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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

#731

Post by abm2205 »

uryga wrote: post #714
welanes wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> BTW, anyone know a good word for this attitude? Got you, brah - Dilettantism: a person having a superficial interest in an art or field of knowledge without investing the usually required effort. See also: dabbler .

not trying to make a fuss out of it, but i feel like using "brah" - assuming the users gender - is something we should try to avoid. unless you know the poster, in that case disregard this.

not trying to make a fuss out of it, but i feel like assuming the users use of "brah" is gendered is something we should try to avoid. unless you know the poster, in that case disregard this.

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

#732

Post by dazmax »

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.

When Soylent was first announced but wasn't available yet, it struck me as something I'd like so I tried Slimfast (and Ensure).

Had to drink a lot to get enough energy and it was way too sugary and sweet – it gave me the sick feeling I get when I have only donuts or something for breakfast. The sugar free version tasted too much of aspartame.

I'd be happy to try something else with the same sweetness balance of Soylent if you have a suggestion.

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

#733

Post by livingparadox »

harveywi wrote: post #626
ghaff wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone marketed this type of product as a reasonably nutritious meal on the go as an alternative to grabbing a Big Mac or a soggy slice of pizza, it would be utterly unobjectionable--and no one would pay it the slightest mind. So instead we get this narrative around meal replacement for Silicon Valley types who are too busy advancing Western civilization with a Facebook for Farmers to have time to eat.

What's wrong with skipping a meal? (While we're on the subject, what's right about it?) Folks have been sold a solution to a problem that does not exist. Marketing and its various permutations wins again. The use case of this aptly-named "Soylent" product is a load of hooey. When the military starts using meal replacement powders instead of MREs, then I will reconsider my position on this issue.

There are soldiers that have specifically opted to use Soylent over their MREs. I haven't heard any negative feedback from the ones that did.

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

#734

Post by eth0up »

jdietrich wrote: post #202
jedberg wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think of something you have to do every day that you don't like to do. Like flossing maybe? Some people really enjoy flossing. Some people don't. If there were a device I could put in my mouth and in 30 seconds everything were flossed, I would totally do that. But some people would think, man how can you do that and take all the enjoyment out of flossing? Sometimes when I'm working, I run to the fridge, grab whatever…

Is it really so difficult to make a sandwich?

Not with sudo.

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

#735

Post by lazerpants »

harveywi wrote: post #626
ghaff wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone marketed this type of product as a reasonably nutritious meal on the go as an alternative to grabbing a Big Mac or a soggy slice of pizza, it would be utterly unobjectionable--and no one would pay it the slightest mind. So instead we get this narrative around meal replacement for Silicon Valley types who are too busy advancing Western civilization with a Facebook for Farmers to have time to eat.

What's wrong with skipping a meal? (While we're on the subject, what's right about it?) Folks have been sold a solution to a problem that does not exist. Marketing and its various permutations wins again. The use case of this aptly-named "Soylent" product is a load of hooey. When the military starts using meal replacement powders instead of MREs, then I will reconsider my position on this issue.

You really can't think of a situation in which skipping a meal (or maybe several) is the best choice to optimize someone's happiness or productivity?

Example: In my case, I don't particularly feel like cooking breakfast if I get up early to play golf or hike, and doing either while hungry is unpleasant. Soylent solves that problem, and I prefer it to Clif bars, which is what I would have used before Soylent.

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

#736

Post by thefucnjosh »

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…

It's 2016, we have Amended the Constitution so the Senate is democratically ellected, we have live video footage of police brutality for when we are abused...and yet the collective constituency of the nation has to pick between two presidential candidates with the lowest approval ratings in theirown parties that anyone has ever seen. Yet, you try and say that social contract theory applies to an individual? When it clearly can't even apply to the masses? This is the 21st century, this is most likely the best moment in human history. This is the worst evidence for social contract theory. Think about it.

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

#737

Post by arcadeparade »

lexhaynes wrote: post #711
arcadeparade wrote: post #697

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Can you elaborate on these rumors?

Read on Twitter a while ago about a guy who ate almost nothing but Soylent for two months and started getting joint pain and trembling, and was falling over a lot. Then there was a comment by someone on Reddit who started having seizures and anxiety and blamed Soylent. Seems crazy that people are just eating nothing but this stuff for months on end and not thinking about the consequences.

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

#738

Post by wcchandler »

slg wrote: post #278
Animats wrote: post #196

Soylent made such a big deal of being a "tech company", and boasted about their overdesigned web infrastructure for a business that did two transactions a minute. What they didn't have is advanced technology on the production side. They write about "sending samples out" to external labs. It's not like they had an automated lab constantly sampling their production line and posting the results to the web. There are pro…

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…

This is definitely something I'm facing. I have a pretty deep interest in farming and have a bunch of approaches for "disrupting" it. But you know what my hangups are? Penetrating the culture and getting involved with the industry. Case in point -- where's the best place to buy zoysia seeds? Amazon? eBay? Some random mom and pop place with a ecommerce page? No. The best place to go is to "Bill" who is friends of friends of friends. Who won't take cold calls. Who doesn't sell wholesale. Who only finds new customers once a year at the local fair and he only shows up after 5. For the blue ribbon ceremony on prized pigs. Why is he the best? 99.999% reliability on seeds. It's 100, but he'll never claim that. Price? 1/10th of anything I can find online.

What's rough is you can't just google this stuff. It takes knowledge and experience in these industries to know what's up. We believe we can do a lot with technology but we're going to make a lot of BAD decisions getting there.

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

#739

Post by gmarx »

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.

I kind of like "Hybris" even though I assume it was a typo.

How about "deludbertise"?

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

#740

Post by dualogy »

rjurney wrote: post #121

Soylent is a bad idea. Your body needs unidentified parts of plants that make you live a decade or more longer if you eat them every day, called phytonutrients. You're just killing yourself by eating shit, may as well eat fast food it has as many nutrients. Fuck soylent, eat a mcburger. Tastes better, same effect.

Which "phytonutrients" do you believe we need for better, healthier longevity.. I reckon you're not thinking of the highly beneficial (yet considered by many vegan quacks as non-essential) "brain" nutrients such as co-enzyme Q, B12 + D3, creatine, carnitine, carnosine and abundant-rather-than-subsistence amounts of Docosahexaenoic Acid aka DHA..

(I'll refrain from delving into the countless plant antinutrients that your body also has to counteract on a daily basis..)

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