Open Thread, May 5 - 11, 2014

Tenoke

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Previous Open Thread

You know the drill - If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Notes for future OT posters:

1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one.

3. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.

4. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.

Soylent to food is what a blow-up doll is to sex.

Your analogy actually seems more plausible to me than gjm's. With a blowup doll and with Soylent, you get a less pleasurable version of the action (sex and eating), while also fulfilling your needs/impulses. People feel more of a "need" to have sex than they feel a "need" to procreate.

Even if gjm's was better, I've never seen someone receive 5 downvotes for an analogy that they think isn't quite as good as another, so it seems more likely that you've been downvoted because people who like Soylent didn't like you talking mean about it.

17gjm12y

Isn't it rather the reverse? What in vitro fertilization is to sex, perhaps. It purports to offer the underlying biological benefits, but you have to give up the pleasurable sensations that normally attach to eating food. I suppose really it's more complicated than that. You have (1) the biological need, which via evolution gives rise to (2) the pleasant sensations, and then cultural processes produce (3) all sorts of other stuff -- culinary traditions, sexual taboos, etc. And also (4) the usual way of satisfying the need and/or getting the pleasant sensations may be time-consuming or expensive or inconvenient. Soylent removes 2, 3, 4. Blow-up dolls remove 1, 3, 4. IVF removes 2, 3, 4. (You might want to add "mostly" to some of those.) Make of that what you will.

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Open Thread, May 5 - 11, 2014

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You know the drill - If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

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Open Thread, May 5 - 11, 2014

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You know the drill - If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

6