Sorry. Usually legitimate questions don't involve reducing people interested in Soylent to various negative buckets like: Lazy, no foresight, poor time management skills. I mistook your comments for condescending snark. Still not sure I am wrong but since I'm not a mind reader I'm not going to argue about what you were thinking. I can just go off of what I read.
If I thought for a second that you actually wanted a legitimate answer, then I would give you mine. But when you say things like "literally don't have 1 minute to spare" I know you just want to put people down. You don't want to know because you have already judged everyone and it shows in all of your comments. I'm not going to waste any more time thinking I can convince you of anything when you so clearly have already decided. Which is fine. You don't have to like the idea of Soylent. But you also don't have to shit on like that.
IMO, the author of the article went way out of his way to try and prove soylent to be something... I'm not sure what he was trying to prove actually -- it seemed like he was generally kinda being negative. what bothered me is that he's spending so much energy to try and belittle something which is cheaper and probably healthier to eat than most fast food.
why didn't he just give constructive criticism?
EDIT: what I would like to see is some sort of concerted effort to try and make a cheap, inexpensive food, which isn't perishable. that's all. I'm sorry for being negative myself. I think such a product could go a long way for improvement of all humanity
I don't know your age, nor do I care. Your comment (and others here) just strikes me as unimaginative and slightly self-aggrandizing; pontification on the value of shared meals and slowing down makes for boring reading. It's fine that you (and I don't mean just you) don't have an interest in Soylent, but I don't have an interest in getting a car, and yet I don't go around posting on Tesla threads about the value of walking and the dangers of cars.
Do you know the Onion's story of the man who mentions he has no TV[1]? That's how those posts sound to me.
I don't have a horse in this race, I'm not in any way associated with Soylent, nor do I even plan to buy a pack. I don't trust it as a meal replacement, and I think their claims are overreaching. I have no problem with concrete criticism, and you don't see me replying to ("attacking", as you put it) people raising valid questions, just those posting just to tell us how much they don't need it and those writing unprovable claims.
And they may be 9 posts (although they were only 8 before this post), but most are back-and-forth with people that replied to me.
>2) But it's marketed as complete food replacement, not as a simple nutritional supplement. Though I don't fancy the supplement industry either.
I'm not sure where you got this idea, the Soylent guide they send you when you get your first shipment even tells you that it's not necessary to go 100% Soylent. And, as far as I can tell, the website never says that you should eat only Soylent.
>3) I think it's stupid to consider this time as waste instead of time well spent.
Is the 10 minutes of making breakfast sausages really time well spent every day? That 10 minutes where I'm still somewhat sleepy, somewhat groggy, and pretty grumpy? I'd much rather have a serving of Soylent for breakfast, takes me 30 seconds to pour out a cup and spend an extra 10 minutes running in the morning, reading a newspaper, etc.
>4) Standards for food production are higher, I can touch it, I can see it, I can ask where it's from. Not sure where you have been buying your food. A banana I eat is not the product of a badly regulated industry, where hobbyists create mixtures of their liking.
As for the health of Soylent, you can find every ingredient and amount [1] for every iteration of it. While there's definitely less regulation in this industry, Soylent themselves have done a decent job of publishing the nutrition facts [2] and ingredients, is this that far removed from another traditional food? Can you really verify what pesticides were used in the production of that banana that you're eating?
I do understand. That just wasn't what was under discussion here. The back-and-forth was about the possibility of living on Soylent-the-product, not about the claims of the company.
Your synical tone, mocking comments, and blatant insults -
Examples of this would be nice. If you want everyone to pat you on the head and tell you how special you are you should stay in grade school. IMO, the Soylent product is a nonsensical endeavor with little chance of real success. I see no reason to pretend that I feel something different about it. Personally, I'm curious as to why you take such offence.
Re: growing difficulties: I explained that lack of food is not an issue in my dead-ened comment. There is more than enough food being produced right now for every living person on the planet. The global food crisis is not helped by another form of food, because that was never the issue.
There is no race to win - find a competetive career and get back to me on this one.
At some point in life, you'll understand that this is a crazy (and frankly unhealthy and unsustainable) way to live.
Writing off 40% of the population
Well, good thing that isn't what I said at all, is it?
Soylent isn't going to do well because we already have 40% of the population in the US that overindulge their love of food. These people aren't going to stop eating burgers so that they can have a protein shake instead.
Ergo, bad business idea. I'm pretty confident in my anti-Soylent stance, given the two major reason I stated above. I see no product and/or company in 5 years here.
Youre bias is substantially more harmful and ignorant than anything in soylent. This may be snake oil with protein, but the idea that someone is challenging a very deeply ingrained accepted truth (humans need food) creates a process that leads scientific progress and promotes at least an opportunity for innovation.
Not to be harsh, but your diatribe is exactly the opposite of what HackerNews stands for. Your armchair quarterback position offers nothing
That said I am passing on this until there is way more information.
No, my argument is I don't understand all the excitement here at HN for Soylent. It doesn't seem novel or exciting, but a lot of people act like its the best thing ever invented. I then attempted to guess at the reason, which is that it's marketed towards techies and hackers in the startup scene, which ensure isn't.
Other replies have given me additional information which I'm going to go over. Your's was setting up a straw man argument.
Well, I read the marketing piece, yes - but thank you for pointing me at the evidence. The level of 'snark' may have been influenced by me previously reading the Soylent story. Marketing masquerading as science is certainly a thing, though not in this case.
I apologise if I've been too harsh on Soylent. I have, previously, been strongly against Soylent. I'm against some of the techniques they're using to sell it now.
But I'm trying to be more a "critical friend" rather than just "negative". I realise that I don't yet have the right balance.
> It's perfectly reasonable to have reservations about Soylent, but your comment just sounds like a "damn kids with your video games, get off my lawn".
Actually, your commented tried to ridicule, whereas mine was made in good faith and would have likely been exactly identical if I'd written it at 25 instead of nearly 50. In fact, back then I probably needed the health and social aspects of food and company more than I do today (and I was well aware of it).
I simply laid out my reasons for definitely not jumping on this bandwagon, and I don't have any dog in the race financially or otherwise.
So, what's your motivation for attacking anybody that dares to raise doubt about the product, or that maybe simply disagrees with their philosophy with such energy?
>Soylent is trying to do something more ambitious than other packaged food manufacturers.
I have never understood why people think Soylent is doing something so interesting. It is essentially baby formula for adults. And its not like the nutritional requirements of infants are any simpler than adults. The formula industry has existed for decades and has generally done a good enough job of producing products that are able to make up 100% of a human's diet.
I promise that my intention isn't to shit on anything. It just seems to me that most people are trying Soylent either because it saves time or because it's easier than cooking proper food. And those two reasons, to me, don't sound like a good reason to try a nutritional supplement.
I appreciate what you're saying, but to be fair to those criticizing, this isn't the problem Solyent is advertised as solving. The stated problem that Soylent is advertised as solving is "food is a hassle", and it is also alleged to provide benefits for health and the environment. It's also being advertised as "perfectly balanced", "automatically [putting] you at an optimal weight", and "[improving] your focus and cognition". These are the claims that people are criticizing, not it's suitability as a last resort. If Soylent's message was "here's a better option for those who are desperate", I'm confident the responses would be less critical.
Look I'm not saying that soylent is a good idea or even that works, and I'm probably as far from a potential soylent customer as it is possible to get. I'm just trying to explain how their stated goals and ambitions make their product somewhat unique in the current landscape of similar products.
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