[9rx]

> Is it still bad if the farmer gets replaced?

A farmer is an owner of a farm. To replace the farmer you would have to completely eliminate the entire concept of human ownership that we hold. Socialist or other community ownership structures around farms wouldn't do as that would not replace the farmer, it would make everyone a farmer.

> society benefits from its automation

Economies benefit from its automation. It's far less clear if societies benefit. Farm work is hard, but there is a sense of accomplishment when it is done, which is good for the psyche. The never ending "bullshit" jobs that most people seem to find themselves in nowadays has not lead to happiness.

[sebstefan]

> To replace the farmer you would have to completely eliminate the entire concept of human ownership that we hold.

Why?

> Economies benefit from its automation. It's far less clear if societies benefit. Farm work is hard, but there is a sense of accomplishment when it is done, which is good for the psyche. The never ending "bullshit" jobs that most people seem to find themselves in nowadays has not lead to happiness.

"Farming is good for the psyche" doesn't hold to the suicide rates.

Automate hard jobs where people kill themselves or destroy their bodies, future generations get jobs that are easier on the body and they get to live healthy longer. It's not rocket science!

Why aren't you a farmer?

[9rx]

> Why?

I already attempted to explained why. If there is a gap I overlooked or if something wasn't made clear, you're going to have to try and work with me with greater specificity.

> "Farming is good for the psyche" doesn't hold to the suicide rates.

Farmers are known to have high suicide rates, but being the owner doesn't imply doing the work. That is the role of the farmhand. I cannot find anything to suggest that suicide rates are high for farmhands.

> Why aren't you a farmer?

I don't understand your question. I am a farmer.

[sebstefan]

Ok I get the confusion

The framing of the debate is not using your terminology so this isn't useful

Being a farmer isn't owning a farm, it's doing the farming. Farmhands are farmers. This is the definition that most people have, and if we use your definition, the entire debate doesn't make sense. Remember we're talking about a game, and the game is called "replacing the farmer", in which you don't play a humanoid android handing out cash to a previous owner to buy a farm and then sitting on his ass paying out farmhands. The game is about automating the farming. There is no reference to ownership.

[9rx]

> Being a farmer isn't owning a farm

Not according to the government. To legally become a farmer you need farm receipts of a certain amount or more. Selling your labour to a farmer is not that. And not according to the dictionary either. There are multiple words surrounding this topic for good reason.

> Farmhands are farmers.

It is possible that a farmer also works on his farm, or another farmer's farm for that matter, but they would be a farmhand while in that capacity. People can be more than one thing, unsurprisingly. But not all farmers are also farmhands and not all farmhands are also farmers. Many farmers never lift a finger, so to speak. I personally work with farmers who don't even know what is growing in their fields.

> Remember we're talking about a game, and the game is called "replacing the farmer"

Actually, we were talking about some pedantic take on the word "replace", which transitioned into a pedantic take on the word "farmer". There is no discussion about a game going on in this thread. This indicates that you didn't bother to read the thread before replying. Why?

[ImPostingOnHN]

>> Being a farmer isn't owning a farm

> Not according to the government.

Why would we care what they think? Depending on the government we're talking about, that could be an ignominious distinction. One government that comes to mind most recently focused its efforts on creating fake memes and myspace pages of political opponents, to troll them, while the same government failed to provide basic services to its people (and continues to do so).

Instead of asking the government what words mean (Orwell wrote on this idea), we can just ask the people what the words mean. And the people say that 'farmer' includes folks doing the actual cultivation, even if they don't own a thing.

[9rx]

> Why would we care what they think?

Well, with the exception of Hong Kong, which isn't exactly a farming mecca, Singapore, and Eswatini, all other English speaking countries are democratic. Which means that the government and the people are the very same thing, so when the people have decided that's what farmer is, that's what farmer is to basically everyone (there are always outliers who like to go against the grain, of course).

> we can just ask the people what the words mean.

There's an old saying: "Actions speak louder than words". People will make up bullshit if you ask them. More revealing is to look at how people actually use the word "farmer" in practice. And it turns out that we do — and then record that use in a book known as the dictionary. Like I said in an earlier comment, it echoes the same.

> And the people say that 'farmer' includes folks doing the actual cultivation

Sure. There are also people who use the word "farmer" to refer to someone who creates web/social media content. But these are outlier uses. Obviously all words have been made up on the spot, and can be made up on the spot (again) any time you so wish. You've not stumbled upon any kind of revelation there. But in going that way you've made it clear that you're not paying attention to the discussion that is taking place.

[almosthere]

I agree with you here. It's kind of like programmers are not really programming anymore (well many aren't they're telling AI what to do). Our "program-hand" is the LLM.

[9rx]

Telling what an AI/LLM what to do is programming in the same sense that telling a C++ compiler/virtual machine what to do is programming. In both cases you're just describing in language what you want the machine to execute.

But you may have a point that programming hasn't been a thing since toggle switches were the only input into a computer.

[sebstefan]

> Actually, we were talking about some pedantic take on the word "replace", which transitioned into a pedantic take on the word "farmer". There is no discussion about a game going on in this thread. This indicates that you didn't bother to read the thread before replying. Why?

? No the entire thing is about the game and the word "replace" in the title.

[9rx]

Initially there was a short quip about the game "looking fun and pretty" to establish the segue into what we actually are talking about. Beyond that there is nothing about the game.

Did you, uh, misread "thread" as "threads"? There are certainly other threads entirely about the game, but not this one.