I actually really like MREs. Like lunchables for adults. But the family members I get them from tell horror stories about surviving on them for weeks at a stretch. Apparently they get boring, and back you up quite a bit.
When you get right down to it, Soylentâs kind of a natural outgrowth of the craze for âhealth shakesâ weâve been seeing over the last few years. Can it really be any worse than the people who sell fancy chrome blender-I-mean-food processors at Samâs Club or wherever claiming you just need to throw random vegetables in and boom, youâre healthy?
Between its name and the silliness on the face of things of the idea you could just throw stuff in a blender and create a food thatâs âeverything the body needs,â Soylent is easy to make fun of. The irony is that itâs simply bringing to life a science-fictional concept weâve had around for decades. Like many such concepts, back in the day we looked forward to a time when we might actually have them. But now that it looks like we actually can, itâs suddenly a silly idea because âit came from science fiction.â Hey, itâs a hell of a lot more sensible than the idea of flying cars.
(And those smartphones so many of us have glued to our hands every day? They totally came from science fiction, too, you know.)
I predict that after the newness of it wears off and theyâre shipping it regularly, people will gradually stop making fun of it and itâll be just another one of those new-age foods some people eat and other people donât. Like almond or soy milk or boca burgers or whatever. But while itâs bright and shiny and new, it sure is an easy target to make fun of, isnât it?
More likely the local warlords would immediately surround and empty the shipping container, parsimoniously doling out the contents only to their allies. Like every other shipping container of food that gets dropped on starving people.
The planetâs capacity to produce enough food to feed everyone may be an issue within a hundred years or so, but so far efficient and equitable distribution has been the sticking point. You can airdrop all the futuristic food pills you want, but it wonât make any difference as long as there are poorly-socialized armed men jockeying for position.
Ethically, thatâs rather, uhâŚdubious, shall we say?
Kickstarter?
1 Like
Tis nothinâ but a modest proposalâŚ
1 Like
Thatâs why you drop the container on the warlords. Solve world hunger and create world peace!
I am guessing that, also, the toddler bonsai-ing process would ruin your appetite so much that you could not even choke down your Soylent.
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
