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One Island Grows 80% of the World’s Vanilla

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Re: One Island Grows 80% of the World’s Vanilla

#131

Post by amha »

ams6110 wrote: post #127
quadrangle wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, I think it's fair to push back on bad use of language even as I'm not prescriptive in general. Using "vanilla" to mean "plain" is just wrong and bad. It's possible to make plain, unflavored ice-cream. Vanilla is obviously a real flavor.

I think that ship has sailed, since the meaning has been in use for almost 50 years now. As someone who can't stand the use of "they" as a singular pronoun, I also understand fights against the evolution of language are battles that I won't win.

The ship may have sailed, but we can still turn it around! I like the idea of recapturing "vanilla" as not meaning "plain."

Re: One Island Grows 80% of the World’s Vanilla

#132

Post by bambax »

AKifer wrote: post #8

And it's even grown only in 2 very specific regions in the north of the island (where most of the cocoa production also come from). There's still huge opportunities if you have enough money and appetite for adventure to start a trading or setting up a plantation. 1ha yields on average 300-400 kg of dried vanilla, a process that takes on average 6-8 months from manual pollination to end of drying. Madagascar is quite…

But if the secret is hand pollination, it doesn’t have to be in Madagascar? Couldn’t it be done anywhere where the weather’s right, or indeed anywhere indoors?

Re: One Island Grows 80% of the World’s Vanilla

#133

Post by filleduchaos »

thechao wrote: post #130
ams6110 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that ship has sailed, since the meaning has been in use for almost 50 years now. As someone who can't stand the use of "they" as a singular pronoun, I also understand fights against the evolution of language are battles that I won't win.

“They” as a singular, gender neutral, pronoun dates back to the 14th c. Practically every word you use postdates its use that way. The use of “literally” to mean “figuratively” is nearly as old.

And I'm willing to bet they use the singular they quite often without even realizing it

Re: One Island Grows 80% of the World’s Vanilla

#134

Post by somecontext »

thechao wrote: post #130
ams6110 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that ship has sailed, since the meaning has been in use for almost 50 years now. As someone who can't stand the use of "they" as a singular pronoun, I also understand fights against the evolution of language are battles that I won't win.

“They” as a singular, gender neutral, pronoun dates back to the 14th c. Practically every word you use postdates its use that way. The use of “literally” to mean “figuratively” is nearly as old.

In case anyone was curious, https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/literally states R"(This type of usage is common in informal speech ("she was literally in floods of tears") and is attested since 1769.)"

Re: One Island Grows 80% of the World’s Vanilla

#135

Post by Camillo »

ams6110 wrote: post #127
quadrangle wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, I think it's fair to push back on bad use of language even as I'm not prescriptive in general. Using "vanilla" to mean "plain" is just wrong and bad. It's possible to make plain, unflavored ice-cream. Vanilla is obviously a real flavor.

I think that ship has sailed, since the meaning has been in use for almost 50 years now. As someone who can't stand the use of "they" as a singular pronoun, I also understand fights against the evolution of language are battles that I won't win.

If you want to watch helplessly as a word is ruined in real time, I recommend "iconic". I'm not even sure what it's supposed to mean any more: in informal speech it seems to be a synonym of "awesome", which by now has devolved into another word for "good".

Re: One Island Grows 80% of the World’s Vanilla

#136

Post by jungletime »

crimsonalucard wrote: post #80
erichurkman wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even Mexico relies on hand pollination. The bees are not reliable enough for mass crops.

All of china relies on hand pollination.

When I first moved here 20+ years ago. Doing a summer trip on the highway and windshield and front grill of the car would be covered with insects. Now ... hardly anything. Whatever is killing off the bees, is a big problem. But we may have also irreversibly killed off many other insects. It's actually shocking to me, no one actually noticed the change.

Re: One Island Grows 80% of the World’s Vanilla

#137

Post by quickthrower2 »

matthewwiese wrote: post #42
AKifer wrote: post #8

And it's even grown only in 2 very specific regions in the north of the island (where most of the cocoa production also come from). There's still huge opportunities if you have enough money and appetite for adventure to start a trading or setting up a plantation. 1ha yields on average 300-400 kg of dried vanilla, a process that takes on average 6-8 months from manual pollination to end of drying. Madagascar is quite…

A "vanilla startup" is perhaps one of the most interesting ideas I've read in HN comments these past few weeks. If I may ask, are you from Madagascar or an expat? This is all quite new information to me so I am fascinated to learn more. Are there any sources you would recommend?

Here is your problem:

> The reason that Madagascar is still on top of the vanilla game is grim: According to The Financial Times, it’s one of the few regions with the right climate that is also poor enough to make laborious hand-pollination affordable. While other countries, such as India, have dabbled in heavy vanilla production, huge swings in the international price make it a dangerous crop to grow widely

I'd find this unethical. Even if that's not a problem, automation/technology will bite you eventually, and this stuff will be grown around the world, reducing the price.

Re: One Island Grows 80% of the World’s Vanilla

#138

Post by freeflight »

tormeh wrote: post #108
freeflight wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might get me some flak, but IMHO it's an unconscious double standard for many people and it's also not exclusive to the English language. Germans do something similar, a German who moves to another country, even if it's Thailand for retirement or because life in Germany supposedly doesn't work for them, is called an "Auswanderer" and usually has a rather positive connotation of being "worldly" and well traveled.…

I don't think it matters what they are called. The connotations are attached to the people, not the word. Change the words and it becomes a euphemism treadmill.

> The connotations are attached to the people, not the word.

Language is a living thing.

If you reserve usage of certain terminology to specific people, then negative connotations can easily attach themselves to both of them in combination, thus fundamentally changing how positive/negative certain terminology is perceived by the general population.

We've been witnessing this live, in reality, for these past years: If you talk about "immigrant crime" often enough many people will see most, if not all, crime in the context of supposedly increasing immigration.

Completely ignoring any other contributing factors to crime, completely ignoring actual crime statistics and trends. [0]

[0] https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/statistics/...

Re: One Island Grows 80% of the World’s Vanilla

#139

Post by makmanalp »

DiffEq wrote: post #34
makmanalp wrote: post #23

> it's one of the few regions with the right climate that is also poor enough to make laborious hand-pollination affordable It's not like I didn't know that this is how the world works, but this specific case is even more of a slap in the face. It's kinda fucked up to think that in the local specialty store merely a couple pods of vanilla (a few grams each) go for 6-7 dollars, but these folks live in poverty. But mor…

Just because there is cheap labor here does not mean they live in poverty; in fact they do not. The cost and standard of living is much lower so the wage is not as bad as you think. Sure they don't drive BMWs and don't get their coffee at Starbucks or have a $1000 iphone but they are far from living in "poverty"; since the definition of "poverty" is poorly constructed. In any case lets say we accept they live in pove…

Well, the money is going somewhere, and it doesn't seem to be them for the most part. Perhaps it's more about buying directly from them and cutting out the middlemen.

Re: One Island Grows 80% of the World’s Vanilla

#140

Post by dweekly »

thx11389793 wrote: post #59
matthewwiese wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A "vanilla startup" is perhaps one of the most interesting ideas I've read in HN comments these past few weeks. If I may ask, are you from Madagascar or an expat? This is all quite new information to me so I am fascinated to learn more. Are there any sources you would recommend?

OT, but why are immigrants called expats when they're from anglophone nations?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/global-deve...
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