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Soylent Campaign

campaign.soylent.me

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541–550 of 608 posts

Re: Soylent Campaign

#541

Post by kamakazizuru »

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…

IT´s definitely very snake oilish - in fact - reading his blog posts - the snake oilish tone has been around for a while "I feel my scars disappearing". That said - I do think its an interesting experiment - and if it gets even a few people of the classic - pizza burgers tacos and beer diet that a lot of America and increasingly many parts of the world currently live on - I see no wrong in it. That was his original goal in the first place - to get him off a cheap unhealthy diet - to a cheap healthier diet. The fact that he´s now trying to market it as the ultimate solution is what´s wrong here.

Re: Soylent Campaign

#542

Post by kamakazizuru »

jcampbell1 wrote: post #492
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…

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?

only - ben and jerrys say theyre selling ice cream and not a cure to everything.

Re: Soylent Campaign

#543

Post by kamakazizuru »

nitrogen wrote: post #536
SoftwareMaven wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My concern is that they are billing this as healthy with zero evidence that it actually is. The last few years of nutrition research has begun to show us that we know nothing about it. Pretending you can come up with an optimal solution when nobbody knows what healthy is, is just that, pretending. I fear for the people who see this as a great "life hack" who wind up doing long-lasting damage to themselves. There are…

How can eating Soylent do more long-lasting damage to oneself than eating any other food?

just off the top of my head - if the nutrient powders in there are contaminated (which isnt impossible - a lot of the things he has in there arent your typical over the counter Centrum - but rather rare metals / their compounds - manufactured in some factory somewhere)

Re: Soylent Campaign

#544

Post by Kiro »

I personally don't find the promises hard to believe. Losing or maintaining weight is all about energy in/energy out. If you keep a consistent kcal intake controlling weight will be easy. For the cognitive effects it's easy to understand once you realise how taxing it is to digest food. Anyone who has been fasting or been on a lean diet knows that it makes you much more vibrant and sharp.

Re: Soylent Campaign

#545

Post by kamakazizuru »

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…

also - I´m not sure about the US - but in many other parts of the world you can eat well for 65$ a week anyways (i mean real food - including maybe a meal or 2 out).

Re: Soylent Campaign

#546

Post by Tenoke »

TL;DR The guy's marketing is questionable, he makes misleading claims, hasn't done proper testing but the product or a spin-off still has the potential to be useful to many people.

Re: Soylent Campaign

#547

Post by chourobin »

angkec wrote: post #55

It's interesting to see everything went from supportive on soylent to very negative after they published this campaign. I wonder what has changed?

If the founder came out and said, "look ive been trying this for months and its great.. now you can try it with me...", that would be fine. But I agree that some of these claims are too much for something that is so unproven.

Re: Soylent Campaign

#548

Post by Kurtz79 »

shubb wrote: post #327
DanBC wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and a huge achievement Why will it be a huge achievement?

Well, if in a year, it hasn't gone horribly wrong, then he's produced something people can eat for a year without great ill effect. Someone will eat this for a year, so we will find out. Most of it's demo will eat it about 50% of the time, eating conventional instant meals and restaurant foods the rest. If it's healthier, or at least different from 'mostly eating microwave lasagne', it should improve their health. Al…

"Also, I see it as a great way to control calories. I don't have a weight problem, but most people I do just eat huge portions and snasck. Measuring out powder will help them."

Most people eat huge portions and snacks for the physical pleasure the underlying food brings, not because they rationally think "I need huge portions to get my minimum daily intake of carbs/fats/vitamins".

Thinking that people with a weight problem will switch to a flavorless white goop it's just not realistic.

Re: Soylent Campaign

#549

Post by [deleted] »

vecinu wrote: post #197
iandanforth wrote: post #88

I really enjoy this campaign because it gave me an excuse to compare it with snake oil labels. ( https://www.google.com/search?q=snake+oil+label&tbm=isch... ) The characteristic of this kind of marketing that I enjoy the most is the presence of what I call 'linguistic asymptotes.' These are words that imply a product has unparalleled or infinite properties. On the soylent page we have "ubiquitous", "perfectly", "opti…

That's a very good point and very observant. I too am highly skeptical of ALL of these claims. My main gripe with Soylent (ever since I first saw it here on HN a month ago) is that they are making cooking seem like a horrible chore that nobody wants to do. Shopping is convenient because I go whenever I have time and only buy exactly what I need. At the same time, I also ensure I only buy the best ingredients I can at…

[deleted]

Re: Soylent Campaign

#550

Post by Andrenid »

goostavos wrote: post #513
joegaudet wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue I would see with the placebo sludge, would be that it would immediately present as no the real deal... As I assume one cannot live off of sugar water for very long. I'm not exactly sure what the control would be, I guess what ever it is they stick in feeding tubes?

I'm not a totally sure what would be a control. I typed that last section with quite a bit of haste, but I assume that it could be tested against a traditional food based meal that has similar nutritional value. The meal replacement idea is not entirely new, though, they've always been more in the area of supplement, rather than outright replacement. Things like ensure, slim fast, and a host of other meal in a can th…

There's Sustagen. A medically-certified full meal replacement powder, used by hospitals and medical facilities in Australia.

I've talked about it in an old thread about Soylent:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5399994

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