Teach kids to farm, not code. • Hacker News Board

Re: Teach kids to farm, not code.

#141

Post by nnq » Sun, Mar 03, 2013, 7:06 PM UTC

cpressey wrote: post #99

nnq wrote: post #72

> Growing food is far more challenging ...NOT!!! I know you Americans tend to see having a basic little vegetable garden as "black magic", but it's really something one can learn in under a week and based on this knowledge grow things to the point that one can actually produce enough for sale and maybe run a small business! But's you can't learn programming well enough to actually get any benefit out of it, let alone…

Since I've been trying to deconstruct "programmer" into "systems analyst" and "coder" in other comments, I might as well continue in that vein here, but with a slightly different tack: Farming is a lot more like "software engineering" than "programming". You can't pause a farm. It's an "engine" that you have to keep running, no matter what calamity occurs (weather, breakdowns, etc.)

indeed, but if your goal is not running it for profit but just producing tasty organic veggies from a hobby garden, then things mostly just work if you're in a temperate area with predictable climate. Just keep watering it and it will grow to the point of producing stuff, even if you totally mess up everything else. Software, on the other hand, rarely "just works"... nature and the "experience of evolution" are not on your side in the programming field...

Re: Teach kids to farm, not code.

#142

Post by martinced » Sun, Mar 03, 2013, 7:22 PM UTC

"The programming part is nothing more than a hammer to a builder or a scalpel to a surgeon. Yes, you need to know how to use it, but the skill involves knowing what to do with it."

Oh but that is soooo wrong. By now it is an undisputed fact that robots are better at surgery than surgeons. Sure, surgeons are still in the loop, as of now... But by now software is already: controlling the machines extracting the material, controlling the milling machines, controlling the entire logistics infrastructure, controlling the robotic arm which shall hold the scalpel, add precision to the surgeon's movements, provide robotic arms with levels of freedom which no human hand shall ever made, etc.

In addition to that software is also about data transmission for when surgeons need to perform remote surgery, about finding correlation between blood samples results and actual illness, finding tumors in scans, X-rays, etc.

That ultra-reductive scalpel/surgeon is totally off. Soon the computer software shall be precisely the skilled expert.

And of course one could go to great length explaining how software revolutionized farming too.

But to me the less people understand anything about software, the more of a technopriests I'm going to be in tomorrow's world so I'm all for it ; )

Re: Teach kids to farm, not code.

#143

Post by nimblegorilla » Sun, Mar 03, 2013, 7:22 PM UTC

I'm surprised by the anti-intellectualism in that post. The idea that "Growing food is far more challenging, requires an order of magnitude more knowledge and continuous learning and dedication" is totally false.

Growing food is "hard", but it's something most novices could easily do with only a little bit of preparation. It's very easy to grow food if you have access to outdoor space: 1. Buy seeds from hardware store 2. Plant seeds according to directions 3. Water seeds occasionally if there is a lack of rain 4. Wait a few months to harvest

Plants and animals grew themselves for millions of years before farmers showed up.

Re: Teach kids to farm, not code.

#144

Post by wfunction » Sun, Mar 03, 2013, 8:19 PM UTC

jasonlotito wrote: post #37

Turing_Machine wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.forbes.com/2006/07/28/leadership-careers-jobs-cx_... Farmer and engineer are about the same, with farmer having a slight edge.

Engineer, not programmer. Judging by the picture, I'm pretty sure they aren't referring to the computer "engineer."

Software engineer?

Re: Teach kids to farm, not code.

#145

Post by coldtea » Sun, Mar 03, 2013, 8:19 PM UTC

patrickaljord wrote: post #56

coldtea wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ok, this is a real low for HN. Are you actually saying that the only thing computing has done for the world is better porn delivery and better commerce? Wow. Do you have any idea how we managed to decode our genome so fast? Any idea that every science labs including maths have computers to test their hypothesis and solve their equations at such a huge scale and speed no human being could possibly dream to match? Ho…

You left out making knowledge available to all. > that doesn't mean we produce science of equal impact Of course we do, we make amazing science at such a huge rate most people can't even keep up with it anymore. If you believe computing has only little and only "quantitative" impact on science and communication than there is little I can do for you, computing has completely revolutionized every single science field.…

>Of course we do, we make amazing science at such a huge rate most people can't even keep up with it anymore. If you believe computing has only little and only "quantitative" impact on science and communication than there is little I can do for you, computing has completely revolutionized every single science field. But sure, keep thinking it's just cat videos and porn. Maybe we should just go farming instead...

The condescending tone is because you believe you are talking to some child or something?

People have differing opinions, and what you believe as the "objective truth" is not some kind of gospel.

As a matter of fact, the very issue of current science having much less impact nowadays has been stated before on HN, with very valid explanations and analysis behind it.

One reason, for example, is that the more important stuff in most scientific fields are the lower hanging fruits, and early scientists got most of them. It's a case of diminishing returns.

Say whatever you want, but any current discovery is not of the caliber of Maxwell's equations, the discovery of DNA or evolution, Einstein's theory of relatively, et al.

It's marginal, incremental work, not evolutionary. And people "can't even keep up with it anymore" just because it's so vast and concerns minutiae, not because it's so groundbreaking.

Here are some further elaborations on that:

http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2011/07/26/what-happens-i...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18095669

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21569381-idea-innovat...

Re: Teach kids to farm, not code.

#146

Post by coldtea » Sun, Mar 03, 2013, 8:23 PM UTC

dasil003 wrote: post #68

coldtea wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ok, this is a real low for HN. Are you actually saying that the only thing computing has done for the world is better porn delivery and better commerce? Wow. Do you have any idea how we managed to decode our genome so fast? Any idea that every science labs including maths have computers to test their hypothesis and solve their equations at such a huge scale and speed no human being could possibly dream to match? Ho…

It's all been pretty boring since the harnessing of fire.

Certainly. For example conversation without BS snide remarks seems to be a lost art.

Re: Teach kids to farm, not code.

#147

Post by motters » Sun, Mar 03, 2013, 8:32 PM UTC

Turing_Machine wrote: post #24

motters wrote: post #18

What will the problems of the next generation be, and how do we prepare them for that? On the face of it the next few generations face huge issues. The only thing we know for certain is that the way we live now is totally unsustainable in the long run, and that new solutions will need to be found to old and unglamorous problems. More localised food production might be one way to help them through what looks like a tu…

"The only thing we know for certain is that the way we live now is totally unsustainable in the long run" We "know" this how, exactly? Malthus was saying the same thing in 1798. Paul Ehrlich was saying the same thing in 1968. They were both dead wrong. "The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970's and 1980's hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon…

It's unsustainable in the sense that behind almost everything we do or eat is a lot of fossil fuel. That's a finite resource which will not always exist.

Re: Teach kids to farm, not code.

#148

Post by Turing_Machine » Sun, Mar 03, 2013, 8:40 PM UTC

wazoox wrote: post #118

Turing_Machine wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There may be an equivalent revolution looming, but I can see no sign of it." Plenty of material here: http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/index.html

Yes, I know of this one and it's precisely the sort of wishful thinking I was mentioning, particularly the sheer disregard of energy related problems (obviously, everything will be easy for ever if finding energy and getting rid of waste heat has some magical solution). You should study some posts from this for a contradictory POV: http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/ I particularly like the discussion between the "e…

"particularly the sheer disregard of energy related problems"

Did you actually read this?

We have enough fissile material to last billions of years. "Billions". With a B.

http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/nuclear-faq.html

Re: Teach kids to farm, not code.

#149

Post by mamoswined » Sun, Mar 03, 2013, 8:42 PM UTC

randomdata wrote: post #76

guard-of-terra wrote: post #8

In competitive environments, low-tech occupations tend to lose as a group. Take any mass farming. Tea collectors, for example, I believe they're paid so little they are in constant poverty. Why are they paid that way? They collect all the tea people around the world drink. Paying them the increase of the cost of a tea bag by 1 cent will make them comparatively rich. Why isn't it done? They have no bargaining power. A…

> Another problem is that farming doesn't seem very profitable even on the large / capital scale, because the barrier to entry is so low. For what it is worth, I make considerably more money per hour farming than I do programming, and I get paid quite well to be a programmer. With farming, however, the barrier to entry is actually quite high. That barrier being access to capital. It is the massive debt any normal per…

What are you growing?

Re: Teach kids to farm, not code.

#150

Post by mamoswined » Sun, Mar 03, 2013, 8:43 PM UTC

nnq wrote: post #72

> Growing food is far more challenging ...NOT!!! I know you Americans tend to see having a basic little vegetable garden as "black magic", but it's really something one can learn in under a week and based on this knowledge grow things to the point that one can actually produce enough for sale and maybe run a small business! But's you can't learn programming well enough to actually get any benefit out of it, let alone…

I'm glad I produce a lot of my own food, but happy I don't rely on it for my sustenance, because I've had some serious failures.