Rhinehart's asking for $100k to launch a Soylent manufacturing company...This is ridiculous.

He plans to use some of the money to run formal clinical trials. See this video. As a matter of fact, Rob says in the same video that completely replacing food with Soylent is "not the intended use", and also states that "I wasn't trying to create something ideal; I was trying to create something better." And, for me, and for a visible fraction of the world population, it probably succeeds in that goal. I hate eating lunch and I never eat anything nutritious, then, anyways. It probably would be a net improvement for me to replace breakfast with Soylent, too.

"Ridiculous" is the wrong word to use here. Rob got $200k in less than 24 hours after asking for $100k in one month, so the request wasn't absurd (I'm aware of hindsight bias, here; I just noticed that the underestimation was vast). I think we should be taking a close look at what Rob is doing right, at this point. If you think his experiment is a waste of your time and you refuse to contribute to it, that is clearly completely fine. However, if you intend to condemn everyone who does not eat as well as you and who is more interested in self-experimentation, then that is ridiculous.

at this point Rob isn't even at the 'crappy' level [of self-experimentation]

Well, let's fix this. I bought a month's supply of Soylent. What self-experimentation would you like me to do, that you don't have the time/money/willingness to do yourself? Even with such a small amount, could you specify an experimental method I could follow that would at least be at your "crappy" level? I'd sincerely appreciate that, and I'd be happy to follow it.

(A major reorganization edit was made to the original comment.)