[MDS100]

"3" most likely.

"Are you going to purposely malnourish people so that you can see they're malnourished? That's ethically dubious at best."

Yes, that's what Soylent is currently doing. No suprise the founder got bad news from his cardiologist with an earlier version. "Failing" with their product in this case actually means hurting the customers.

[msandford]

There's a difference between knowingly and willingly malnourishing people and doing so out of ignorance. In order to perform a double-blind you have to do the former. The people making Soylent might accidentally do the latter. Supposing the two are the same sets an impossibly high bar.

Furthermore since it's not a double-blind the people who choose to participate go in with the knowledge that it might not be done yet and that they face risks.

I don't really care about this one way or the other; I think Soylent is an interesting idea but I like eating a variety of food so I'm not participating. But I don't think that the people in charge of Soylent are a hair's breadth from war criminals either, ethically.