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Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick

latimes.com

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

#521

Post by baldfat »

mtberatwork wrote: post #510
arvinjoar wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Deferring to experts is a poor substitute for thinking for yourself. Not deferring to experts when you posses surface level knowledge (or less) of a subject is a sure-fire way to shoot yourself in the foot.

He is just being a cynic thinking he is a intellectual skeptic.

Cynic : Cynics are distrustful of any advice or information that they do not agree with themselves. Cynics do not accept any claim that challenges their belief system.

"Being skeptical, not cynical, helps us in forming beliefs that are in agreement with evidence."

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2011/02/08/im-a-skepti...

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

#523

Post by htns »

SquareWheel wrote: post #483
htns wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This appears to have absolutely nothing to do with nutrition. It's contamination. People are getting sick hours after eating.

"Our tests all came back negative for food pathogens, toxins or outside contamination." http://blog.soylent.com/post/152400464282/soylent-bar-powder...

Yeah I saw that. That just shows the test were unhelpful, in a direct sense. They might not even have any contaminated batches left.

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

#524

Post by harpiaharpyja »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #380
NumberCruncher wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not think so. The statement that keto is the best diet even if it causes rectal bleeding sounds reasonable to me [source: HN]. I go now and take a fat-shake. Cheers!

I was on keto. It worked. No rectal bleeding. I also didn't die of various stuff I was supposed to. I'm close to getting jailed though, because I fear that at some point I'll break and punch the next person who tells me that artificial sweeteners cause cancer.

They can cause neuronal damage through excitotoxicity [0][1]. I've never heard of keto before, but I would be wary of aspartame and MSG.

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7854587

[1] http://americannutritionassociation.org/newsletter/review-ex...

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

#525

Post by tpeo »

arvinjoar wrote: post #499
n72 wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There's a difference between "thinking for yourself" and "uncritically discouting past work". And that's the difference between asking yourself whether power poses really work and and coming in kicking doors, yelling that psychology is bullshit. First one is engaging in very much reasonable level of critical thought, whereas the second is just thinking "Dunning-Kruger is okay, when I do it".

On a side note, I don't quite get what Elon Musk has to do with this. Isn't hea millionaire paying big bucks for expert engineering talent to put his rockets up in the air?

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

#526

Post by DanBC »

mcv wrote: post #520
DanBC wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why don't people understand? > It's not [...] b) supposed to replace all meals. That's not how it was advertised during launch and the kickstarter. It was heavily pushed as a sole source of nutrition. People are only repeating what Soylent said.

I think the point was that it could, but doesn't have to, replace all meals.

So, Soylent push it as a sole source of nutrition, and some people use it as such, but then when there are problems people say "but you shouldn't do that", even though most of the people experiencing the problems aren't doing that and even though it's something pushed as possible by Soylent.

If you can use Soylent as a sole source of nutrition there shouldn't be anyone in this thread saying that Soylent is never meant to be used as a sole source of nutrition.

If you can't use it as such then Soylent have been irresponsible in their marketing (although they have toned it down a bit).

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

#527

Post by tomp »

stomato wrote: post #509
arvinjoar wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Take Elon Musk as the most successful example. Deferring to experts is a poor substitute for thinking for yourself. I'm not sure what you mean. Elon Musk is an extremely purpose-driven, incredibly intelligent person in addition to being successful. From wikipedia: 'He is the founder, CEO, and CTO of SpaceX; co-founder, CEO, and product architect of Tesla Motors; co-founder and chairman of SolarCity; co-chairman of…

S/he means that Elon Musk set up a rocket company and a car/battery company, without previously being an expert in either of these things. Sure, he became an expert by learning, but he also noticed and used many things that earlier experts have missed.

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

#528

Post by mcv »

warfangle wrote: post #140
djsumdog wrote: post #11

I'm really amazed by all the supporters on here. When I first heard about Soylent, I thought it was a terrible terrible idea. I mean, there's so much to food. It's not just eating it, it's all the flavours and ingredients and cooking with friends and loved ones and parties and such. I'm guessing most people on here use it as a supplement + regular food, but when I saw it originally, it seemed like it was intended to…

I'm still curious why the soylent thing has hit it off in the HN crowd and not, say, Slimfast. Which is basically the same thing but with more production hardening. Maybe fragile masculinity? IDK.

Is Slimfast the same thing? It sounds like it's specifically meant to lose weight, which suggests it has a different purpose, and possibly a different composition, than Soylent does.

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

#529

Post by ebbv »

arvinjoar wrote: post #499
n72 wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yes I love how Elon doesn't hire rocket engineers and scientists or consult with NASA. Oh wait he does those things.

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

#530

Post by metaphorm »

elcct wrote: post #296
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…

There really must be a law for everything? That's a slave mentality right there.

there really IS a law about food safety, because, you know, selling unsafe food can result in mass-scale sickness and death.
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