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These Angry Dutch Farmers Really Hate Microsoft

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61–70 of 135 posts

Re: These Angry Dutch Farmers Really Hate Microsoft

#61
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds so arrogant to say farmers are privileged, while these families have worked for generations to build these farms. There are even people advocating to take the farms from them, if necessary by force. I don’t blame the farmers if they want to hold on to every inch, and to fight for every right they still have.

They are not taking the farms from them, they are buying them. Agro-industry in the Netherlands is unsustainable and all the parties involved know it. Whatever they say, what we're watching here is just the buyout negotiations.

[deleted]

Re: These Angry Dutch Farmers Really Hate Microsoft

#62
post #9

The farmers are just as much in the wrong as Microsoft here. Al construction is at risk of stalling because of their excessive pollution.

They halved their emissions in just a couple of decades. If you truly want progress, be realistic with the deadlines you state and keep on giving them the incentives to continue this positive trend.

Re: These Angry Dutch Farmers Really Hate Microsoft

#63
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s just plain arrogance, bossing entire groups of people around.

So offering them enough money so that it would be profitable for them to close their farms is bossing around? Using land for housing or (data center for that matter) is just more efficient most of the time.

Offering a carrot is okay. But offering a carrot and shit talking them while carrying a big stick is something else isn’t it.

Re: These Angry Dutch Farmers Really Hate Microsoft

#64
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I own several buildings > expense in the low five figures > So what are people complaining about, exactly? This is an incredible take. Many people don’t have the luxury to just spend five figures on a mandatory house renovation.

It will be heavily subsidized. Nobody will get into trouble for not being able to afford insulation. That's not how the law in European countries works.

Just to underline how property law works in many EU countries: I have a tenant who is actively destroying the apartment he lives in. It is still practically impossible to dissolve my rent agreement with him, because the courts see it as likely that he would end up homeless.

There is simply no conceivable reality in which our current system of laws would force a cash-strapped, 80 year old house owner out of his property simply because they can't follow up on EU energy regulations. We have plenty of legal safeguards to weigh social outcomes against the impact of laws and regulations.

Re: These Angry Dutch Farmers Really Hate Microsoft

#65
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds so arrogant to say farmers are privileged, while these families have worked for generations to build these farms. There are even people advocating to take the farms from them, if necessary by force. I don’t blame the farmers if they want to hold on to every inch, and to fight for every right they still have.

That dubious take, even if true, doesn't give them the right to destroy nature of the entire country. Among other things, their influence on the water management policy has an effect of private homes literally sinking in certain parts of the country.

They don’t destroy nature any more than cities and datacenters do. We just picked the wrong species to protect.

Re: These Angry Dutch Farmers Really Hate Microsoft

#66
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds so arrogant to say farmers are privileged, while these families have worked for generations to build these farms. There are even people advocating to take the farms from them, if necessary by force. I don’t blame the farmers if they want to hold on to every inch, and to fight for every right they still have.

They are not taking the farms from them, they are buying them. Agro-industry in the Netherlands is unsustainable and all the parties involved know it. Whatever they say, what we're watching here is just the buyout negotiations.

Buying them, while preventing they start over elsewhere. And also, all savings in emissions are used to expand emissions in other industries. That doesn’t sound fair, and isn’t.

Re: These Angry Dutch Farmers Really Hate Microsoft

#67
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. If you really wanted to implement effective green policies, they would involve reducing the global population to around half a billion max and keeping them at pre-industrial levels of technological development.

Is this sarcasm?

No, straight up, that's what needs to be done. I think that the current population-management fantasy supported by the WEF and quite a few on Hackernews -- building enormous arcologies in which to warehouse much of the world's citizenry -- is going to run into technical challenges that threaten the entire project, before they even get to the massive "people hate living there" problems.

We can get to actually zero carbon emissions if we adopt simple living without any industrial technology, but we lose the capacity to feed eight billion people without Green Revolution style agtech, so we will have to make do with fewer people. We have to face up to the reality that industrial civilization is widely regarded, by people with deep understanding of the issues, as a bad move.

Re: These Angry Dutch Farmers Really Hate Microsoft

#68
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's basically the only one in the country.

For very large values of one: https://www.ah.nl/winkels?storeType=XL

I don't know all of these, but it seems that nearly all are still inside the city, have a local function and are reasonably reachable by something else than a car. The ones I know are still smaller than the average French hypermarché, and there are far fewer than them. The Muiden mall was the first one and caused a shift in policy to strongly discourage moving shops to the city edge.

Re: These Angry Dutch Farmers Really Hate Microsoft

#69
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds so arrogant to say farmers are privileged, while these families have worked for generations to build these farms. There are even people advocating to take the farms from them, if necessary by force. I don’t blame the farmers if they want to hold on to every inch, and to fight for every right they still have.

No one "worked for generations". We each get one lifetime, that's it.

My emotion don’t care about your prdantry. I worked on a farm together with my father and grandfather. My grandfather’s grandfather started it as a dirt poor peat digger who lived in a peat house and worked till the day he died. Say what you will about my brothers farm, but I will physically stop anyone trying to it from him. He does a great job producing quality products with minimal emissions, while maintaining the great landscape and animals around him. If you want the destroy all that in favor of datacenters, you’re the problem, not him.

Re: These Angry Dutch Farmers Really Hate Microsoft

#70
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let them eat datacentres indeed. The counterpoint here is what gross tonnage per annum does the population of the Netherlands consume .. and in the event of supply chain disruptions, should (say) NATO hiccup, to what degree are they self sufficient? Farming and urban land uses aren't a straight either|or, they're a complex need both.

60 percent of dutch meat is exported, we can do with a whole lot less.

Interesting, but that doesn't particularly address why it's important to keep agricultural skils current and land viable.

eg: In a pinch meat animals can be slaughtered and eaten and what they once ate can be fed instead to humans.

It's the insurance of being not far removed from near sufficiency.

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