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Comment by MarcusVorenus | Hacker News Reader

I think it's fascinating how hostile some people can get towards Soylent. It's like they think the mere existence of it is an attack to the core of their identity. I wonder if it's just insecurity triggered by people liking something that they don't like or some other type of psychological defense mechanism.

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Very interesting indeed. I guess 2 factors are:

* some people don't like change in general, some are afraid of it. This also brings the same question: why? I have no idea, but there are plenty of guesses, e.g: https://hbr.org/2012/09/ten-reasons-people-resist-chang.html

* some kind of a "bad experience" with Soylent. It can be just an article about "busy people drinking Soylent" which creates negative internal representation of a Soylent as a drink for the crazy, out of this world busy people

Back when I was a vegetarian I got a lot of the same thing. People would get upset about what I would or wouldn't put into my own body.

While you're right that convincing people that they're being stupid is generally a waste of time, it's no more or less a waste of time than posting a comment on the internet wondering why other people post comments on the internet.

For me, it's hostility toward the race to the bottom and accompanying dehumanization that Soylent is nodding to.

I really don't understand people who think positively about Soylent. It's bland nutrient paste, similar to the kind fed to coma patients. How exciting and DISRUPTIVE!!!

I used Soylent to lose weight. It helped me gain very precise control over caloric intake.

You know what? I didn't care that it was a bland nutrient slurry. I cared about the "dehumanizing" control it gave me. I cared about the options it brought to my life. Discovering significant extra time in my day by not cooking 8x a week was a nice bonus.

What I'm really seeing in your comments is that you're struggling to understand how someone could think so utterly differently from you.

Pay it no mind. It's the "I don't understand it and it doesn't specifically work for my life so it must be wrong" mindset. I've used Soylent as you have and it frees up time and funds as well as making calorie tracking easier.

While I can't say Soylent freed up funds for me, I can say it made food costs a lot more predictable.

If weight loss is your goal, it's actually cheaper and easier and far, far more pleasant to just make smoothies for a couple of meals a day. Here's an easy one that I make all the time:

* 1/2 cup yogurt

* 1/2 cup juice (apple, orange, whatever)

* 1 banana, peeled

* 3-4 frozen strawberries

* 1/2 cup frozen blueberries

Toss in blender. Blend. Consume. Rinse out blender. From assembling ingredients to rinsing the blender, the whole process can be performed in <10 minutes, and is far less disgusting and dehumanizing than consuming bland nutrient goo. Total ingredient cost for one week of daily smoothies is <$10.

A big part of what makes us human is that we take pleasure in eating good food. It's a shame to throw that part of your humanity away unnecessarily.

Perhaps I don't subscribe to your narrow definition of humanity. I found bland nutrient goo perfect for my needs. It meant no shopping, no dealing with perishables, and other logistical and organizational benefits.

Have you considered the possibility that perhaps not everyone thinks like you?

Another interesting trait of humans is that once they've subscribed to an opinion, they'll tie themselves in knots looking for ways to avoid changing their mind despite all contradictory evidence.

Is it possible that you really don't care about one of the core biological experiences that define human civilizations throughout history? The act that differentiates our cultures, has driven migration, evolution, wars and exploration? The act that is so ingrained in our biology that meal preparation is central to every human settlement?

Yeah, that's possible. It's also possible that you're a blowhard. But hey man, knock yourself out. I was just saying that it's pretty damned easy to make a smoothie.

You also declared that I had opted "to throw that part of your humanity away unnecessarily".

But nevermind that. Yes, it's easy to make a smoothie. Just not sufficiently easy that I preferred it to Soylent, which was a highly personal decision for me to make and relies upon choices and information not available to you.

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