Miscellaneous Chatter > Philosophy & Science

Official consumable substance of the Semantic Apocalypse?

(1/9) > >>

jamesA01:
I want to start a topic on Soylent, which is a food replacement product that recently had an very successful kickstarter, raising nearly a million bucks, and in a few years will be available in stores.

You might have heard of this already, if not you can google it. I'm actually quite excited to be able to talk about it here, since this is one of the few places on the internet with a commentariat smart enough to get it (flattery intended).

Fans of ThreePoundBrain and its advocation of a ruthless examining of unrecognized cognitive bias will appreciatehttp://robrhinehart.com/?p=507 this post by Soylent creator Rob Rhinehart.

It strikes me that the semantic apocalypse is not all bad, and that Soylent represents the start of a new way of doing things more suited to this era.

So Soylent is basically the brainchild of a California programmer who decided that surely there must be a way to simplify food. What he has developed is a recipe which basically decodes the human body AS a machine that needs a particular input to function at its maximum. He debugged himself.

So he simply took all the substances that science currently understands the body to need and combined them into a drink.

This is actually a relatively short list:

Fat, protein, fibre, potassium, phosphorus, sodium, choline, sulphur and a list of about 20 other vitamins and minerals.

Here's what makes Soylent so great. We're all supposed to be smugly cynical post modernists able to reel off a derisory list of references in order to scoff at the complexities of modern life. But Soylent reveals how redundant and moronic this attitude is, since even if you decide 'all that health food crap is too complex, i'm going to just eat whatever', you are still doing the same fundamental thing that Soylent does, only you don't realize it. You are still inputting a specific list of substances into your body which are having a specific type of effect on its functioning. There's no way to escape the fact your body is a machine with specific components which produce specific effects and processes depending on what is input.

There is a DIY community where we make our own soylent recipes and refine the medium. It's located here http://discourse.soylent.me/

As someone who has previously had serious narcotics problems, mental health issues requiring repeated hospitalization, and periods of EXTREMELY bad diet, the effect that Soylent has had on my cognitive functioning is nothing short of astounding. The potential good that can be done with this knowledge and this type of recipe is absolutely staggering. You can make Soylent meals for as little as $2 a day, and that will decrease in the future. I presently have and will soon be ordering OVER A YEARS worth of its ingredients which will fit into 2 plastic boxes and sit in my bedroom. For anyone on a low income I urge you to (cautiously) investigate this. Please be warned that incorrect doses of elements that the body requires on a daily basis, such as potassium, can be toxic. However I would bet hard cash that very few of you on this board are getting anywhere NEAR the RDA of this particular element and many others.

The range of mental health problems, illness, and by extension crime and suffering that can and will be alleviated in the future, when smart consumers start to approach their body as the machine it is, is going to be immense. Likewise the potential for illness and derangement as the plethora of drugs and substances the human body can consume expands. Simply eating 'natural' or 'balanced' is not going to do it. Consider the fact that the dividing line between substances we deem as drugs and as food is somewhat arbitrary.  The big danger that most of us fall for is fear of complexity and the hassle of caloric expenditure on acquiring and assessing new information. However, there is no going back to a simpler time, and we can't just trust our intuitions coupled with what 'feels right', since what we feel is the result of mechanic processes and processes going on within our body that we have little conscious access to unless we educate ourselves.  Soylent and the type of thinking behind it allows us to decode our feelings and sensations and potentially deduce the mechanical causes behind it that we aren't consciously aware of.

It has been very disheartening for those of us doing Soylent to read the media responses to it, so many of which have been dickwitted moronicisms combining a sneery brand of 'humour' with the typical attitude of cynical dismissal of something as a 'fad' backed up with nothing but ignorant gibberish. There have been notable exceptions and I would encourage anyone to do some googling and decide for yourself if the science behind it is legit or not. Just make sure you don't come across the Fox News article where the commenters decide its a plot by the Obama administration to control our brainesssss.

When not receiving its required nutrition, the body will economize and cognition and functioning will be severely impaired. I had a 'moment' after a few weeks on Soylent that I will only share here . I was walking outside and suddenly realized the depth of my vision had massively expanded and for the first time in years I was noticing more details, all the way to the horizon. This effect has been permanent and I am convinced that it was due to my brain having the nutrition to bring some of its systems 'back online'.  :) It was a nice confirmation of the fact that our brains are totally blind to themselves, as I had no idea I was missing anything.

Meyna:
Are you sustaining yourself exclusively on a variety of Soylent at this point? Do you find that there are any disadvantages to a permanent, all-liquid diet? It sounds like the nutrients are all there, but I imagine it would wreak havoc in certain respects physiologically.

jamesA01:
Nope, that's a common query, but the fact that it is all liquid has absolutely no detrimental effect, since fibre is included. People assume that all liquid must be bad, but its not, and the Soylent people consulted experts on this.

There are people trying to work on solid recipes, but so far noones got anything substantial.

Most people use it for about 80-90% of their meals. Chewing gum helps.

I just made a few orders, and will soon have the supplies to make more than enough to last me beyond 2014, for a total of approx £250, (not including scales, blender and stuff I've already bought etc.)

If anyone on this board has health issues or feels they might have poor nutrition or mental health problems, Soylent is very very likely to help. If not full Soylent then at least getting a proper multivit and mineral and learning some basics about what the body needs.

I should also add I am not an expert on it and better answers to any queries can be found on the Soylent board.

Madness:
Hmm...

I'm burnt out on my last two posts, I think.

I had thoughts but now I'm more interested in accumulating a dietary thread. I shall be back.

anor277:
"Soylent", unforunate name for a food.  But of course the name pays homage to the classic sci-fi film of a Harry Harrison work, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page