ಠ_ಠ I completely disapprove of this. Soylent is a fun idea, sure, but Rhinehart's asking for $100k to launch a Soylent manufacturing company?! He hasn't even done even the minimal crappy self-experiments he could've done very easily, like randomize weeks on and off Soylent! Nor, AFAIK, has he published any of the results from the early volunteers or anything, really. This is ridiculous.
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For #1, there's no way to tell. People get sick and die all the time. No one will be reporting systematically, which means that no matter how many datapoints you collect, your results will still be worthless because increased sample size only reduces random error, it doesn't reduce systematic error which sets a floor on your result's quality (see the 'emperor of China' bit in http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20FAQ#flaws-in-mainstream-science-and-psychology ) - and with a random release to enthusiasts like this, the systematic error/bias is going to be huge.May 21, 2013- Franklin: BS. After 4 months, you're not even guaranteed to detect scurvy. And given his huge freaking conflict of interest, why should we believe anything he says?May 21, 2013
I'd love to see you do a skeptical, statistically-informed analyses of Soylent's effect on your own health. Not enough that I'd buy it for you, but, just under that much!May 22, 2013- I'm afraid you'll have to settle for http://lesswrong.com/lw/hht/link_soylent_crowdfunding/90y7 as my explanation of why I may not ever do such a thing.May 22, 2013
As I said somewhere else, I'm very scared of the approach "I mixed everything I eat in one glass and now I feel better". Where's the scientific approach? I'm pretty sure the US army/air force had extensive research on "how to fed a bunch of guys with just powder" (heck, I can totally picture the B&W documentary with the voice over)May 23, 2013
It's 247% funded. I assume that some sort of experiment, or at least exploration, is going to happen.May 23, 2013
