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First Urban ‘Agrihood’ in America Feeds 2,000 Households for Free

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Re: First Urban ‘Agrihood’ in America Feeds 2,000 Households for Free

#61

Post by adrianN »

lostlogin wrote: post #50
DougN7 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans don't have to work. We can sleep in the rain and hunt and gather to survive like the animals. Although I would argue hunting and foraging is work, so most animals don't get out of it either.

We wouldn't have to work as much if automation is done right. However it sure looks like we are going to use automation to further concerntrate wealth.

We wouldn't have to work as much if we didn't want to buy all the gizmos.

https://orionmagazine.org/article/the-gospel-of-consumption/

Re: First Urban ‘Agrihood’ in America Feeds 2,000 Households for Free

#62

Post by adrianN »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #57
lostlogin wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We wouldn't have to work as much if automation is done right. However it sure looks like we are going to use automation to further concerntrate wealth.

>> However it sure looks like we are going to use automation to further concerntrate wealth. The only problem I have this statement is if you do not believe in the notion of freewill, then yes this is accurate. If you believe in the notion of freewill, then you would think instead of seeing what's happening and think that all the wealth is being concentrated into the top 1% of society unfairly, what's to stop you fro…

By definition, only 1% of the population can be in the top 1%. Do you want to tell me that anybody can become part of the top 1%?

Re: First Urban ‘Agrihood’ in America Feeds 2,000 Households for Free

#63

Post by Jtsummers »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #57
lostlogin wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We wouldn't have to work as much if automation is done right. However it sure looks like we are going to use automation to further concerntrate wealth.

>> However it sure looks like we are going to use automation to further concerntrate wealth. The only problem I have this statement is if you do not believe in the notion of freewill, then yes this is accurate. If you believe in the notion of freewill, then you would think instead of seeing what's happening and think that all the wealth is being concentrated into the top 1% of society unfairly, what's to stop you fro…

> If you believe in the notion of freewill, then you would think instead of seeing what's happening and think that all the wealth is being concentrated into the top 1% of society unfairly, what's to stop you from being in that 1%?

The free will of the top 1% that don't want to have their wealth diminished by sharing it with others.

The practical impacts of poor education and healthcare leading to delayed educational and/or career opportunities.

Businesses buying politicians to diminish individual access to education, healthcare, and other opportunities.

Politicians and businesspeople working to reduce worker rights to fair wages and safe working conditions.

Politicians working to disenfranchise voters, which in turns leads to their lack of representation and further diminishing their status and reducing their chances of success in life.

> Nearly every obstacle you will list, I can name several people who have overcome those impediments to be successful.

Anecdotes, almost as useful as real data.

> When you stop thinking the deck is stacked against you, it frees your mind to think of what your capable of, not of the greater odds that stacked against that will prevent you from achieving what you want to.

This is true, and it is mentally and emotionally freeing once you're out of the mindset. It doesn't negate the fact that, for many people, the odds are still, in fact, stacked against them.

Re: First Urban ‘Agrihood’ in America Feeds 2,000 Households for Free

#64

Post by chandler »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #41
hacknat wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about rolling the dice now and ending up in a backwater of SE Asia or the DRC? I don't disagree that this is probably the best time to be alive on average, but the standard deviation is pretty enormous, and I would argue that it might not be the best time to be alive in all places.

> How about rolling the dice now and ending up in a backwater of SE Asia or the DRC? Still statistically better than a random human being in 3,000 BC. And of course, we don't live in the best possible universe; but on average, a random human's odds of being eaten by a figurative grue monotonically increase as you go backwards in time.

>> ...a random human's odds of being eaten by a figurative grue monotonically increase as you go backwards in time.

Humans don't live alone in the woods--not now, not 5,000 years ago (nor 45,000 years before that). They band together to modify, control, and tame their environment.

Now, you might miss your devices, pastimes, and widespread sanitation...however, from my understanding, humans don't typically worry about malevolent grues.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatomically_modern_human#Mode...

Re: First Urban ‘Agrihood’ in America Feeds 2,000 Households for Free

#66

Post by jly »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #57
lostlogin wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We wouldn't have to work as much if automation is done right. However it sure looks like we are going to use automation to further concerntrate wealth.

>> However it sure looks like we are going to use automation to further concerntrate wealth. The only problem I have this statement is if you do not believe in the notion of freewill, then yes this is accurate. If you believe in the notion of freewill, then you would think instead of seeing what's happening and think that all the wealth is being concentrated into the top 1% of society unfairly, what's to stop you fro…

Striving to be in the top 1% is not an acceptable answer to the concentration of wealth issue. Not everyone is in a position to do that and not everyone wants to measure success by wealth. This ignores the damage that wealth concentration and business-driven decisions affect people and the environment. I don't want to live in a world we've destroyed, even if i can be in the top 0.1% of it. That's the issue.

Re: First Urban ‘Agrihood’ in America Feeds 2,000 Households for Free

#67

Post by felipellrocha »

carleverett wrote: post #44
jelliclesfarm wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carbon food print. Less storage and transport and middle men. Green lungs for the city. Many urban farms have minimal fossil fuel needs. There is a case to be made here.

In the short term maybe, but once our transportation is electric (and our electricity isn't coming from coal or gas), the difference in environmental impact is negligible. Some trees and a nice garden would provide the same environmental benefit to a city, and look nicer too. There's no case to be made that there is any economic benefit to farming in the city. By all measures, it's much more expensive.

> here's no case to be made that there is any economic benefit to farming in the city. By all measures, it's much more expensive.

I think that is a bit myopic.

A small farm can look nice too. And even with electric transport, there's the fact that cities have to bulldoze over miles and miles of nature in order to accommodate the kind of transport you're talking about, mainly cars. Which is why some cities are moving away from cars and into more dense kinds of environments. Once that's done, transporting your crop of the day from the farm into the city becomes a bit of a hassle

Re: First Urban ‘Agrihood’ in America Feeds 2,000 Households for Free

#68

Post by tyfon »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #57
lostlogin wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We wouldn't have to work as much if automation is done right. However it sure looks like we are going to use automation to further concerntrate wealth.

>> However it sure looks like we are going to use automation to further concerntrate wealth. The only problem I have this statement is if you do not believe in the notion of freewill, then yes this is accurate. If you believe in the notion of freewill, then you would think instead of seeing what's happening and think that all the wealth is being concentrated into the top 1% of society unfairly, what's to stop you fro…

The 1% group is quite hereditary[1]

There are of course exceptions, but you are much more likely to end up in the 1% if your parents are also in that segment.

In the US I have the feeling that a lot of people support its social structure because they believe themselves to be future [mb]illionaires, aka the American dream.

In Europe where most realize that they will never end up in that spot, even with hard work, there is a much more egalitarian structure to society.

I'm not saying any of them are bad, but the notion that everyone can reach the 1% is by definition false. Only 1% of the population can be in that spot.

You can via social structures even it out though so more people can share in the generated wealth. And I think that is actually free will since the social structure is chosen unless one lives under a dictatorship or such.

[1] http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21715735-new-dat...

Re: First Urban ‘Agrihood’ in America Feeds 2,000 Households for Free

#69

Post by rexpop »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #57
lostlogin wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We wouldn't have to work as much if automation is done right. However it sure looks like we are going to use automation to further concerntrate wealth.

>> However it sure looks like we are going to use automation to further concerntrate wealth. The only problem I have this statement is if you do not believe in the notion of freewill, then yes this is accurate. If you believe in the notion of freewill, then you would think instead of seeing what's happening and think that all the wealth is being concentrated into the top 1% of society unfairly, what's to stop you fro…

> what's to stop you from being in that 1%?

You wrote this like it were a rhetorical question, but let's talk about social mobility. Wikipedia[1] will tell you that it's "movement of individuals... between social strata." Surely you'll agree that "the 1%" is a prime example of a social stratum, and that becoming a member of that stratum is a clear movement.

Obstacles lie between them.

To overcome these obstacles one requires capital: economic, social and cultural.

If you start without them, you'll not go far. Physics are relentless. It may be impossible — within one lifetime — to navigate the socially constructed maze from third-generation-diabetic-of-color to business services firm partner, despite the two persons being physically proximal!

Yes, one can and must make decisions in this life, and if one has free will then by all means, enjoy the faculty, but one is not free to purchase items that aren't in store. One is not free to pull levers that aren't available.

You might ask "why do poor folk fall prey to predatory lenders? Why not invest that windfall in a CD, or a more appropriate financial vehicle?" But that question only exposes your naïveté: some folk have simply never heard of the phrase "financial vehicle". They lack the cultural capital to even see the social constructs allegedly available to them. They are literally blind to them.

Free will does not enable one to open invisible doors.

Apologies for this long-winded tirade: your rhetorical question struck me as absurdly naive. You claim you "can name several people who have overcome those impediments," but "several" is not a statistically significant number, and will not convince a rational person that the United States has high social mobility.

What's to stop one from being in that 1%? Massive, invisible, entrenched social constructs requiring immense luck or capital to navigate. And then your "free" will — certainly not free of biases, neuroses or addictions — can still fuck it up.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility

Re: First Urban ‘Agrihood’ in America Feeds 2,000 Households for Free

#70

Post by thatcat »

flyaway wrote: post #11
pavel_lishin wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand it, there's lots of problems with things like this, and that's one of the potential issues, but I would imagine that this mostly uses raised beds with clean soil brought in from elsewhere. We thought about doing some gardening when we had a backyard in an apartment in New York, but even grass wouldn't grow in that soil - it didn't help that the soil was littered with debris like glass, concrete, rando…

It's pretty cheap to have soil samples tested, but it winds up just confirming what you expect - our NYC backyard had 18x the upper limit for lead! Definitely raised beds.

Hydroponics is also perfect for polluted urban areas. Generally produces a higher yield per area and absorbs co2 at a higher rate; with the caveat being that there is potentially a higher rate of maintenance.
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