This discussion has already happened at great length here.
To summarize my stance: there’s risks, but considering that everyone I’ve read on discourse.soylent.me has had positive results across the board, from body composition to semen taste. I get noticeably improved mental clarity (along with getting so lean I’d be scared I was undereating if I didn’t know precisely how many calories I was eating and clearer skin), which makes me willing to accept those risks. Also, because soylent might be safe and come with a load of benefits, there’s data-generating value in taking individual components, blending, and pouring them down my throat to see if anything bad happens. (Julia Galef on tradition as it pertains to social systems, that happens to be applicable here.)
But I’m not very worried; I have trouble imagining a food that has positive effects of “improve body comp, improve mental clarity, clear skin, make semen taste good” and no known negative effects and is biochemically plausible to actually be bad in the long term. Certainly not impossible, but not very probable, I think.
Makes sense, thanks for the link and your summary.
I’ve taken a keen interest in soylent but am happy to let others beta test long-term effects for me before I give it a shot :)
FWIW, the way soylent people describe their results is more or less how I describe what happened to me when I adopted a whole food plant-based diet (the “china study diet”): BF% dropped/I got leaner, various body odors improved, huge reduction in acne, became a morning person, was able to stop taking ADHD meds, and felt no negative effects at all. Except for maybe I now have so much energy I just had to pick up distance running and ultimately hurt my ankle. :P
This discussion has already happened at great length here.
To summarize my stance: there’s risks, but considering that everyone I’ve read on discourse.soylent.me has had positive results across the board, from body composition to semen taste. I get noticeably improved mental clarity (along with getting so lean I’d be scared I was undereating if I didn’t know precisely how many calories I was eating and clearer skin), which makes me willing to accept those risks. Also, because soylent might be safe and come with a load of benefits, there’s data-generating value in taking individual components, blending, and pouring them down my throat to see if anything bad happens. (Julia Galef on tradition as it pertains to social systems, that happens to be applicable here.)
But I’m not very worried; I have trouble imagining a food that has positive effects of “improve body comp, improve mental clarity, clear skin, make semen taste good” and no known negative effects and is biochemically plausible to actually be bad in the long term. Certainly not impossible, but not very probable, I think.
Makes sense, thanks for the link and your summary.
I’ve taken a keen interest in soylent but am happy to let others beta test long-term effects for me before I give it a shot :)
FWIW, the way soylent people describe their results is more or less how I describe what happened to me when I adopted a whole food plant-based diet (the “china study diet”): BF% dropped/I got leaner, various body odors improved, huge reduction in acne, became a morning person, was able to stop taking ADHD meds, and felt no negative effects at all. Except for maybe I now have so much energy I just had to pick up distance running and ultimately hurt my ankle. :P