
Sorry Soylent dudes: After the revolution the clueless tech elite will be doomed - edoloughlin
http://thenextweb.com/opinion/2015/08/04/drink-your-feelings-bros/
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keithwhor
This author is really, really bitter. I've never tried Soylent, I'm not
particularly interested, but it doesn't bother me that some people want cost-
effective meal replacements.

I tried, I really did, but I could not find cohesive thesis or argument here.
Just rhetoric comparing personal preference with mental illness (??). An
intentionally inflammatory piece meant only to provoke ire and get a few
hits... seems like Donald Trump's tactics are rubbing off on the folks on the
other side of the pond. ;)

Edit: Oh. I forgot this is a thing. Writers being intentionally negative and
provocative, belittling other cultures and groups (somewhat hypocritically?)
to entertain other similarly negative people within their niche. Misery loves
company.

~~~
hitekker
Agreed. I'm not a fan of soylent, nor do I care of the woes of the Tech elite,
but this as pointless a piece as any I can imagine.

Got to rake in those page views, I suppose.

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ubercore
I don't get it. Maybe as a casual soylent user I'm defensive myself, but I
don't understand why the author is so personally offended by this? Disclosure:
I stopped reading part way through.

Soylent is a meal replacement that can feed people a meal for under $3. With a
year long shelf life. That's a pretty impressive product (I know one can diy
and careful plan one's own "perfect" meal, but many won't, and many can't).
The use of algal oil as a major source of macronutrients is _huge_, in
environmental terms as well as our ability as a species to distribute
sustenance to everyone. The personal choices of the founder really don't
concern me. The value judgements the author uses to make his point just hurts
the point itself.

* Soylent _is_ liberating in a lot of ways, as are any other meal replacement.

* It's still possible to love food and enjoy human contact, even while eating it for every planned meal.

* Because he wants to get rid of his kitchen doesn't mean you have to.

There's kind of a pernicious implication that soylent isn't "manly" enough
(gendered language used by me for effect here; it's not incidental). Real men
know how to grow food and hunt food and cook it over an open fire! You're all
going to die because you relied on Soylent! You are not a real human being,
you are a robot!

I mean, I got carried away at the end there snarking back at the author, but
that's exactly my point. How helpful is this snark other than as a rhetorical
tactic to fill up space and manipulate people's points of view?

Why can't we all, like, live and let live, dudes?

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kstenerud
It's not the soylent. You really have to read the whole article to see what
he's talking about.

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ubercore
Ok, I just read the whole thing. Was this comment a troll to get me to read
it? I still don't get it.

~~~
lost_name
The problem on both ends is the tone, I think. The soylent guy is using really
strong language to get you to think things are better his way -- he replaces
his clothes rather than cleaning them, he replaced his
kitchen/fridge/groceries with his shakes, he replaced the need for preparing
solid foods with eating out on every occasion.

The author suggests he's disconnected from reality, because everything he says
is only possible because he can afford it. In fact, soylent didn't permit him
any of this, except possibly the ability to afford to live like this in the
first place.

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meesles
I really didn't like the tone of this article, it was super abrasive and the
guy sounded personally offended over what the Soylent CEO was doing.

"When the clean water starts to run out, the world crumbles, and our tech is
no longer there to act as a crutch, the out-of-touch tech elite will be the
first against the wall."

From the title, I think this is the boiled down point he's trying to make? I
find this ridiculous considering the 'tech elite' are actively trying to solve
these global issues along with engineers and all matter of scientists across
the globe.

All that being said, I don't think anyone needs to take too much offense at
his tone. Take a look at his other 'articles' and you can tell that he's just
another blogger.

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iwasanewt
> And so I come to Soylent, the meal replacement plan that has taken the
> SlimFast concept of feeding you unpleasant gloop in place of real food and
> welded it to a dumbass ideology drunk with libertarianism, confused futurism
> and startup bro stupidity.

This is the tone of the entire article.

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PaulHoule
I dunno, there is a real kind of liberation you can have if you are on some
diet that is all planned out. I did a week's fast and was amazed at how much
free time I had now that I wasn't eating or shopping for food or preparing
food or cleaning the plates, thinking about what I was going to eat or
travelling to or waiting for food at restaurants.

Of course you can do it more wholesomely and cheaper than Soylent if you
follow the bean plan of Tim Ferris.

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antod
I'm starting to get a little annoyed at how the perception of 'tech' seems to
now be becoming synonymous with AC free nutjobs, hipsters, social media hype
and rich Silicon Valley vultures. Very little of which is actually anything to
do with 'tech'.

I'd even prefer that old Revenge of the Nerds stereotype to this. Oh well,
back to shooing the kids off my lawn...

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ianstallings
This guy is a very angry person without anything constructive to say as far as
I can tell. His other articles reflect the same tone. Juvenile ranting, imho.
If there's something to actually discuss here please fill me in.

