Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

491–500 of 1001 posts

Re: Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick

#491

Post by Artoemius »

n72 wrote: post #477
slg wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the biggest flaws of the tech industry is the belief that being a tech expert is enough to disrupt other industries in which they don't have any expertise. Sometimes they get lucky and it works despite something like Uber's or Airbnb's total ignorance of the law. Sometimes it fails like with numerous cryptocurrency companies relearning why the finance industry has so many dang regulations. Seems like Soylent i…

The founder of Soylent clearly believes he's an expert in many, many fields: http://robrhinehart.com/?p=1331 BTW, anyone know a good word for this attitude? I wouldn't call it hybris, though it's closely related. It's a mix of arrogance, over confidence, ignorance, plus more and very prevalent in SV.

This was a fun read, and I found myself agreeing with him on most of the points.

I would call his attitude "confidence in his own ability to reason clearly".

Re: Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick

#492

Post by SquareWheel »

LordHumungous wrote: post #130

I'm a big fan of Michael Pollan's manifesto: Eat food . Not too much. Mostly plants. The idea being that processed foods cannot hope to match the nutritional profile found in whole foods, particularly plants. This soylent stuff is about as processed as food comes, so I'm inclined to be very skeptical of it's healthfulness.

This whole comment reads as an extreme offender of the naturalist fallacy. Being "from nature" doesn't give something a special health aura. Food is food, regardless of the source.

This is particularly ironic as Soylent, like many "processed foods", actually comes from plant products.

Re: Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick

#493

Post by OilDerek »

gohrt wrote: post #354
Matachines wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time Soylent is on HN people say this. Why don't people understand? It's so simple: Soylent is for meals you don't care about but need. It's not a) the ONLY food you can eat or b) supposed to replace all meals. I order a box of Soylent bottles every few weeks—they come in handy while working or for a quick breakfast or if I have little time and am hungry. I also cook meals with my girlfriend a few times a week…

Why do you buy Soylent instead of Ensure? https://ensure.com/nutrition-products/protein-shakes-healthy... Is it cheaper? More complete? Dehydrated?

It seems like the answer to this and similar questions on here, which is Soylent's true "innovation" in my estimation, is that Soylent is the first meal replacement with young men as a target market. Meal replacements are pretty convenient, but if you're an 18-25 y.o. man I have a feeling there's a nonzero level of stigma (real or just feared) associated with drinking SlimFast ("women's drink") or Ensure ("old people drink") all the time. Before now all there was for young people were protein shakes + multivitamin, which is also possibly too associated with bodybuilding/gym rats for comfort for some people.

But if you're a young man drinking Soylent, this hip new VC-backed tech fuel drink, it occupies a similar mental association space to Red Bull. I can't help just seeing it as a marketing thing.

Re: Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick

#494

Post by AimHere »

Well actual food value was only a secondary feature of Soylent's product anyways, as witnessed by customers still happily supporting a food company that makes tasteless gunk that makes people ill.

The primary selling point was that it allowed the customers to pretend (at least to themselves, if not to anyone else) that they were too busy even to eat food. If you're THAT busy, you must be an important, happening guy, or gal, right?

It's one fun facet of the bizarre, upside-down culture in certain parts of the developed world, where work, followed by perhaps housing, are people's primary status symbols. The 21st century really needs an update of 'Theory of the Leisure Class'.

Re: Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick

#495

Post by rebeccaskinner »

laksjd wrote: post #385
JanezStupar wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A contract you had no participation in drafting and never signed, yet you are compelled at gunpoint to uphold it. Nice spin tho.

As a minor, your parents decided for you, but once you're 18 nothing is stopping you from either trying to re-negotiate the contract (i.e. become politically active) or trying to find a better deal (emigrate). You can also decide to simply unilaterally break the contract (become a criminal) and in practice you could even live without such a contract in a variety of vast areas that are largely uninhabited. You're not…

You're right that nothing is stopping you from trying to become politically active or to emigrate, but the chances of doing either successfully are very low.

Politics favors people of certain backgrounds and/or very high charisma. The more substantial the change the higher the level of politics you need to get involved in, and the less likely you are to successfully be involved.

Emigration suffers from the problem that the less money and education you have, the more difficult it is to successfully emigrate. You can't just decide you want to move to a country, they need to decide to let you in. The bar for entry in a lot of countries is very high so it's just not an option for a lot of people.

Re: Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick

#496

Post by kelseydh »

tedmielczarek wrote: post #452
kelseydh wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A cautionary tale that produces a fast-growing company now worth at least $100 million dollars? I'll take it.

Silicon Valley is littered with the corpses of overvalued cautionary tales.

The real measure of success is whether the company becomes a cautionary tale before or after its exit. Just ask Marc Cuban.

Re: Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick

#497

Post by webscaleizfun »

nemo44x wrote: post #44

A well cooked meal and wine - my greatest joys in life. Simple, romantic and fulfilling. Add butter. Add cream. A beautiful pan sauce from a well timed reduction. A cool glass of white wine in the hot kitchen as all the flavors come together. The scent of fresh cut shallots still lingering as the garlic in the pan sweats. I don't judge anyone for making food and drink a footnote in their life. I enjoy cooking as much…

Now, your gonna probably call me crazy, but take a bottle of cheap wine and throw it in the blender before ya drink it, failing that, a mixmaster works too. Completely changes the complexion of the wine when you do this, generally makes it quite a bit better.

Re: Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick

#498

Post by markatkinson »

Taek wrote: post #294
blub wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At that effort level I was hoping you're working on curing a disease or at least something more important than the cloud. :-/

I'm honored that you dug into it. I'm working on decentralization, which I think is a very socially important goal. The cloud is not my ultimate objective, but it's one of the very few short term use cases I see where a decentralized system seems to have the potential to utterly dominate a centralized one. Decentralized tech is very new. It's very hopium, and it's very poorly understood, both by zealots and by non-be…

Hari Seldon of decentralization, I tip my hat.

Re: Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick

#499

Post by arvinjoar »

n72 wrote: post #477
slg wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the biggest flaws of the tech industry is the belief that being a tech expert is enough to disrupt other industries in which they don't have any expertise. Sometimes they get lucky and it works despite something like Uber's or Airbnb's total ignorance of the law. Sometimes it fails like with numerous cryptocurrency companies relearning why the finance industry has so many dang regulations. Seems like Soylent i…

The founder of Soylent clearly believes he's an expert in many, many fields: http://robrhinehart.com/?p=1331 BTW, anyone know a good word for this attitude? I wouldn't call it hybris, though it's closely related. It's a mix of arrogance, over confidence, ignorance, plus more and very prevalent in SV.

It's not a bad attitude though.

Experts with authority granted to them in the form of titles have failed us, and keep failing us in so many areas. Ranging from nutrition to psychology, we really shouldn't put their work on a pedestal. Techies are a smart bunch on average and can stomach a lot more complexity than the average joe. It makes sense for them to try to pick up stuff outside of their line of work.

Take Elon Musk as the most successful example. Deferring to experts is a poor substitute for thinking for yourself.

Re: Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick

#500

Post by nomoch »

Meegul wrote: post #136
throwaway101416 wrote: post #102

I had hemorrhoids that would flair up from soy/almond milk or large quantities of corn chips. However, I never had blood loss and it was mostly gone by the time I tried Soylent. After having one drink made with powder version 1.2 or 1.3, I lost about a liter of blood and couldn't move or work on anything that week. Had to switch to yogurt for a month to eat normally again. I think it has to do with jagged precipitate…

What do you mean by unnatural? What is in Soylent that isn't natural ? Food in and of itself is just a mix of different chemicals - be they from plants, animals, or other sources. But at the end of the day, a molecule of glucose from a plant is identical to a molecule of glucose created synthetically.

OP shat a litre of blood. That seems a pretty unnatural reaction to food.
Post reply on HN