[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.

[ImPostingOnHN]

> democratic. Which means that the government and the people are the very same thing

This is an unrealistic, idealistic assumption which evidence does not bear out. Examples: Ask people whether they think "farmer" includes non-owning cultivators; Look at majorities voting and losing due to things like the electoral college; Look at gerrymandering seeking to minimize government representation of the people.

If the government and the people are indeed the very same thing, then we can just ask the people, because according to you, the government agrees with the people anyways, or it is undemocratic.

> People will make up bullshit if you ask them.

In general, this goes double for governments. As for this example, it's impossible for the majority of people to "make up bullshit" for word meaning, because the meaning of a word is what most people say it is.

On the other hand, it's totally possible for a government to "make up bullshit" in that case.

> There are also people who use the word "farmer" to refer to someone who creates web/social media content.

There are also people (perhaps even governments!) who exclude non-owning cultivators from their personal definition of "farmer", but that is an outlier use, in some cases only applicable in niche contexts, like tax law. Most people do not use such a definition.

> you're not paying attention to the discussion that is taking place

Please don't attack other posters. That behavior is perhaps better suited for more well-known social media sites. You are smart and capable of making your point without attempting to detract from me as a person.

[9rx]

> Ask people what they think "farming" includes non-owning cultivators

"Farming" usually refers to all that surrounds the entire activity. That includes farmers, farmhands, supportive family, etc. But we've been talking about "farmer".

With that, I'll assume you accidentally mistyped "farmer". Let's take a look at a practical example. Soybean and cattle farmers have recently been all over the news with stories about their current low/high profitability. Do the masses watching the news understand these people as being the hired hands out in the field/in the barn collecting a fixed wage? Or do they understand these people as being the business owner with a product to sell?

> because the meaning of a word is what most people say it is.

Not quite. The meaning of the word is how the speaker (or author) has decided to use it.

But, yes, since we are currently talking about what most people consider the word to mean as a general rule, not a specific person using it in a particular way, "farmer" is deemed to be the business owner. We know this not only from anecdotal observation but also because there are people whose job it is to determine how people use words and that is what they have determined is most common.

The game chose to use the word differently, in a less traditional way, but the discussion has made it clear that we aren't talking about that specific instance. Going there would be nonsensical.

> Please don't attack other posters.

The computer screen you are looking at cannot attack you. Perhaps what you really mean is that your emotions are leaving you to feel unpleasant? These feelings stem from the mind's view of the world not matching the reality it is starting to understand. This confusion, for want of a better word, can feel like an attack of sorts. However, it does not stem from external force. It is an internal process. When this happens, it is time for personal introspection.

[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.