 13y ago
Going on a Soylent diet doesn't mean that you'll be a cog or that your vision of the future will come to pass. Granted, I too am terrified of that future coming to pass, but it doesn't follow from increased Soylent consumpion.
freyrs3 13y ago
Yes, the whole problem with the marketing hype is thinking about this product in terms of this all or nothing "disrupt the food industry" mentality. It might turn out to be a company producing a slightly more economical meal replacement shake that you can down a couple days in place of breakfast, but at the end of the day thats really all. There's nothing new to see here.
cobrausn 13y ago
All I can think of when I see it is "Man, I thought the future was supposed to be awesome. Where is my engineered to be delicious lab grown steak? I get Soylent? This is not awesome." Given, as long as I'm not being force fed the stuff as a government ration, I don't really see it as a problem, I just get sad when I see it marketed as 'future food'.
gtaylor 13y ago
There are also those of us that derive no joy from eating. Eating is an inconvenience to me. I have zero sweet tooth, and I don't have many cravings for specific foods. I'd rather be doing any number of other things, like reading, working out, yard/car work, calling up family, etc. I work for myself (and work reasonable hours). Of course, all of this anecdotal, but the point is that this isn't a dystopia scenario for all of us. Having an incredibly convenient/healthy option would be outstanding for me personally. I suspect that people like me may represent a much smaller percentage of the population. I want to be healthy, but I hate shopping for and preparing food to the point where I sometimes don't eat as well as I should. With that said, I wouldn't wish my food indifference on other people. I could see how it'd be spooky to see this kind of living being forced on people. It's probably a bit premature to worry about this just yet, though. Soylent and other similar products are still so polarizing that it's hard to imagine them taking over in the near future.
- yuvadam 13y ago
  I accept that fact that some people like yourself find a product such as Soylent to be convenient, and I am in no position to criticize such personal choices. But there are lots of existing products on the market, that have been available for quite some time now, everything from nutrition shakes to complete food replacements for people with chronic diseases (Crohn's, IBS, etc...), and Soylent seems to be more of the same, sans the actual clinical testing and trials that guarantee the safety of such products (and with the added Silicon Valley hype, of course.)
  - soperj 13y ago
    I broke my jaw twice and had to subsist on this stuff for 2 months at a time. It just plain sucks, and after 2 months of not chewing your teeth feel soft, and everything hurts when you do (eventually) chew. Also lost weight really quickly, went from 183 to 127 in 2 months.
    - w1ntermute 13y ago
      I recall reading that it's recommended that you chew gum if you are on Soylent, in order to offset the effects of not chewing.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- aianus 13y ago
  That's only because urban housing and infrastructure is largely a zero-sum game. If you want to live in a house in San Francisco you have to outbid all the other rich people who want to live in a house in San Francisco. It's totally possible right now to raise a family on a single income working remotely with a better than 1950's quality of life. Unfortunately, you'd have to move somewhere outside the first world which very few people are willing to do because they're caught up in a never-ending race to out-compete and out-consume their peers.
tolmasky 13y ago
Its funny because we already live in this dystopia and you simply don't notice it because the plastic food we eat "looks real" and "tastes good". What is the difference between the completely artificial hamburger people get at McDonalds and Soylent? The fact that its basically "molded" to look like the real food we used to eat? The reality is that we long ago crossed the line into having a society that mostly eats absolutely garbage and artificial food. This is not some future prospect, it is today, and we regularly see (and ignore) the disastrous medical results. This is of course perpetuated by a government that pushes a purely political nutritional agenda (let's tell everyone carbohydrates are the most important staple to eat and let's put corn and sugar in everything for economic reasons and let's also hope no one notices that fiber has mysteriously disappeared from our diets). At least Soylent is trying to harness this machine for good. A world where "the cogs" at least receive proper nutrition would be a step up from today's illusion of choice.
- derleth 13y ago
  > the completely artificial hamburger people get at McDonalds Define 'completely artificial' here. It's meat, it's bread, it's vegetables and condiments.
  - ramy_d 13y ago
    you are very generous with what you call meat, bread, and vegetables.
    - crygin 13y ago
      Can you clarify the definitions of those terms that you'd prefer to use, which exclude the products on a McDonald's hamburger?
  - tolmasky 13y ago
    There's a difference between "meat", and grain-fed, antibiotic treated cow meat. And last time I made bread, it didn't magically develop high fructose corn syrup or ammonium chloride, and yet, somehow it appears in the "bread" of a McDonalds hamburger. It goes without saying that the condiments are more or less by definition artificial processed foods. And let's not even get into the amount of sodium in this thing. You'll also notice there's basically no fiber in this thing (that's why it lasts so long). Define "completely artificial"? At least as artificial as Soylent.
sillysaurus2 13y ago
humanoids who continue the endless pursuit of some vague promise of capitalist fulfillment (work hard, be rich, be happy), ignoring the fact that the direct opposite of such a lifestyle leads to a much more healthier, happier life which remains in touch with our basic, primal human existence. You'd enjoy the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/zen-motorcycle.pdf http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/zen-motorcycle.pd...
- yuvadam 13y ago
  I enjoyed it much :)
hokkos 13y ago
The Soylent guy keep mentioning that current food system will not scale, but gives no evidence that his system will. It appears to be very wasteful to grow or synthesize each components in their original form, separate them and then finally mix them, compared to naturally occurring food.
- Afforess 13y ago
  Current agricultural practices are highly unsustainable. We are mere decades to depleting all groundwater aquifers in North America. Fertilizer pollutes most waterways. Pesticides are seeping into most groundwater in the central US. And you think we should scale our processes larger? Insanity.
  - genwin 13y ago
    Does Soylent not contribute to those same problems?
dpapathanasiou 13y ago
Not to worry, the last two paragraphs explain why it won't take over the world: "I was euphoric. I felt the endorphins rushing through my body, the gob of chicken skin wandering down my esophagus, the juices staining my chin. Rob, who'd joined us, led a conversation about the food technology; the chicken was sublime. Before long, I might as well have been stoned. For a half an hour, I sat there, overwhelmed, unaware of any foodless world outside my brain." "For a few minutes, the future didn’t matter; the taste, the the swirling talk took over. The food anchored me to the glorious present, and eating was all."
- nsxwolf 13y ago
  This is how food is supposed to make you feel. It's as basic and primal as sex. Soylent is like a culinary celibacy, apparently without any sort of spiritual edification.
fredsters_s 13y ago
It's a false assertion that Soylent prescribes this dystopian future. It's about replacing TRANSACTIONAL eating. Not ALL eating. Fairly simple you'd think, yet this is the main point that all the detractors seem to have... and it's not something that Soylent is pushing at all.
Tehnix 13y ago
>Soylent is doing nothing more than accommodating to the needs of humanoids who continue the endless pursuit of some vague promise of capitalist fulfillment Or, I'm just really lazy and would prefer something remotely healthy and cheap compared to, say, ordering a pizza. It isn't meant to replace all your food intake, but, it seems like a good thing for when-you-just-don't-feel-like-cooking or don't have time because you have other things you'd rather do, then spend time cooking and eating (don't get me wrong though, I very much enjoy eating).. As a student, this seems like a super product for someone like me...
smsm42 13y ago
Basic, primal existence means no dental care and death of the first sufficiently strong infection. As somebody who would be dead at least 4 times already without modern medicine (nothing special, a bunch of inflammatory diseases, appendectomy, etc.), I'm not buying the joys of primal existence. That doesn't mean I'm ready to give up my juicy steak for a glass of beige sludge, but I still love my civilization. And yes, "organic" as currently practiced is definitely not scalable, as it is mainly consists of removing scaling improvements, like using chemicals to defeat pests. You can allow pests to eat 30% of your crop if you sell it at 50% higher price point. But if you need to produce more and cheaper, it no longer works. As niche market, it is fine, as main food producer - I believe it when I see it.

by yuvadam 13y ago

beambot 13y ago

Or... it could put humanity in a position to provide a balanced nutrition as a fundamental human right, delivered right to your doorstep by USPS. If the economics worked out it could be provided everywhere worldwide, and then other food consumption could be purely for enjoyment. There are always people who scream "dystopia!" every time a new technology arrives. That seems very pessimistic.

fleitz 13y ago
This is a very progressive idea, lets add housing to that, so that everyone will have a place to stay, something to eat and something to do. I can see the large halls feeding the masses, I've even heard tale of a boy named Oliver who wants even more soylent it's so delicious.
stinkytaco 13y ago
>it could put humanity in a position to provide a balanced nutrition as a fundamental human right, delivered right to your doorstep by USPS. If the economics worked out it could be provided everywhere worldwide, and then other food consumption could be purely for enjoyment. So... why not just do that with the food we've got? Drop a few packages of surplus food on the doorsteps of some African countries and call it good? The thing is, there is enough food to feed the world. The Western world has way too much of it and lots of the rest of the world has too little of it. Hell, even within the western world there's too much and too little at the same time within the same square mile. The issue is not balanced nutrition, it's making the economics work out, which they do not and never have. What this may solve is a distribution problem. Some of the food problem in major US cities is lack of access to grocery stores that sell real food. Soylent could be stocked in the convenience stores those areas have access to.
- thaumasiotes 13y ago
  > Some of the food problem in major US cities is lack of access to grocery stores that sell real food. Assumed without evidence. http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1106078 http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=11060... From the conclusion to the paper: > In our longitudinal study, neighborhood supermarket availability was generally unrelated to both adherence to fruit and vegetable recommendations and overall diet quality (reflecting compliance with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans). They do claim that the paper supports zoning restrictions on fast food restaurants, because of their finding that among men, greater availability of fast food cooccurs with greater consumption of fast food. Among women, not even that.
justin66 13y ago
The interchangeability of dystopias and utopias is sometimes a theme in SF. A lot of it is based on perception. > Or... it could put humanity in a position to provide a balanced nutrition as a fundamental human right, delivered right to your doorstep by USPS. The notion of using this glop as a permanent solution to fix hunger (someplace the USPS delivers!!!) - well, the fact that anyone would seriously entertain it - is so sad to me that it's hard to articulate. So, classic utopia/dystopia material, I guess.

fleitz 13y ago

Exactly, this will be a huge hit for quantified self people who want to reduce their existence down to a spreadsheet.

lowboy 13y ago

Going on a Soylent diet doesn't mean that you'll be a cog or that your vision of the future will come to pass. Granted, I too am terrified of that future coming to pass, but it doesn't follow from increased Soylent consumpion.

freyrs3 13y ago

Yes, the whole problem with the marketing hype is thinking about this product in terms of this all or nothing "disrupt the food industry" mentality. It might turn out to be a company producing a slightly more economical meal replacement shake that you can down a couple days in place of breakfast, but at the end of the day thats really all. There's nothing new to see here.

cobrausn 13y ago

All I can think of when I see it is "Man, I thought the future was supposed to be awesome. Where is my engineered to be delicious lab grown steak? I get Soylent? This is not awesome." Given, as long as I'm not being force fed the stuff as a government ration, I don't really see it as a problem, I just get sad when I see it marketed as 'future food'.

gtaylor 13y ago

There are also those of us that derive no joy from eating. Eating is an inconvenience to me. I have zero sweet tooth, and I don't have many cravings for specific foods. I'd rather be doing any number of other things, like reading, working out, yard/car work, calling up family, etc. I work for myself (and work reasonable hours). Of course, all of this anecdotal, but the point is that this isn't a dystopia scenario for all of us. Having an incredibly convenient/healthy option would be outstanding for me personally. I suspect that people like me may represent a much smaller percentage of the population. I want to be healthy, but I hate shopping for and preparing food to the point where I sometimes don't eat as well as I should. With that said, I wouldn't wish my food indifference on other people. I could see how it'd be spooky to see this kind of living being forced on people. It's probably a bit premature to worry about this just yet, though. Soylent and other similar products are still so polarizing that it's hard to imagine them taking over in the near future.

yuvadam 13y ago
I accept that fact that some people like yourself find a product such as Soylent to be convenient, and I am in no position to criticize such personal choices. But there are lots of existing products on the market, that have been available for quite some time now, everything from nutrition shakes to complete food replacements for people with chronic diseases (Crohn's, IBS, etc...), and Soylent seems to be more of the same, sans the actual clinical testing and trials that guarantee the safety of such products (and with the added Silicon Valley hype, of course.)
- soperj 13y ago
  I broke my jaw twice and had to subsist on this stuff for 2 months at a time. It just plain sucks, and after 2 months of not chewing your teeth feel soft, and everything hurts when you do (eventually) chew. Also lost weight really quickly, went from 183 to 127 in 2 months.
  - w1ntermute 13y ago
    I recall reading that it's recommended that you chew gum if you are on Soylent, in order to offset the effects of not chewing.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

aianus 13y ago
That's only because urban housing and infrastructure is largely a zero-sum game. If you want to live in a house in San Francisco you have to outbid all the other rich people who want to live in a house in San Francisco. It's totally possible right now to raise a family on a single income working remotely with a better than 1950's quality of life. Unfortunately, you'd have to move somewhere outside the first world which very few people are willing to do because they're caught up in a never-ending race to out-compete and out-consume their peers.

tolmasky 13y ago

Its funny because we already live in this dystopia and you simply don't notice it because the plastic food we eat "looks real" and "tastes good". What is the difference between the completely artificial hamburger people get at McDonalds and Soylent? The fact that its basically "molded" to look like the real food we used to eat? The reality is that we long ago crossed the line into having a society that mostly eats absolutely garbage and artificial food. This is not some future prospect, it is today, and we regularly see (and ignore) the disastrous medical results. This is of course perpetuated by a government that pushes a purely political nutritional agenda (let's tell everyone carbohydrates are the most important staple to eat and let's put corn and sugar in everything for economic reasons and let's also hope no one notices that fiber has mysteriously disappeared from our diets). At least Soylent is trying to harness this machine for good. A world where "the cogs" at least receive proper nutrition would be a step up from today's illusion of choice.

derleth 13y ago
> the completely artificial hamburger people get at McDonalds Define 'completely artificial' here. It's meat, it's bread, it's vegetables and condiments.
- ramy_d 13y ago
  you are very generous with what you call meat, bread, and vegetables.
  - crygin 13y ago
    Can you clarify the definitions of those terms that you'd prefer to use, which exclude the products on a McDonald's hamburger?
- tolmasky 13y ago
  There's a difference between "meat", and grain-fed, antibiotic treated cow meat. And last time I made bread, it didn't magically develop high fructose corn syrup or ammonium chloride, and yet, somehow it appears in the "bread" of a McDonalds hamburger. It goes without saying that the condiments are more or less by definition artificial processed foods. And let's not even get into the amount of sodium in this thing. You'll also notice there's basically no fiber in this thing (that's why it lasts so long). Define "completely artificial"? At least as artificial as Soylent.

sillysaurus2 13y ago

humanoids who continue the endless pursuit of some vague promise of capitalist fulfillment (work hard, be rich, be happy), ignoring the fact that the direct opposite of such a lifestyle leads to a much more healthier, happier life which remains in touch with our basic, primal human existence. You'd enjoy the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/zen-motorcycle.pdf http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/zen-motorcycle.pd...

yuvadam 13y ago
I enjoyed it much :)

hokkos 13y ago

The Soylent guy keep mentioning that current food system will not scale, but gives no evidence that his system will. It appears to be very wasteful to grow or synthesize each components in their original form, separate them and then finally mix them, compared to naturally occurring food.

Afforess 13y ago
Current agricultural practices are highly unsustainable. We are mere decades to depleting all groundwater aquifers in North America. Fertilizer pollutes most waterways. Pesticides are seeping into most groundwater in the central US. And you think we should scale our processes larger? Insanity.
- genwin 13y ago
  Does Soylent not contribute to those same problems?

dpapathanasiou 13y ago

Not to worry, the last two paragraphs explain why it won't take over the world: "I was euphoric. I felt the endorphins rushing through my body, the gob of chicken skin wandering down my esophagus, the juices staining my chin. Rob, who'd joined us, led a conversation about the food technology; the chicken was sublime. Before long, I might as well have been stoned. For a half an hour, I sat there, overwhelmed, unaware of any foodless world outside my brain." "For a few minutes, the future didn’t matter; the taste, the the swirling talk took over. The food anchored me to the glorious present, and eating was all."

nsxwolf 13y ago
This is how food is supposed to make you feel. It's as basic and primal as sex. Soylent is like a culinary celibacy, apparently without any sort of spiritual edification.

fredsters_s 13y ago

It's a false assertion that Soylent prescribes this dystopian future. It's about replacing TRANSACTIONAL eating. Not ALL eating. Fairly simple you'd think, yet this is the main point that all the detractors seem to have... and it's not something that Soylent is pushing at all.

Tehnix 13y ago

>Soylent is doing nothing more than accommodating to the needs of humanoids who continue the endless pursuit of some vague promise of capitalist fulfillment Or, I'm just really lazy and would prefer something remotely healthy and cheap compared to, say, ordering a pizza. It isn't meant to replace all your food intake, but, it seems like a good thing for when-you-just-don't-feel-like-cooking or don't have time because you have other things you'd rather do, then spend time cooking and eating (don't get me wrong though, I very much enjoy eating).. As a student, this seems like a super product for someone like me...

smsm42 13y ago

Basic, primal existence means no dental care and death of the first sufficiently strong infection. As somebody who would be dead at least 4 times already without modern medicine (nothing special, a bunch of inflammatory diseases, appendectomy, etc.), I'm not buying the joys of primal existence. That doesn't mean I'm ready to give up my juicy steak for a glass of beige sludge, but I still love my civilization. And yes, "organic" as currently practiced is definitely not scalable, as it is mainly consists of removing scaling improvements, like using chemicals to defeat pests. You can allow pests to eat 30% of your crop if you sell it at 50% higher price point. But if you need to produce more and cheaper, it no longer works. As niche market, it is fine, as main food producer - I believe it when I see it.