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Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick

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

#691

Post by bigchewy »

DavidHm wrote: post #673
dankohn1 wrote: post #633

Just a quick counterargument from a regular Soylent consumer: I drink a coffiest for breakfast every morning and drink two liquid Soylents on days when I don't have time for a nice lunch or dinner. It's convenient, healthy and tastes good. I've never had any intestinal troubles. I use it as a meal replacement, not a complete food replacement. It sucks that they included this ingredient in their powder and bars that h…

When we make mistakes in making a website, people get frustrated. When we make mistakes in food, people die. Not every industry can accept the "move fast and break things" mantra.

well, sorry to say this but healthcare operates in a way that puts individuals at risk for the benefit of moving medicine forward. For example, surgeons tend to be at at their prime in their early to mid 40s. Getting operated on by a typical 35 year old is flat out dangerous, statistically speaking, but we allow it because to get better, people have to practice their craft.

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

#692

Post by epalmer »

eriknstr wrote: post #504
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.

At least he's been eating his own product almost exclusively when at home according to that blog post. This gave me a positive impression at the start of the blog post and I was agreeing with what he said initially, but then it went downhill. I would not want to get rid of my kitchen and I would absolutely never replace my food with Soylent, especially now that I've heard of all the people getting sick from it. Also,…

I love grocery shopping and cooking. It provides mental relief from the day's grind. The sites and sounds at a good grocery store are stimulating. Wegmans comes to mind.

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

#693

Post by ajamesm »

anon4711 wrote: post #690
3pt14159 wrote: post #681

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we have made surgery mistakes along the way. We have made food mistakes along the way. And drug mistakes, and flight mistakes, and war mistakes. It hurts to get better. But it should also hurt the companies making the mistakes themselves, and for companies that make things like food and drugs there should be balanced regulations. Iteration should happen on small scales, but licenses and inspections should be enfo…

Comparing this with surgery is not fair, I think. Here (with a food like soylent) the gains are low and the risks are high. With surgery, the risks are high but so are the gains. Before you go into surgery you're given a list of 10 ways you might die if something goes wrong. Oftentimes, though, the alternative is certain death (in the very near future). Edit: I was replying to "But we have made surgery mistakes along…

> the gains are low

bruh

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

#694

Post by baldfat »

arvinjoar wrote: post #541
baldfat wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

That's quite a conclusion, given so little data. Priors may vary I guess.

No their was plenty of data. I run into cynics all the time that just doubts everything "Experts" says and their arguments are not about the actual data or implementation of the data.

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

#695

Post by nilkn »

ericdykstra wrote: post #245

I personally avoid "new" food and "meal replacements" in general, because they look like garbage in a bar/mix sold by a profit-seeking company with their own best interests at heart. The only difference between Soylent and Coca Cola or other junk food is that Soylent promises time/convenience, Coca Cola promises happiness, and most other junk food relies on appealing to its taste or popularity. I'd be happy to be wro…

Comparing Soylent to soda just because both companies seek to make a profit seems very disingenuous (every company selling you food of any kind seeks to make a profit). It's fine to be on the critical side, but this feels more like completely writing off the very idea rather than just being critical.

You're basically defining from the outset, prior to any real consideration, that Soylent is "junk food", despite its nutritional and taste profiles being wildly different from that of any junk food I've ever seen. When you start from such an assumption, you effectively shut down your ability to reason about this new thing in any meaningful way; you will always be inexorably led back to your own premature conclusion.

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

#696

Post by jly »

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 guy is obviously smart and has some interesting ideas, but unfortunately a lot of them are very disagreeable to most people. I could barely get past his rant against having a kitchen and using retail stores.

I have nothing wrong with a meal replacement like soylent (and the many other products that are basically the same thing on the market), but his ideas and his motivation behind it are disturbing. I'm all for optimization but this isn't the kind of world I would want to live in.

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

#697

Post by arcadeparade »

eriknstr wrote: post #504
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.

At least he's been eating his own product almost exclusively when at home according to that blog post. This gave me a positive impression at the start of the blog post and I was agreeing with what he said initially, but then it went downhill. I would not want to get rid of my kitchen and I would absolutely never replace my food with Soylent, especially now that I've heard of all the people getting sick from it. Also,…

The prion disease rumours circulating on Twitter about Soylent are really disturbing.

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

#698

Post by cyphar »

delecti wrote: post #624
DanBC wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many cats and dogs will eat the same food source almost exclusively for most of their lives without any ill effect. Where "without any ill effect" includes tooth decay, obesity, and death from kidney damage among others.

Certainly not all cats and dogs experience all of those things. All you've done is highlighted the possibility for a nutritionally unsuitable meal source. Obviously it's possible to construct a food which does not meet our nutritional needs, many Americans have managed that themselves. That does not however dismiss the existence of pets which live long and healthy lives, or the possibility of an analogous fodo source…

Pets that live long and healthy lives do not eat a single form of "kibble". Obesity and health problems in pets is a very well known issue (talk to any vet and they'll tell you all about it) and it's mostly due to overfeeding by owners and not enough variety in diet. Doesn't that sound eerily familiar to the problems with human food consumption?

There are so many health problems in the tech industry, why are we creating more and making businesses out of it?

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

#699

Post by TallGuyShort »

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.

Judging by many of the comments on here that think the problem has been obvious all along, I'd call it Hacker News Syndrome.

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

#700

Post by codezero »

blondie9x wrote: post #689

I unfortunately gave up Soylent when it was found to contain high levels of carcinogenic heavy metals. I believe they found it had 10-25x the minimum amount to be considered carcinogenic for arsenic, cadmium, and lead. It's a good idea to make a product that could reduce meat consumption and food waste while helping the environment but maybe this isn't the best way? Maybe helping people and corporations better manage…

Yikes! Where is a write up with these findings if you have one handy. Otherwise I'm off to Google!

Found one: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/08/watchdog-group-says-s...

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