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My Experience as a Rice Farmer

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Re: My Experience as a Rice Farmer

#11

Post by fer »

anonymous908213 wrote: post #2

This was mostly a nice read, I do enjoy these kinds of slice-of-life blogs. I think it might have been a bit better without making claims about the economic future and history of rice farming or whatever, if the author doesn't even speak the language it's unlikely they have any real insight to offer and whatever shallow information they got off a random Youtube video is liable to be spreading misinformation that misl…

How is that communistic?

The reasoning behind Gentan was that a landless peasantry was more likely to revolt. It's not dissimilar to pre-1929 kulaks, though the kulaks were encouraged/enabled to become a relatively wealthy/middle class peasantry who employed people and were directly involved in the production without owning large swathes of land, acting as a kind of a social dampener against a revolution.

Unsurprisingly the Soviet Union killed the kulak model and moved to collective farming[0], which was arguably actually communistic.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dekulakization

Re: My Experience as a Rice Farmer

#12

Post by troupo »

aurareturn wrote: post #5

As a child, I grew up in a village in China and our family farmed rice. It was mostly my mom who was doing the farming while my dad worked in the city. Some things I remember: * Seeing hired buffalos tilling our fields * Playing with frogs and catching tadpoles in the fields * Someone with a machine that removes the husks would come to our village during harvest * The smell of rice fields. I recently smelled it again…

> My one hope for AI, robotics, self driving cars, is that they can enable people in cities to migrate back to rural places.

Why? Honest question.

A kid in a town/city has access to a billion opportunities many of which exist only because there are enough people interested.

Re: My Experience as a Rice Farmer

#13

Post by TheDong »

TurdF3rguson wrote: post #8

That suitcase of rice story though, I'm finding it problematic lol. - First of all a 95% increase in the price of rice means it less than doubled which is no big deal. - I think maybe you meant it 20x'ed ? If so I will just eat corn until it comes down (my house eats 100kg of rice in a month) - Can a suitcase of rice even get through customs?

Indeed it's a roughly 2x increase (5kg supermarket bag from 2000 jpy to 4000).

Whether that's a big deal or not depends on the person, their finances, how much rice the family eats, etc etc.

Re: My Experience as a Rice Farmer

#14

Post by ForOldHack »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #6
anonymous908213 wrote: post #2

This was mostly a nice read, I do enjoy these kinds of slice-of-life blogs. I think it might have been a bit better without making claims about the economic future and history of rice farming or whatever, if the author doesn't even speak the language it's unlikely they have any real insight to offer and whatever shallow information they got off a random Youtube video is liable to be spreading misinformation that misl…

You have to remember that in 1950, the US had a tremendous influence in Japan, to put it mildly, and also in 1950, the US was rabidly, performatively anti-communist. When McCarthyism was getting started stateside, we were also carrying out a "Red Purge" in Japan. Anyway, yeah, in this context, Japan passed the Agricultural Land Act of 1952, which was intended to turn land owned by a few rich landlords into small, ind…

Your choice of adjectives "rabidly" particularly underscores the times.

Re: My Experience as a Rice Farmer

#16

Post by stereolambda »

anonymous908213 wrote: post #2

This was mostly a nice read, I do enjoy these kinds of slice-of-life blogs. I think it might have been a bit better without making claims about the economic future and history of rice farming or whatever, if the author doesn't even speak the language it's unlikely they have any real insight to offer and whatever shallow information they got off a random Youtube video is liable to be spreading misinformation that misl…

> I'm dubious about the credibility of this assertion, but it is amusing to think that the goal would be to "discourage communism" by a policy that is essentially communistic in nature, in the true definition of the economic system (ownership of the means of production, ie. you own your own labour rather than renting it out).

You are meant to "own the means of production" not in an actual, but more ideal sense. Owning a farm or workshop to the exclusion of other people makes you petit bourgeois and this is bad. Communism promotes collective farms. AFAIK Poland was the only European Eastern Bloc country to tolerate small private farms, as a concession to obstinate peasants after the death of Stalin.

Promoting small individual farms is a more Georgist, populist capitalist or possibly strictly conservative policy. Not speaking to its economic sense though.

Re: My Experience as a Rice Farmer

#17

Post by ahartmetz »

huijzer wrote: post #3
anonymous908213 wrote: post #2

This was mostly a nice read, I do enjoy these kinds of slice-of-life blogs. I think it might have been a bit better without making claims about the economic future and history of rice farming or whatever, if the author doesn't even speak the language it's unlikely they have any real insight to offer and whatever shallow information they got off a random Youtube video is liable to be spreading misinformation that misl…

> to think that the goal would be to "discourage communism" by a policy that is essentially communistic in nature War is peace, Freedom is slavery, Ignorance is strength The point, as I see it, being that politicians like to make contradicting statements. Good for sales you could say. It is possible to cut through such lies by using logic, good on you for doing that. Unfortunately, many people take such statements as…

That doesn't seem strange to me at all. You give the people some of the things that they want from communism so that they will be content without communism. It's exactly what Bismarck did in Germany around 1900 (unemployment benefits, retirement funds and health insurance) and it was widely considered a success. Perhaps that was even an inspiration for Japan

Re: My Experience as a Rice Farmer

#18

Post by lostlogin »

TurdF3rguson wrote: post #8

That suitcase of rice story though, I'm finding it problematic lol. - First of all a 95% increase in the price of rice means it less than doubled which is no big deal. - I think maybe you meant it 20x'ed ? If so I will just eat corn until it comes down (my house eats 100kg of rice in a month) - Can a suitcase of rice even get through customs?

> my house eats 100kg of rice in a month

What’s the maths on that? A cup of rice would seem a fair bit for a person for a meal. A cup is about 200g.

That’s 500 portions a month. 5.5 people for 3 meals a day?

Re: My Experience as a Rice Farmer

#19

Post by indemnity »

aurareturn wrote: post #5

As a child, I grew up in a village in China and our family farmed rice. It was mostly my mom who was doing the farming while my dad worked in the city. Some things I remember: * Seeing hired buffalos tilling our fields * Playing with frogs and catching tadpoles in the fields * Someone with a machine that removes the husks would come to our village during harvest * The smell of rice fields. I recently smelled it again…

I grew up in a similar environment, similar trajectory, but in Africa.

Dad was a teacher in a rural school, mum stayed at home.

Until I went to school I would stay outside all day with my friends, playing in and around the rivers and dams, making our own fun with abandoned cars and rusted out farming equipment.

Our school had one computer, and I was lucky enough to get to use it after hours from time to time.

I would study the manual from front to back so I could optimise my time while on the computer.

Practiced typing on a typewriter to type in code listings faster later (aging myself here ;)

Today I build AI agents and infrastructure to run them for a hyperscaler, and my car drives me around. Feels like another lifetime ago.

Re: My Experience as a Rice Farmer

#20

Post by aurareturn »

troupo wrote: post #12
aurareturn wrote: post #5

As a child, I grew up in a village in China and our family farmed rice. It was mostly my mom who was doing the farming while my dad worked in the city. Some things I remember: * Seeing hired buffalos tilling our fields * Playing with frogs and catching tadpoles in the fields * Someone with a machine that removes the husks would come to our village during harvest * The smell of rice fields. I recently smelled it again…

> My one hope for AI, robotics, self driving cars, is that they can enable people in cities to migrate back to rural places. Why? Honest question. A kid in a town/city has access to a billion opportunities many of which exist only because there are enough people interested.

  Why? Honest question.
I don't necessarily think everyone should move out of cities to go back to living in rural areas and villages. I want it so that living outside of the city more viable than it is today because there are very real benefits to living there.

In a village, everyone knows everyone. Kids play with each other and run around freely. Every house protects all the kids and help each other. Everyone trusts everyone. You never feel lonely. Life is slower, much less stressful.

I feel sorry when I see kids today depressed, lonely, and distrusts society. This just didn't happen when I was growing up in a village. There is a joke that Asian parents don't think depression exists. I think part of that mindset is rooted in how many of them grew up - depression was just not really a thing in a village.

I sometimes hear of people who try to move to the country side, only to hate it and want to move back to cities. I get it. It's not for everyone. But I think it can be aided with technology such as AI+robots helping with your farms or house work, self driving cars taking your kids to school a bit far away, AI doctors who can do most of the basic healthcare work, etc. And if you can build a business with 1 or 2 people + AI, then it also makes remote work more viable. Basically, I think tech can bring a lot of the city quality of life to the country side.

If kids want to move to a town/city for more opportunities or networking, they'd be free to do so when they're older. Most do. But right now, the cities seem like the only path to having a decent quality of life.

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