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

Soylent Campaign

campaign.soylent.me

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

491–500 of 608 posts

Re: Soylent Campaign

#491

Post by goostavos »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #450
blhack wrote: post #369

Wow there is a lot of hate in this thread... A lot of the arguments here seem to boil down to "Much smarter people are working on this and they haven't solved it, who the hell does this KID think he is?!?" That's pretty depressing for a website that, at least originally, was to help startups talk to one another. Shame on you, hacker news. You're smarter than this. By this logic, never ever trust your data to anybody…

Except that those hippies don't raise $100k+ on the web. "Soylent is perfectly balanced and optimized for your body and lifestyle, meaning it automatically puts you at an optimal weight, makes you feel full, and improves your focus and cognition" The techniques and the wording seem snake oilish. Also, if anything those dumb hacker kids build breaks (email, web app, game) etc, they won't hurt you physically. The body…

>The techniques and the wording seem snake oilish.

You know, every time this guy's story has popped up on here I've defended him. I like that he's trying to do something big, I like that he wants to solve a very real world problem, and I like that in his blog posts and updates he phrased all of his results as personal findings needing further study.

However, this:

>>"Soylent is perfectly balanced and optimized for your body and lifestyle, meaning it automatically puts you at an optimal weight, makes you feel full, and improves your focus and cognition"

and

>>puts you in excellent health,

...This I do not like. At all. It's a massive, massive leap to go from "this is something under test," to "this is something that 100% works and will cure [insert list of ailments here]."

It's completely and wholly intellectually dishonest. It's put a sour taste in my mouth over the whole thing. It's gone from personal experiment to fund raiser and company structure in what? Five months? All of the early adopter "testimonials" sound like little more than confirmational bias rearing its head. "Oh, you bought a magnetic bracelet on the internet and you do actually have more energy now that you're wearing it!? Whoa! Amazing that it worked out exactly how you wanted it to!" These testimonials carry the exact same weight.

I feel like there's green in their eyes. Rigor be damned if riches can be had. Also, his ego is now on the line. I'm sure his brain is still being objective about the results.

IF is works, and IF it's safe, and IF the claims can be backed up with ACTUAL DATA, then by god, more power to the guy... but in the mean time, at the very least, can a guy get a trial with some other vanilla flavored sludge acting as a placebo?

Hell, I'll settle for an footnote on the page that says "None of our claims are backed by any form of relevant data."

Re: Soylent Campaign

#492

Post by jcampbell1 »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #450
blhack wrote: post #369

Wow there is a lot of hate in this thread... A lot of the arguments here seem to boil down to "Much smarter people are working on this and they haven't solved it, who the hell does this KID think he is?!?" That's pretty depressing for a website that, at least originally, was to help startups talk to one another. Shame on you, hacker news. You're smarter than this. By this logic, never ever trust your data to anybody…

Except that those hippies don't raise $100k+ on the web. "Soylent is perfectly balanced and optimized for your body and lifestyle, meaning it automatically puts you at an optimal weight, makes you feel full, and improves your focus and cognition" The techniques and the wording seem snake oilish. Also, if anything those dumb hacker kids build breaks (email, web app, game) etc, they won't hurt you physically. The body…

While this product clearly doesn't meet the risk-reward profile for you (or me), do you not enjoy the idea that a few thousand people are about start an interesting experiment?

One though I had was, if Ben and Jerry are adored for making a product that is delightful but contributes to the obesity epidemic, why can we not also praise people trying to do the opposite?

Re: Soylent Campaign

#493

Post by bproctor »

w1ntermute wrote: post #160
Afforess wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, it's like the "Hacker News Is Depressing" Article didn't happen. I trust the Soylent folks more than I trust myself purchasing frozen meals in a grocery store. It's hard to be worse than that benchmark.

> trust the Soylent folks more than I trust myself purchasing frozen meals in a grocery store. That's a strawman. You're ignoring the fact that those frozen meals are made by companies who have more experience in the food industry than these 4 clowns combined a million times over. I am MUCH more afraid of the Soylent guys' sheer ignorance than I am of any profit-motivated negligence on the part of large frozen meal c…

I'm not necessarily siding one way or the other, but that article by Stella Matsovis was absolutely terrible and has zero credibility.

Re: Soylent Campaign

#495

Post by dntrkv »

scott_s wrote: post #354
sillysaurus wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

multivitamins are the modern equivalent of snake oil You'll need to post some sort of citation in order to convince anyone of that.

Study Finds No Benefit From Daily Multivitamin, http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/09/study-finds-no-bene... Is This the End of Popping Vitamins?, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020464450457665...

From your link:

“From a practical standpoint, this study does not change the fact that the majority of consumers could benefit from taking an affordable multivitamin,” said Andrew Shao, vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs with the council. “It is better to meet these recommendations than not, and consistently taking a multivitamin over the long term could help fill these nutrient gaps and may help consumers lead healthier lives.”

Re: Soylent Campaign

#496

Post by eru »

shurcooL wrote: post #462
stox wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow! You telling me that working as a jumper at a Nuclear Plant might have been good for me? The mind boggles.

"Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger" has _some_ truth to it. The body adapts and learns from various harmful things, hence it's less likely to affect you as strongly in the future.

> "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger"

It might also cripple you instead.

Re: Soylent Campaign

#497

Post by shurcooL »

ceejayoz wrote: post #478
shurcooL wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Soylent or whatever it evolves into (or alternatives it inspires) will have research and evidence behind it once it goes big. You gotta start somewhere.

Will it? Plenty of pseudoscientific snake oil products get sold for decades without research and evidence behind it. Colon cleanses, homeopathy, etc.

Look how much scrutiny Soylent is receiving already. It has the potential to fully or nearly fully replace food. This won't go unnoticed and untested for long.

What the heck are snake oils? I've never heard of that.

Re: Soylent Campaign

#498

Post by intended »

Afforess wrote: post #395
blhack wrote: post #369

Wow there is a lot of hate in this thread... A lot of the arguments here seem to boil down to "Much smarter people are working on this and they haven't solved it, who the hell does this KID think he is?!?" That's pretty depressing for a website that, at least originally, was to help startups talk to one another. Shame on you, hacker news. You're smarter than this. By this logic, never ever trust your data to anybody…

The irony of this HN discussion literally hours after the "Hacker News Is Depressing" article is so thick I could cut it with a knife.

The language on this product and the pitch deserve quite a bit of criticism and dollops of caution.

Being fair in your assessments means that some days you will rightly give out negative assessments.

Re: Soylent Campaign

#499

Post by gph »

gnoway wrote: post #294

Aside from the possible health issues, I'm kind of disappointed with the price. It's pretty expensive!

That's how I felt. I wonder how much it costs to produce per "meal" for them. Because they are charging ~3.10 per "meal" at the weekly rate. Maybe there will be a better price after they officially launch. But it kind of feels like they are taking a heavy profit at that rate. Perhaps making a quick buck upfront in case this doesn't pan out in the long run?

Either way that and the snake-oil type sales pitch has really turned me off. Through all the hoopla this generated on HN I mostly sat on the fence. Now I feel distinctly like I don't trust them. But they've got backers, so we'll see the results eventually.

Re: Soylent Campaign

#500

Post by pbreit »

goostavos wrote: post #491
cscurmudgeon wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that those hippies don't raise $100k+ on the web. "Soylent is perfectly balanced and optimized for your body and lifestyle, meaning it automatically puts you at an optimal weight, makes you feel full, and improves your focus and cognition" The techniques and the wording seem snake oilish. Also, if anything those dumb hacker kids build breaks (email, web app, game) etc, they won't hurt you physically. The body…

>The techniques and the wording seem snake oilish. You know, every time this guy's story has popped up on here I've defended him. I like that he's trying to do something big, I like that he wants to solve a very real world problem, and I like that in his blog posts and updates he phrased all of his results as personal findings needing further study. However, this: >>"Soylent is perfectly balanced and optimized for yo…

"None of our claims are backed by any form of relevant data."

But that would be false.

Post reply on HN