For his next trick, Rob Rhinehart, the Silicon Valley programmer responsible for “hacking” food by creating a completely inedible powdered alternative called Soylent, will hack pooping. Ta-da!
In a post on his blog called “Life Without Water,” Rhinehart says he recently accepted the challenge of his friend at DIGDEEP Water to not use more than four liters of water per day. Unfortunately for his roommates, this meant that Rhinehart was forced to choose between leaving whatever came out of his body in the toilet for the entire challenge, or not poop for 24 hours.
Because he’s already no stranger to ignoring basic bodily needs, Rhinehart chose the latter option.
Flush toilets use enormous quantities of water so I needed a way to make it unnecessary.
Feces are almost entirely deceased gut bacteria and water. I massacred my gut bacteria the day before by consuming a DIY Soylent version with no fiber and taking 500mg of Rifaximin, an antibiotic with poor bioavailability, meaning it stays in your gut and kills bacteria. Soylent’s microbiome consultant advised that this is a terrible idea so I do not recommend it. However, it worked. Throughout the challenge I did not defecate.
Hear that, people of California? If you want that whole drought thing to go away, simply stop pooping. Boom. Innovation.
