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Farming communities need to invest in robots just like they invest in tractors.

I'm for automation. America is not going to survive by rejecting efficiency. But fuck yes we need to band together to resist corporate greed.

W/o UBI this kinda thing just doesn't give me the warm fuzzies like it does for y'all

wild take. the more farming automation the better.

This thread is ridiculous and hilarious

Uh, I really want this work automated. We need universal basic income and if farmers still want to farm with UBI, and pickers still want to pick with UBI, then great, and that food can just cost more and have a label like organic but to show it was human grown and picked.

making food production more efficient is the cornerstone of civilization

Not quite sure why you wouldn’t want to use robotics to sow, weed (without pesticides), and harvest fruit and vege without needing armies of poorly paid and treated farm workers?

Rural America has been banded together and fully in support of corporate greed for decades.

Better not make Dear Leader mad!

The careful, appropriate utilization of automation in agriculture can be valuable. Using drones to check for fences/walls that need repair so a human doesn't need to drive around every fenced field; or to remotely check if crops are ready for harvest.

Then too bad farmers keep voting for the party of corporate ownership that also is dismantling the social safety net.

Because automation by capitalist only ever benefits them

you absolute fucking morons

It seems like some sort of state company should be building robots. To ensure safety and operational compliance. No autonomous killbots or police. Farming units, bricklayers and so on. Not the state that we have though.

you want slaves

Well Americans are already unfortunately willing to accept tasteless produce in exchange for cheap abundance so that’s no loss. I would prefer to liberate as many people as possible from the burden of agricultural labor.

You know who was really, really in favor of having POC work in the fields?

I would rather that labor was entirely automated because it is back-breaking.

I worked in AI. You fools are going to literally crash your economy because of sheer laziness. That is not directed to the folks working in fields. But to idiots like you.

29 followers.

And? If a machine can do the job why is that a bad thing?

It will exist very soon; as to your comment, I'm not racist so I think people who want to do that work should do it, and people who don't shouldn't

I'd rather have a robot do it

I would ask you to point to one instance in the history of human Ag where automation and mechanisation raised prices.

There are billions of dollars getting spent every day to improve this tech. It IS the future, I hate to say.

They figured they can do without the little people

ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!!!

This technology doesn't spring out of a hole in the ground. It's built on unsustainable resource extraction and the burning of fossil fuels, and used for monocropping. Farmland needs to be protected, and farm workers need dignity and collective ownership. Corporate tech is not going to get us that

It's wild the lies people will convince themselves of in order to support their belief that things are worse than ever. It's still within living memory that more people had indoor plumbing than not in many areas.

Two centuries ago, over 80% of the US workforce was in agriculture -- back-breaking work for long hours at terrible pay. Today it's 1.5%... which is an enormous win for human freedom and flourishing.

My grandparents made underwear in a cotton mill and now I have an email job.

Life on the farm was so terrible that people consistently chose to move to cities to work in the terrible conditions of the early factories. And then, as factories became more automated, conditions there radically improved.

industrial automation has allowed me and roughly half of the population the freedom not to work in back breaking toil farming bear sustenance. agricultural mechanization is the chief reason most of us are alive. the automation of this terrible work is only good.

Seriously, if people can't find work they won't get paid to support their families. Entire job sectors are at risk of vanishing just so billionaires can get free labor, and people think that they'll still be provided for in this venture capitalist hellscape? It's bleak.

This isn’t true

Good luck fighting technology...

baby carrot plants right? Baby carrots arent a thing

The same goes for agricultural work. Get your head out of your ass. bsky.app/profile/matt...

Also, between the H2A system and prison labor, coupled with the government's draconian immigration system, has allowed many farms to be run with effectively slave labor.

fuck the farmers. they did this to themselves. they already work for the corporation and it doesnt matter if they loose their land or jobs.

Actually automation of farming is good

Mechanization has cut the labor intensity of farming by 95+% over the last hundred years.

Farmers vote for republicans who are funded by the tech billionaires that want this

Farming is already mostly automated. That's how we've gone from 90% of humans working in agriculture to just over 1% working there today, all in less than 200 years. Tedious, back breaking and difficult work is exactly what we should be automating.

Why would we resist the automation of farming? Mechanization and labor reduction in agriculture are one of if not the greatest success stories of technology.

Are you kidding this is awesome

That's mostly good: farm labor is hard work, low pay, and unless you're lucky, it wrecks your body. But yes, this is a real issue for farmworkers, especially those who like it! It's just odd to conflate their legit fears with different fears of the same bosses who may be about to unemploy them.

Feels like “I don’t like this new thing so I’m going to say it’s bad for farmers”

One guy on a tractor can do as much in an afternoon as a crew of workers used to take a week to do. This is just the next step.

Those are all good things!

No, this is good actually

These billionaires are just getting out of control. It’s time to rise up and stop this madness once and for all!

First they take the land by bankrupting small farmers. Then the take the work. Community health and welfare are not a concern. It’s enough to make me a luddite.

"they're trying to automate farming" uh, yes? where do you think your food comes from this is literally the technology that keeps everyone from starving www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDsZ...

Are the farmers in question underpaid migrant workers or rich landowners?

Watch out for govt subsidy to buy the tech instead of subsidizing those who still want to farm with lower tech! If tech = more sustainable, it's arguably a win if we can * Sit down and discuss human livelihood (decide jobs robots can't have) * Diversify the tech and protect against security risks

They will be sorely missing the human element to farming.

lol no

You should be fighting for UBI and taxation of corporations not to maintain dark ages backbreaking toil.

dude they can't even resist soybean tariffs

Good, automate the farms and force these people to join polite society.

If we fully automate farming doesn't that mean we don't have to deal with farmers anymore? Sounds like a huge win to me

Still no proof. Just promises.

bs

"Fully robotic farming translates into tech so expensive that the last remaining farmers will have to fold" then who will buy the robotic farming equipment? This article makes zero sense. Feels like it was written by a breathless 12 year old who doesn't understand farm economics at all.

you can oppose hiring undocumented workers or you can oppose machines you can't do both

1820s, actually... ironsolutions.com/a-brief-hist...

The US workforce has been majority non-agricultural since 1880. Even going back one hundred years ago, only 25% of the population worked on a farm.

I support the destruction of the landed gentry.

It’s not, but it shifts the foundation and makes other parts of our house of cards unstable

The post does not say that!

really gets your noggin joggin'

Well excuse me Mr. Fancy pants but I’ll have you know I’ve been out of work for 200 some odd years ever since that rapscallion Edmund Cartwright invented the damnable automatic loom.

It’s amazing how you could have written that article literally at any time in the last 300 years

farming getting advanced and efficient has been a tenet of societal progress throughout history this isn’t like longshoremen screwing up our port automation and passing the cost of inefficient ports down to consumers, people will die if you shove your protectionist rot into food production

The *one* thing companies rushing to replace humans with robots have overlooked is what to do with all the bodies. [==*==]

My only first-hand knowledge of this issue comes from friends who are dairy farmers. 🐄🐄🐄They were positive but skeptical about robot milking 🤖🤖🤖. It’s a different type of farming, obviously, but it’s best not to generalize.

Actual fucking luddites lmao

More robots is not the way to go!

As a professional scyther I am very worried about it. I will be attending a protest on the subject as soon as my destroyed rotator cuff has healed from the last harvest season.

Insert Checkmate Lincolnites reference here.

Companies want robots and tax payers to pay for it.

Yet they keep voting for politicians up to their neck in corporate greed

but no human in those communities wants to weed carrots