What is the appeal of Soylent?

24

Comments

  • “I'm surprised. Those clothes… but, aren't you…?”
    ^^ To be fair, my mom has professional chef training, and it's pretty much a given that you will have scars if you work in the business. You will cut and burn yourself at least once. I have done both of those on several occasions and I am not a complete klutz. I get the trepidation.
  • because it replaces food, allowing you to become future

    Seriously, this is like the main reason it took off.  Singularity nutbars really are that bad.

    I can even see this stuff as a dietary supplement if you don't have time/access to prepare healthy stuff regularly (like, you know, 50-70% of America), but a full-on Soylent diet sounds like a fantastic way to make your life miserable.
  • “I'm surprised. Those clothes… but, aren't you…?”
    I don't disagree. Science cultists love shit like this. I'm just saying I get the theoretical appeal for the tiny minority of people who are buying this for (mostly) less insane reasons.
  • imagei will watch the heck outta this pumpkin patch
    i *am* a complete klutz

    i have potato-peeled my thumb before

    i have also come extremely close to setting my sleeve on fire, though fortunately someone pointed that out to me

    cooking is, in fact, terrifying
  • imagei will watch the heck outta this pumpkin patch
    but again, takeaways exist

    also ready meals

    also tinned food which doesn't take a lot of effort

    dislike of cooking is not an adequate incentive to make me interested in soylent
  • I managed to get a second-degree burn from putting a Papa Murphy's in the oven, and my sister had to get a tetanus shot from opening a can of pie filling.  We've all done that shit.  It's part of how people learn things.
  • imagei will watch the heck outta this pumpkin patch
    yes

    it's part of learning that cooking is a bad idea
  • Bee said:

    because it replaces food, allowing you to become future

    Seriously, this is like the main reason it took off.  Singularity nutbars really are that bad.
    sounds like somepony is insufficiently future
  • “I'm surprised. Those clothes… but, aren't you…?”
    The worst injury of my mother's food career was when she managed to can-open her thumb so that nerve endings were visible. I think she once also got a cut that exposed bone.

    That said, none of this would justify drinking magic protein slop. Being unable to chew or having really weird dietary issues might, but that would not.
  • imagei will watch the heck outta this pumpkin patch
    if you have a medical reason that makes soylent beneficial i'm not knocking that use

    i'm also not knocking the idea of it as hiking rations or whatever

    just the all-soylent diet idea is gross, and also the product could have been better named
  • My dreams exceed my real life
    brb, writing a thinkpiece about how Soylent is an attempt to bring the Concent model to food
  • imagei will watch the heck outta this pumpkin patch
    hm

    nah

    the Content model for food already exists and it's, like

    McDonald's
  • “I'm surprised. Those clothes… but, aren't you…?”
    Tachyon said:

    if you have a medical reason that makes soylent beneficial i'm not knocking that use

    i'm also not knocking the idea of it as hiking rations or whatever

    just the all-soylent diet idea is gross, and also the product could have been better named


    Agreed.
    Tachyon said:

    hm

    nah

    the Content model for food already exists and it's, like

    McDonald's


    Strongly agreed.
  • My dreams exceed my real life
    Not sufficiently genericified
  • You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
    Tachyon said:

    ^^ when you put it that way i get you

    but idk if that makes the author of that article contemptuous for pointing that out

    it sounds more like for whatever reason they've got stuck on the idea and can't *not* think about that

    See, here's the bit I don't understand.

    People who drink Soylent think eating and drinking is gross.

    But...consuming Soylent is still eating? It's just taking what is, to them, an already unpleasant experience, and making it less pleasant. What's the advantage supposed to be?
  • Munch munch, chomp chomp...
    I think you already answered your own question Centie.
  • “I'm surprised. Those clothes… but, aren't you…?”
    And the writer of the article realised precisely this. That is one of the big points of the article: Getting takeout is not only easier and more efficient, but significantly less gross.
  • edited 2015-11-29 20:24:05
    We can do anything if we do it together.
    You can also make quick sandwiches or get readymade food from a good grocery store if you really dislike cooking that much.
  • imagei will watch the heck outta this pumpkin patch

    Not sufficiently genericified


    the entertainment equivalent of Soylent would be going into a cinema to watch a feature-length lecture on efficiency-optimized technical and fitness instructions, all kinda mixed together into one extended presentation and presented as blandly as is humanly possible, but people force themselves to watch it anyway
  • Tachyon said:

    Not sufficiently genericified


    the entertainment equivalent of Soylent would be going into a cinema to watch a feature-length lecture on efficiency-optimized technical and fitness instructions, all kinda mixed together into one extended presentation and presented as blandly as is humanly possible, but people force themselves to watch it anyway
    see, this is why soylent is great.
  • kill living beings

    I don't disagree. Science cultists love shit like this. I'm just saying I get the theoretical appeal for the tiny minority of people who are buying this for (mostly) less insane reasons.

    did they ever hire an actual nutritionist, on the science cult note
  • Sup bitches, witches, Haters, and trolls.
    honestly i'd get soylent mainly for those times where my spoons are totally depleted and making any decision at all is super gross but even then i think ensure or whatever is about the same price and has less heavy metals slash mold in it
  • My dreams exceed my real life
    So reading Less Wrong, got it.
  • its like

    vaporwave food
  • BeeBee
    edited 2015-11-29 20:38:43

    I don't disagree. Science cultists love shit like this. I'm just saying I get the theoretical appeal for the tiny minority of people who are buying this for (mostly) less insane reasons.

    did they ever hire an actual nutritionist, on the science cult note
    Given that the guy who made it once tried an all-kale diet as a previous attempt, I'm going to guess no.

    Bare-essentials liquid nutrition isn't anything new.  He had plenty of examples to pirate, and the human body is robust enough to last on surprisingly little as long as he had enough dumb luck to include a little variety in the mix.  Most actual nutritionists seem to be pretty meh about it.
  • imagei will watch the heck outta this pumpkin patch

    So reading Less Wrong, got it.

    not a bad comparison, for a number of reasons
  • kill living beings
    i mean, there are meal replacements, they're mainly used by bodybuilders and people losing weight and hsit like that
  • its like


    vaporwave food
    no vaporwave food is like McDonald's but they have Pepsi instead of Coke and all of the packages are like a dark blue color with a space pattern on em
  • Touch the cow. Do it now.
    I skipped a whole buncha posts but lemme just say that I think this Soylent thing is a great idea and I totally get it.
  • THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS
    Soylent annoys me not only in that it's a darling of the more-money-than-common-sense SFtechbro community, but that it's also a bad clone of, like, a half-dozen commercial products that have been on the market for years, stuff like Ensure and Boost. 

    I hear they're going to be making bad energy bars next. The min boggles.
  • image Wee yea erra chs hymmnos mea.
    lee4hmz said:

    Boost. 


    [...]energy bars
    image
    ???
  • Sup bitches, witches, Haters, and trolls.

    I skipped a whole buncha posts but lemme just say that I think this Soylent thing is a great idea and I totally get it.

    this is how i want to feel after reading "lol look at how rob rhinehart is totally lame and bad for not wanting to cook or go to grocery stores lol what an autist robot"
  • yes essentially
  • Sup bitches, witches, Haters, and trolls.
    more seriously, given how much food people plan on preparing rots instead (or rots at the grocery store) there's a decent argument for not cooking as an environmental thing and leaving it to pros who have economies of scale, etc, if you have the money (which he does).  soylent has its own issues, of course, like not realizing what vacuum seals are for, but the point stands

    not that he's not a quack in other ways, like trying to kill his gut flora without consulting, like, anyone, or the clothing thing where he seemed not to realize that whoever he was donating his dirty shit to would also have to clean it?
  • Sup bitches, witches, Haters, and trolls.
    and the way people described his sensory issues on twitter, when it wasn't ableist on its own, reminded me of ableist things people say
  • There are things we could do to save the environment that only involve inconveniencing say, billionaires, instead of literally everyone who eats something at some point, which is everyone who is alive.
  • Like don't get me wrong.

    If you want to drink flavorless clam chowder, whatever your reasoning is, go ahead.

    But do not look down upon me because I refuse to drink the flavorless clam chowder. No amount of guilt-tripping or shaming is going to get me to drink the clam chowder. It's gross.
  • We can do anything if we do it together.
    I wasn't being ableist.

    I was making fun of his engineer god-complex. While not all engineers do that, it is a tendency of theirs, and Reinhardt has definitely fallen into that.

    As for the cooking thing, I empathize since I'm not big on cooking myself, but...

    You can also make quick sandwiches or get readymade food from a good grocery store if you really dislike cooking that much.

  • Calica said:

    and the way people described his sensory issues on twitter, when it wasn't ableist on its own, reminded me of ableist things people say

    Like I said earlier I also have texture-sensitivity issues I just don't understand how this stuff could help, like, anyone.

    Also people are making fun of him because he is a Science cultist, not because of his issues with food.

    Like there's an enormous difference between "I don't like food so I made this thing to eat instead" and "I don't like food so I made this thing that everyone should eat instead". Futurefood advocates (Soylent is only one of these but it's the one we're talking about here) fall into the latter camp most of the time.
  • Touch the cow. Do it now.
    I can understand the appeal of Soylent because, theoretically, it can save time for doing other more interesting things. There are a zillion things I'd rather do than prepare and consume food, y'know?

    But I wouldn't look down on anyone for not wanting to follow that path. We all have our interests, after all.
  • well it's like

    you could also just have a bag of apples, and eat some of the apples, you know?
  • Touch the cow. Do it now.
    I don't like apples.
  • Touch the cow. Do it now.
    those are ok.
  • Touch the cow. Do it now.
    right on, T-Rex
  • having a Dinosaur Comics strip for every ocasion is Yarrun's Power.
  • Touch the cow. Do it now.
    post the one about mammals
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