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Soylent now accepting Bitcoin for preorders

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Re: Soylent now accepting Bitcoin for preorders

#51

Post by bpodgursky »

betterunix wrote: post #43
jafaku wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is Bitcoin a bad idea, and how do we not know what we are doing?

1. Bitcoin has no rigorous security definition. 2. Bitcoin can be "attacked" (for some vague notion of what it means to attack a system that has no security definition) in polynomial time. 3. The economics of Bitcoin are extremely suspect and based on a poorly developed economic model, supported by neither the Austrian school nor by modern monetary theory. This is probably the underlying cause of the lack of a securi…

Adding a few of my own peeves:

4. Bitcoin is inherently deflationary, which is an awful idea if you talk to anyone who knows anything about money

5. Bitcoin is fundamentally backed by pointlessly wasting CPU cycles and wasting energy trying to reverse hashes.

Re: Soylent now accepting Bitcoin for preorders

#52

Post by jafaku »

bpodgursky wrote: post #51
betterunix wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Bitcoin has no rigorous security definition. 2. Bitcoin can be "attacked" (for some vague notion of what it means to attack a system that has no security definition) in polynomial time. 3. The economics of Bitcoin are extremely suspect and based on a poorly developed economic model, supported by neither the Austrian school nor by modern monetary theory. This is probably the underlying cause of the lack of a securi…

Adding a few of my own peeves: 4. Bitcoin is inherently deflationary, which is an awful idea if you talk to anyone who knows anything about money 5. Bitcoin is fundamentally backed by pointlessly wasting CPU cycles and wasting energy trying to reverse hashes.

4. Last time I checked, gold was still very valuable. And it has been used for what... Thousands of years? The economies of the world did just fine without forced inflation and consumerism.

5. Printing paper money wastes way more resources. And how is using energy to create something of value a bad idea anyway? Bitcoin doesn't even require that you use a contaminating type of energy, for all I know you could be hashing with solar energy.

Re: Soylent now accepting Bitcoin for preorders

#53

Post by jgrahamc »

tocomment wrote: post #25
jgrahamc wrote: post #2

Just as Soylent is disrupting the traditional food industry Huh? I've asked this before and never got an answer. How is Soylent different from Ensure Complete? Is it cheaper? Better made? Easier to order? Tastes better? Better for me? Higher quality? Because if it isn't really any different then what Soylent will need to do is market better than those other companies. Because I'd definitely trust Abbott with my healt…

The last time I had an ensure I noticed it had 200 calories. Yes you read that right. Id have to drink ten of them to replace a days meals at $3 each that would be $30 a day or $900 a month to feed just one person.

I am talking about Ensure Complete not regular Ensure.

Re: Soylent now accepting Bitcoin for preorders

#54

Post by anonymoushn »

ballard wrote: post #48
nazgulnarsil wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open source, made from whole foods, Soylent Orange: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjA38cUd4BZBdGZ... I guess I'm going to write up an explanation and justification based on my review of nutrition research at some point. But it's not like it's monetizeable, so I lack motivation.

There's always money that can be made, even if it's a "commodity" by being a knowledge person / service provider. By open sourcing, that's a signal of so much confidence on a mfgr's part that people would stick with a particular brand the existence of a recipe which can be easily replicated. Most people aren't going to bother. Knock-offs can come in and try, but probably aren't going to dent brand-affinity. Many peop…

> Many people, especially high income people, would gladly pay for the convenience of ready-to-go product.

I'll second this. I've used the linked formula off and on, but there's not a significant difference in convenience between using it and getting food elsewhere. The mixture seems to change within a few hours of being made in a way that has not encouraged me to continue consuming it, so I have not tried preparing it in bulk. Assuming there isn't a way to make it remain appetizing for a few days after making it, it seems to be only about as convenient as weekly bulk cooking of chicken/rice/eggs/veggies/dishes that combine these things.

If nazgulnarsil has made large batches of it, though, I'd love to hear about it :)

Re: Soylent now accepting Bitcoin for preorders

#56

Post by dangero »

jafaku wrote: post #52
bpodgursky wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adding a few of my own peeves: 4. Bitcoin is inherently deflationary, which is an awful idea if you talk to anyone who knows anything about money 5. Bitcoin is fundamentally backed by pointlessly wasting CPU cycles and wasting energy trying to reverse hashes.

4. Last time I checked, gold was still very valuable. And it has been used for what... Thousands of years? The economies of the world did just fine without forced inflation and consumerism. 5. Printing paper money wastes way more resources. And how is using energy to create something of value a bad idea anyway? Bitcoin doesn't even require that you use a contaminating type of energy, for all I know you could be hashi…

Gold being valuable isn't the point. In fact, I think calling bitcoin deflationary indicates the belief it will actually be more valuable in the future.

Question for you regarding your reference to forced inflation and consumerism: Do you believe there would be even a temporary economic collapse if the world were to suddenly move to a deflationary currency? If so, how many months/years would the collapse have to last before you would say that the transition to a deflationary currency isn't worth it?

The reason I ask is because while fundamentally I have a lot of problems with our financial system, I've come to the conclusion that historically there were periods of recession that lasted hundreds of years. I just don't feel that my lifetime in a bad transition economy is worth the sacrifice of moving to a "better" financial system. I'd rather just keep the status quo as it slowly degrades to something worse and worse since I think that's the best outcome for me. It's a selfish outlook, but I have to believe it's the outlook of most people and that's why we are where we are right now.

Re: Soylent now accepting Bitcoin for preorders

#57

Post by sard420 »

mbreese wrote: post #31
tlb wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you believe generally that Big Food makes healthier products than independents? I believe the reverse is usually true in the US. You can trust Big Food to pump their products full of sugar because testing shows it makes consumers buy more. Sugar is second on Ensure's ingredient list ( http://ensure.com/products/ensure-complete-shakes ) while Soylent is not sweet.

I trust Abbott far more than some random startup with zero experience in long-term production of food supplements and replacements. I'm sorry, but living off of a concoction for a few months and then claiming that it is better for you than X is crazy. Look, Soylent may not kill you. It might actually be good for you. But until there have been multiple, years-long studies, this just isn't going to fly. Hell, get some…

Abbott would be the first to tell you not to try and use Ensure as a substitute for food. Some YC kid thinks you can live off his stuff, hope he doesn't kill too many people.

Re: Soylent now accepting Bitcoin for preorders

#58

Post by gruseom »

qaruxj wrote: post #27
tlb wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you believe generally that Big Food makes healthier products than independents? I believe the reverse is usually true in the US. You can trust Big Food to pump their products full of sugar because testing shows it makes consumers buy more. Sugar is second on Ensure's ingredient list ( http://ensure.com/products/ensure-complete-shakes ) while Soylent is not sweet.

Sorry, but I don't trust anyone who uses the phrase "Big ______". Your argument isn't even coherent. You're just making a fallacious appeal by putting the scary capital-B "Big" in front of a random noun and acting like that's supposed to mean something. Who makes up "Big Food"? Who controls "Big Food"? Why does "Big Food" necessarily make less healthy products than "independents"? I agree that a lot of mass produced…

He's not allowed to say "Big", but you can say "mass produced"? Those are pretty close.

Why does "Big Food" necessarily make less healthy products than "independents"? I agree that a lot of mass produced food is unhealthy and probably excessively seasoned and sweetened to improve market appeal

Take out that hedgey "necessarily" and you've answered your own question.

that isn't really an argument

To say that Ensure is excessively sweetened to make people buy more, while Soylent isn't, sounds like an argument to me.

Re: Soylent now accepting Bitcoin for preorders

#59

Post by JoshTriplett »

anonymoushn wrote: post #12
alainmeier wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a very thoughtful response from Rob, the creator of Soylent answering your very question: http://discourse.soylent.me/t/comparing-soylent-to-existing-... tldr; There's room in the market for more than one non-solid dietary product, the goal of Soylent is to be a complete alternative that supports an active life rather than something that just lets you survive, ensure is expensive and low calorie.

The response is definitely worthwhile, and a bit of it seems to be that the use case is different. It would be a bit expensive to replace a majority of one's diet with Ensure Complete. A 16-pack of 8oz Ensure Complete is 5600 Calories for $42, so eating for a day costs $15. The preorder price of 1 week of soylent is $9.29/day, but worryingly we don't know how many Calories that is... A quote from Vice on the crowdfun…

"More expensive per Calorie" is not necessarily "more expensive" for the target audience. The classic "2000 Calories per day" assumes some level of physical activity. If you don't have any physical activity, you're better off consuming fewer Calories per day, as long as you get all the other nutrients you need.

Re: Soylent now accepting Bitcoin for preorders

#60

Post by anologwintermut »

dragonwriter wrote: post #42
tlb wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you believe generally that Big Food makes healthier products than independents? I believe the reverse is usually true in the US. You can trust Big Food to pump their products full of sugar because testing shows it makes consumers buy more. Sugar is second on Ensure's ingredient list ( http://ensure.com/products/ensure-complete-shakes ) while Soylent is not sweet.

VC-funded startups have exactly the same kind of incentives that result in Big Food not producing healthier products than health-over-maximizing-profits oriented independents. Sure, they are going to want to differentiate from existing Big Food products (so do new Big Food products), but otherwise, the trust factors are pretty much the same.

Actually, startups have worse incentives. Startups have the idea that they can be bought out be someone. At which point any legal liabilities(form say inaccurate advertising as a meal replacement/health claims/long term health consequences/ death) are the buyers problem.

Say what you will about "big food," but they will be around to be sued in 20 - 50 years. It means they have incentives to actually careful about what they to do people.

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