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Comment by dragontamer | Hacker News Reader

It certainly isn't a scam. However, I went to an engineering school, and have met Food Engineers.

Food Engineering is a difficult branch of chemical engineering. You've got regulations, you've got people's lives at stake. The Soylent guys just went at it like a hacker: because thats what they are. They're taking the "startup culture" and trying to apply it to food.

And that is incredibly dangerous. Anyone who has any connection at all to the food industry knows that PEOPLE DIE IF YOU MESS THIS UP. This is NOT a "hackathon", and a SINGLE mistake can accidentally kill someone.

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The food industry as a whole is one big hack, even with it's fancy regulations and bureaucracy. People are dying constantly due to the failures of the industry. It is nice to see fresh ideas.

The maritime industry as a whole is one big hack, even with it's fancy regulations and bureaucracy. People are dying constantly due to the failures of the industry. It is nice to see fresh ideas.

That's why I am pitching my new great idea: submarines made of scrap steel I found in my back yard! The best part? No more hassle with pesky waves! Glide beneath the surface with the grace of an aquatic mammal.

Sure, some people have built submarines before, and they say it is really difficult to get right, but my idea is fresh by virtue of it being created by me, a SV engineer!

(Ignore that puncture in the test unit, somebody mishandled the shipping!)

You forget that most people use cheap submarine or even avoid submarine at all (which is even worse for them) just to save time and money.

I have bad eating habits and I know multiple people who have eating habits even worse. I don't want to change that and I don't want to change my friend either, I'm fine how I live. This however is an amazing solution which is extremely easy to apply.

Can you tell me the issue with Soylent? It doesn't contains everything I need right? There a fraction that I wouldn't get from it. Does I plan to use it for every meal? Why would I? I enjoy eating, it's a great activity, I don't plan to stop that. Personally I consider Soylent as a good lunch replacement, nothing more.

Seriously the only issue is people who will actually believe that it's good to eat only that. I believe that it's the biggest marketing mistake Soylent made but I guess they needed that to show how they are superior to solutions like Ensure.

>People are dying constantly due to the failures of the industry.

Wait, what? Not even anywhere near true[1]. The CDC says 3,000 people in the US die every year from foodborne illnesses. That's .1%, one-tenth of a percent. I'd say that's a pretty good track record.

[1]http://www.cdc.gov/foodborneburden/

I think he probably means things like the diabetes or obesity epidemics, which in large part are caused by the failures of the industry, and their reliance on things like HFCS.

They are not. They are caused by unhealthy lifestyles maintained by people. It is convenient blaming everything on HFCS, but the truth is, if you eat cheeseburgers with cola daily and not expel extra calories with vigorous work, that's what is producing diabetes and obesity, not HFCS. Shifting responsibility from personal to "shady corporations made me fat" is bullshit.

And, btw, the reason food industry is using HFCS is not because they are evil, but because agrisector lobbied high tariffs on sugar imports, while at the same time subsidizing corn. Which makes using HFCS produced from cheap corn practical alternative to buying sugar with its artificially inflated prices. So even if you intend to place blame of HFCS, you chose wrong industry to blame.

EEk! Would you be content if 0.1% of US airline passengers died as a result of the airline industry each year?

After all it would only be 700 per year, every year.

( Note: 2012 global airline fatalities were 475 ).

Well, GP is off by a couple orders of magnitude..

3000 people out of a population of 310 million is 0.001%.

Equivalent of 7 airline fatalities. Not so bad.

3,000 people out of ~300MM in the US is not one tenth of a percent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle

Learn history yo before making ignorant comments.

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