Depressed people misuse all kinds of perfectly valid products and services. Being mad at Soylent, or pizza delivery, or the internet, or beds, or any other thing that depressed people might end up leaning on in an unhealthy way seems pretty silly to me.
> I think many people approach Soylent as a way to solve some of their problems, but people should realize it won't be and can't be.
I'm not sure the parent's tone indicated that they were "mad" at Soylent and honestly your response to it is fairly insensitive.
> Meal replacement shakes have been around for, what, 2+ decades now?
Reading the copy on the Soylent website suggests that it saves you time. If meal replacement shakes have been around, then what is Soylent's value proposition and what makes it different?
Marketing. Initially based around the idea of replacing all food with it (which even the founder stopped doing during his initial trial).
It's tapping into a lot of sentiments around food as a "problem" or "nuisance", where a lot of the other shakes on the market have gone for the health and fitness angle, or the "I'm too important and busy to sit down and have breakfeast so I'll down a shake on the go" angle.
But it's not bringing much more than marketing.
I wish people would stop saying this.
There are many products, some are Ensure brands, that can be used as sole source nutrition products.
They don't market themselves like that to the general public because they're big companies with lots of lawyers who are cautious about that kind of claim.
But many of those other products can be used as sole source of nutrition.
EG fortisip: http://www.nutricia.ie/products/view/fortisip
> Fortisip is a Food for Special Medical Purposes for use under medical supervision. Fortisip is a nutritionally complete, 1.5kcal/ml, ready to drink, milk shake style nutritional supplement, for the management of disease related malnutrition. Fortisip can be used to supplement the diet of patients unable to meet their nutritional requirements from other foods, or used as a sole source of nutrition. Fortisip is available in 200ml bottles, with a flexible straw attached, in 8 flavours: Neutral, Vanilla, Chocolate, Toffee, Banana, Orange, Strawberry and Tropical Fruits.
Ensure original: https://abbottnutrition.com/ensure-original
> For interim sole-source nutrition.
Depression, in this way, is kind of a weird bogeyman of an argument: its prevalence would be increased by anything that makes life easier. And so, naturally, the solution is reactionary: eliminate depression by eliminating progress! (This is the same sentiment behind the phrase "idle hands are the Devil's workshop"—made clearer with the knowledge that Christianity considers sloth–or in other translations, sadness—a sin.)
Look, it's not crazy to grant that each of those things is a benefit and bring up the fact that there are downsides. It doesn't have to be all good or all bad. We can say "ordering pizza is great, and we should consider the fact that some people rely on it to the detriment of their physical and emotional well-being."
It's this same attitude that ends up with heroin addicts on the street: these are almost always people who, at one point, had chronic pain; and then became addicted to their (much less scary) pain medications; and then, when someone decided to make it hard to live an easy life while addicted to pain medications by taking the supply away, they "solved" this problem by finding a different opiate to consume that they could access.
A person with depression will be able to have an easier time having depression if they don't have to cook for themselves, yes. But you know what that easier time means for them? More emotional energy left over to maybe try to get over their depression! And you know who's never going to get over their depression? The person stuck spending the little time they feel like getting out of bed each day trying to scrounge up a meal, pay bills, take care of children/parents, etc.
In short: things like Soylent are, at worst, a crutch. Even when misused and relied upon long-term, they're still letting people have the opportunity to get better, in a way that forcing them to "walk it off" would permanently disable.
It's not as simple as "easier/more efficient = more emotional energy to get over depression". In fact, you might have it backwards. Therapies such as behavioral activation therapy[0] exploit the fact that our mood can follow from our behaviors. (You might be familiar with this, for example: force yourself to smile for thirty seconds, and see how your mood changes.)
I experience a chronic, mild to moderate form of depression called dysthymia[1]. For me, there are two things that can make a world of difference in how my day goes. One is leaving the house shortly after getting up, which prevents me from starting the day by flopping on the couch and wasting hours online, then feeling guilty. The other is taking a shower after getting up, because if I don't, I generally won't leave the house. Both of these actually take effort, especially some days, and your read on things would suggest that just not doing them would leave me more time and energy to "try to get over" my depression. But in fact, it's precisely the immediate investment in myself and my day that makes the difference.
As it happens, cooking also ties in for me. I enjoy cooking, generally, and I feel proud of the food I cook for myself and especially for others. On the other hand, here's what happens when I order a pizza: I feel guilty about being lazy, and I feel hopeless about the prospect of getting out of whatever funk I'm in when I can't even get myself to put together a meal. That said, I take what I can get: I was alone a couple Thanksgivings ago, and had been in a low stretch for a few weeks, and it was a victory to make myself get up and go to the gas station for Bugles and Swedish Fish, rather than ordering in.
I'm telling you this personal stuff, which doesn't feel terribly comfortable, because I constantly hear naive bullshit[2] about how depression works, and it is supremely unhelpful. It is not simple. And my experience isn't going to be the same as anyone else's. But the person who has to scrounge up a meal, pay bills, and take care of others could absolutely be doing better than the person who "has it easy", because they've got structure, activities that get them out of their head, and others who they can be responsible for or even live for.
I'm not saying Soylent shouldn't be on the market, and I'm not saying pizza shouldn't be able to be delivered. But the idea that thinking about how all these factors fit together is "silly" and worth dismissing is really wrongheaded.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_activation
Why is that not something that can be discussed? I mean, I'd bet good money that delivery pizza is a net benefit, but I can still admit that some people probably rely on it in a way that's unhealthy.
