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My Experience as a Rice Farmer

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Re: My Experience as a Rice Farmer

#121

Post by somenameforme »

hparadiz wrote: post #113
FlyingSnake wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I meant it as a pipe-dream that people jump into without knowing the hidden asymmetries. Farming of any kind is hard and learning that specific skillset is necessary to succeed.

For most folks it's just an add on. I have grandparents in Europe that have a garden where they grew potatoes and about 50 other things I'm not gonna list. They make jams, pickled things, and various other preserves. It's something to do and kept them sharp until they hit their late 80s.

Agreed. There's a world of difference between 'farming' for personal to small scale production as not quite a recreation but also not quite a job, and farming a low margin staple at high volume as your primary and sole means of earning money.

And I think when most people speak of the dream of returning to rural society to e.g. farm, they're speaking very much of the former rather than the latter.

Re: My Experience as a Rice Farmer

#122

Post by throwaway27448 »

stunseed wrote: post #115
throwaway27448 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's that deep: Obligatory manual labor destroys the body (and, often, the mind) and what time you have you spend exhausted. Being entirely sedentary remains a choice for us office workers—this is why people exercise and spend time outside. Of course, I would like more flexibility in choosing how much I and where I do my sedentary labor, so I might devote time to, say, gardening. But it's easy to forget…

> But it's easy to forget that humans have spent most of human history trying to escape subsistence farming. Do you define human history as the last ~10k years or last ~100k-500k years? But yes, certainly at least the last 3000 years for most humans have been spent farming to a large degree. But if we are even moderate in estimations of human origins, farming is very recent.

History certainly does not predate sedentary farming. It seems reasonable to put at around ~8kya.

Certainly, some people still live as hunter gatherers. I presume people can deduce I do not refer to them.

Re: My Experience as a Rice Farmer

#123

Post by rzkyif »

black3r wrote: post #72

I hear sentiments about farming from lots of burnout software developers. I always wonder what made them become developers at all. Cause my primary motivation for selecting a job was that I explicitly didn't want to ever work manually, I knew that since early childhood and it still didn't change even after 2 burnouts. My secondary motivation was that I liked working with machinery/computers. Also when I started codin…

I'd say it might be due to external factors such as a bad working environment

Someone who originally has coding as their passion, for example, might eventually come to dislike it due to overwork. And in doing so they overcompensate by imagining that the total opposite of office work, e.g. farming, would be a better way of life, even though it may not necessarily be true

That said, I think something like a week long course of farming targeted towards white collar workers, with all of the "fun and refreshing" parts but only educational exposure to the painful parts would be a great business idea (or maybe something like that already exists somewhere)

Re: My Experience as a Rice Farmer

#124

Post by Noumenon72 »

throwaway27448 wrote: post #122
stunseed wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But it's easy to forget that humans have spent most of human history trying to escape subsistence farming. Do you define human history as the last ~10k years or last ~100k-500k years? But yes, certainly at least the last 3000 years for most humans have been spent farming to a large degree. But if we are even moderate in estimations of human origins, farming is very recent.

History certainly does not predate sedentary farming. It seems reasonable to put at around ~8kya. Certainly, some people still live as hunter gatherers. I presume people can deduce I do not refer to them.

I think specifying "recorded history" would remove the confusion. Human history could refer to the history of anatomically modern humans, including before farming.

Re: My Experience as a Rice Farmer

#125

Post by esseph »

emptyfile wrote: post #77
knollimar wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If ypu do those for 15 years you are likely in management

Maybe in hacker news reality, not in the real world.

Correct. Dozens or hundreds of workers for every manager or foreman.

There's also a lot of owner/operator one-man shops.

Re: My Experience as a Rice Farmer

#126

Post by senttoschool »

watwut wrote: post #118
aurareturn wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

City kids have friends, play outside and go visit friends. That is completely normal in most world cities. And yes, where public transport exists, city kids do use public transport to get to school, to visit friends or to go to the gym. > I feel sorry when I see kids today depressed, lonely, and distrusts society. The weird thing is, rural people show a lot of distrust and fear that city people seem to show less. Rur…

  City kids have friends, play outside and go visit friends.
Yes, and city kids also eat, poop, and talk. :)

I think it's the degree that matters.

  This is simply not true. If you look at social issues like alcoholism, drug use, suicides or domestic violence ... villages have plenty of those.
Degree matters here too.

Re: My Experience as a Rice Farmer

#127

Post by esseph »

throwaway27448 wrote: post #105
esseph wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much like carpentry, or electrical work, or concrete, or just about any of the trades. Any labor throughout human history.

> Any labor throughout human history. Sure, but sedentary labor destroys the body through neglect—which is ultimately a choice.

> Sure, but sedentary labor destroys the body through neglect—which is ultimately a choice

Huh? It's not clear to me what you're trying to say here.

Re: My Experience as a Rice Farmer

#128

Post by throwaway27448 »

Noumenon72 wrote: post #124
throwaway27448 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

History certainly does not predate sedentary farming. It seems reasonable to put at around ~8kya. Certainly, some people still live as hunter gatherers. I presume people can deduce I do not refer to them.

I think specifying "recorded history" would remove the confusion. Human history could refer to the history of anatomically modern humans, including before farming.

History is a bit of a confusing word that way; I suppose I can see it can be used in an informal sense to refer to any timeline outside of just historiography, which does tend to refer to a distinct study from archaeology and anthropology. Noted.

Re: My Experience as a Rice Farmer

#129

Post by SenHeng »

black3r wrote: post #72

I hear sentiments about farming from lots of burnout software developers. I always wonder what made them become developers at all. Cause my primary motivation for selecting a job was that I explicitly didn't want to ever work manually, I knew that since early childhood and it still didn't change even after 2 burnouts. My secondary motivation was that I liked working with machinery/computers. Also when I started codin…

Agree. My neighbour is too old to farm and his descendants aren't interested. He has offered to let me use his land for free but I just can’t get interested. Even just taking care of a few potted plants is too much for me.

Re: My Experience as a Rice Farmer

#130

Post by throwaway27448 »

esseph wrote: post #127
throwaway27448 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any labor throughout human history. Sure, but sedentary labor destroys the body through neglect—which is ultimately a choice.

> Sure, but sedentary labor destroys the body through neglect—which is ultimately a choice Huh? It's not clear to me what you're trying to say here.

Meaning, you can somewhat opt out of the damage sedentary labor does to the body by exercising and using your body. It is much more difficult to avoid manual labor from damaging the body.
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