Some Thoughts on Soylent (Or, Why I Won't Stop Worrying and Love the Futuristic Gruel)
So john_in_boston linked me to a fascinating article about a new medical food product being pioneered called 'Soylent.' My first thought, expressed to him in incredulous tones, was 'Is this for real?' He assured me it was. I read on.
On first blush, this product scans like Slim-Fast: Now For Manly Men. The articles I read stressed diet management, eating healthy, convenience, and so forth. So far so good; not really digging the name but we're on familiar ground.
Then the article started to talk about how this product could cure world hunger. And that's the point where I started to demand we back up this bus, because shit just got real. And by 'real,' I mean 'terrifying.'
To explain, allow me to take you back to the original concept of Soylent, made famous by the 1973 cult classic 'Soylent Green.' Yeah, yeah, it's people; this isn't; let's move on.
One of the articles I read called the decision to name this product Soylent 'cheeky' but I think it's really pretty apt. Like in the dystopic fiction, a company has created a processed food product that obviates the need for organic food, and wants people to purchase it.
The point that I think is worth stressing here is that 'Soylent Green' has a dystopic plot before the giant reveal at the end that everybody and their kid sister now knows. Living in a culture that has no appreciable expression of food, other than a freaky-deaky wafer made from plankton, is an upsetting thought because food has so many implications for humanity besides nutrition. It's not a coincidence that we refer to socializing with someone as 'breaking bread;' it's an important form of social expression and connection. It's also an important form of expression of preference, a common bond of culture, and one of the few benign forms of hedonistic pleasure available to us.
"But 'boots," I hear you cry (for surely while reading this post you address me by my tumblr moniker), "nobody is making me eat soylent. I'm choosing to eat this product, and think of how much good it could do if we really did have a utility for food that is the nutritional equivalent of water. This ain't Brave New World or 1984; the government is not controlling what anybody eats!"
Except, funny story; even in our present-day society the government directly controls what lots of people eat. And wouldn't you know it, most of those forms are directly tied to poverty in some way. Imagine, if you will, that Soylent really was the amazing ground-breaking discovery that its creators claim, cheaper than the cheapest food currently available and all the calories and nutrients needed to survive.
Now let's talk about what states would serve in prisons.[1] And let's talk about what food would reach kids signed over to DYS custody--some of these kids can be kept in state custody for years after their term is over, because parents can sign over custody. All those kids gotta eat! And, you know, state custody has such an awesome and stellar reputation for protecting the needs of children. And while we're at it, let's talk about whether the SNAP program (because damnit, that's the proper name for food stamps; food stamps don't currently exist, but separate rant for another time) would continue to exist.[2]
"But 'boots," I hear you cry again, "that implies a fundamental disregard for the needs, emotional health, and self-expression of our poorest members of society! You can't just take away people's right and ability to eat food; it's not humane! How little empathy would you need to have to force people to give up food just because they are under state control, or have no money?"
And that's a good question! I know I'm probably overreacting. After all, we have no history at all of restricting the rights of people who need eligibility-based benefits in this country at all! Especially no food-based ones. So really, the introduction of an extremely cheap form of medical food would present no problems at all, right?
...right?
So now that I've thoroughly depressed myself and possibly you, I'm going to go exercise my right to eat some ice cream.
**Me**
[1] Before you assure me that people don't get to pick their food in prison, allow me to assure you back: Actually, yes they can. At least where I live and work, folks who are incarcerated use a canteen system. They can't pick what is served to them for meals (which is generally far fewer calories than the recommended daily average, by the way), but they can express personal choice and tap into that benign hedonism I mentioned by buying themselves a broad array of junk foods from canteen. In fact, it's a pet theory of mine that jails and prisons give incarcerated populations too few calories in their meals on purpose, because this allows them to create powerful built-in incentives to cooperate and to work--canteen, of course, is a privilege that is revoked if an inmate is sent to the hole[3] for misbehavior, and the easiest way to add to it without outside help is to take a "job."[4]
[2] No really, think about this. Why on earth would the government continue to issue funds, which can be potentially obtained illegally or otherwise extorted, for people to buy food that was less efficient and more costly than the known alternative?
[3]Yup, it's really called that. Like, in real life; not just in terrible prison movies. And as far as I can tell, the experience is exactly as much fun as it sounds.
[4] For far less than minimum wage, and frequently to create products that have absolutely nothing to do with the prison system but are "made" by companies that have sorted out a deal with the prison to get legal cheap laborers. Which is incentivized by taking away said cheap laborers' access to full nutrition, sometimes for years at a time. Remind me again how we're not living in a dystopian future?