The Man Who Thinks He Never Has To Eat Again Is Probably Going To Be A Billionai

[OttoVonBismarck]

Yeah, I don't know that I understand how this will make someone a billionaire. The causes of famine are simple and well understood dating back to the dawn of history. If a region cannot produce enough food to feed everyone who lives in that region, it must import food from outside to feed everyone. If it cannot afford to do that, or is logistically unable to do that, then some portion of people living in that region will die of starvation.

This is just a consumable product, so it will do nothing to help with the local supply problem. Stuff like Norman Borlaugh's work on wheat helped that side of the equation by making it so a country like India can grow enough food to feed its own people, for example. This doesn't do that.

This also does nothing for famine in which the primary cause is logistical. Logistical has a few meanings, it can mean that a region has such terrible infrastructure there is no easy or reliable way to get food to enough people fast enough to prevent some starvation deaths. It can also mean a region is so plagued by violence/warfare or controlled by warlords that the people starving will simply not be permitted the opportunity to acquire food.

Where this could help, is cases of famine which are primarily driven not by logistical concerns but by a simple inability to pay for enough food to make up the local supply shortfall. I'm not actually sure how much famine is caused by that, but my rudimentary knowledge of the world suggests that isn't the major driver of famines in this day and age.

But it's a big "could help." As Iorm mentioned, liquid complete-nutrition products are pretty old. I mentioned awhile back there are nutritional centers you can go to get on an 800 calorie a day "VLCD" weight loss program. Basically it's liquid glop that is specially formulated to insure that you get all you need to actually live, while pushing you into massive caloric deficits. There are other products for people who have medical issues that put them on liquid foods for extended periods of time, these are very, very similar to the stuff the VLCD weight loss clinics push--except patients eat more of it per day so they aren't eating at a major deficit.

The problem is, I've never seen any of this liquid food stuff that wasn't substantially more expensive than plain ordinary food. I think the average for some of it on a VLCD weight loss program is like $500/mo--and that's eating at starvation calories to intentionally lose weight very rapidly. So you'd spend far more than that to eat at maintenance. I'm not sure this guy's product will be able to easily beat the prices of the existing products, which are all mass produced by very large companies that have no incentive not to compete on price already.

[OttoVonBismarck]

How is Soylent different from other meal-replacement drinks on the market already?
A lot of things will give you calories, but nothing so far has been designed to be something you can live off. There are no food replacements on the market.

Huh? There are many such products. There are people who literally cannot eat solid foods ever again and live for years and years until they die of some totally unrelated thing. The idea there aren't comprehensive liquid food replacements just isn't true.

[garbon]

Article is from Vice magazine. Probably not worth the effort to pick it apart.

[Capetan Mihali]

I can't get over the fact he deliberately called the stuff "Soylent". 

There is a drug deliberately branded as "Soma" too. Either they were trying to be ironic like these guys or that marketing department needs to read some books once in a while.

Seems a rather apt name for what the drug does.

Carisoprodol?  Just a CNS muscle relaxant, no more euphoric than Valium, really.  I'd rather think a "Soma" drug would have more heavenly subjective effects.

EDIT:  And just for HVC's sake, I'll note that carisoprodol is in effect merely a pro-drug for meprobamate (Equanil), the first minor tranquilizer to hit the North American market in the mid-50s, and wildly successful at that.  Until overtaken by chlordiazepoxide (Librium) in 1960 and diazepam (Valium) in 1963.

[HVC]

Seriously, how did you pass any background check for any lawyer-y job

[Capetan Mihali]

Seriously, how did you pass any background check for any lawyer-y job

Well, I haven't gotten my Character and Fitness results back...   But a little pharmaceutical knowledge can't hurt, can it?

[CountDeMoney]

Capetan Mihali is: Breaking Blah.

[HVC]

Seriously, how did you pass any background check for any lawyer-y job

Well, I haven't gotten my Character and Fitness results back...   But a little pharmaceutical knowledge can't hurt, can it?

a little knowledge is a dangerous thing

[DontSayBanana]

I can't get over the fact he deliberately called the stuff "Soylent". 

There is a drug deliberately branded as "Soma" too. Either they were trying to be ironic like these guys or that marketing department needs to read some books once in a while.

I read this on Reddit a week or two ago.  The guy played the book snob card and said he was going for how, in the book, the name was just a hodgepodge of "soya" and "lentil."

[Siege]

The democrats are going to force us all to live on this thing next.

[crazy canuck]

The democrats are going to force us all to live on this thing next.

Perhaps they might force people to become better educated first.

[Siege]

The democrats are going to force us all to live on this thing next.

Perhaps they might force people to become better educated first.

Highly unlikely. Educated people would read through their propaganda.

Now, if you mean forcing people to become better brainwashed by the Left Wing propaganda machine....

[Ideologue]

You know, sometimes I really wish right wing conspiracy theories were true.

[lustindarkness]

BTW, there is a copy of soylent green with plenty seeders, nice surprise.

[Ideologue]

I think there's an upload on Google Video, actually, which is even easier.