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Real Life Farmville
arkenian writes "The BBC reports on a farm in the UK to be run by online subscribers to the MyFarm website voting on which crops to grow and livestock to rear. For a £30 annual fee, 10,000 farm followers will help manage Wimpole Home Farm, in Cambridgeshire. They will be asked to make 12 major monthly decisions during the course of the year as well as other choices. The National Trust says its MyFarm project aims to reconnect people with where their food comes from."
I really don't see how this can be a good idea. Trying to accomplish anything by letting it be managed entirely by what's essentially an unaccountable committee group is going to end in ruin. But hey maybe that doesn't really matter. Getting 300k euro + what ever government subsidies farmers in the UK get my be worth totally fsking your productivity and crop output.
Yes it's epicly stupid, but you have to admit if there's at least a few trolls involved this farm could get really interesting.
It's like the mind going AWOL, it's there somewhere
My thoughts exactly, as soon as /b/ gets involved, this is gonna be pretty funny. Pool's closed due to aids.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
What? I personally thought this was a great idea to build upon. In the country I come from, there is a huge economic gap between the farmers who live in the villages, and the consumers in the metropolitan cities. The government tries to subsidize the farmers by giving them money and infrastructure, but it's just not enough.
If social experiments in Facebook, Twitter and Anonymous have shown us anything, it is that the general public likes to participate in making major decisions (which makes then feel important), and are willing for this. It is a win-win situation for everyone.
However, it is crucial that the trolls be weeded out by some means.
Um...isn't real life Farmville...a farm?
You know, like real life Simcity would be (wait for it) a city.
Why should that be anything but a fringe function? It's like asking if they've never plowed their own wheat, written their own operating system, or installed their own plumbing and electricity. The complexity of our civilization requires specialization.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
And many children think milk comes from factories, not cows. Particularly those living in cities.
Western societies have it worse than Asian. Well, sort of. In China many restaurants have their food on display: various birds, snakes, fish and other sea animals, turtles, sometimes even dogs and cats.You point out which animal you want and they'll cook it for you. Killing if you prefer can be done under your watch.
Markets here often have large parts of cows, pigs and other large animals hanging on display. Such as complete rib cases, lungs, and tails (with the skin and hair in place preferably). The heads too. It doesn't need much fantasy to see which part of the animal it was.
Fowl like pigeons, ducks and chickens are also sold alive (though in Hong Kong at least that's quickly disappearing over bird flu fears). You choose the animal, hands-on if you like, the shop keeper will slaughter it while you're waiting. Fish, seafood and turtles are also routinely sold alive. I have had a dead fish jump off the kitchen sink an hour or so after being killed and gutted... that scared us mainly because the movement was so sudden and unexpected. A dead fish still jumping in the bag I've had quite often.
In the west indeed there is not much left of the original shape of the animal - many people dislike the idea of seeing what animal it used to be. You won't see a row of pig's heads in the butcher's display, for example. Fish is commonly sold dead, preferably sliced or processed as fish fingers or so. The head is typically tossed out, while the Chinese consider that the best part of the fish. Once when I cooked fish complete with head and tail a friend commented "I don't like my dinner to be watching me!".
So all in all, yes you're totally right. Most people don't know where their food comes from. They wouldn't know how a potato plant looks like (OK that's a non-obvious one). They may recognise corn plants, when grown full.
Knowing where one's food comes from is good I think. Makes people think more about their planet, the value of a clean environment, and how all that dirt we spew out in the air comes back to haunt them quite directly. Health is related to food: you are what you eat, and when you eat dirt, well that can't be too healthy either. And even if just 10,000 people can join a project like this may well generate a lot more general interest. Curious to see how it's going to play out.
it hurts with the stupid.
Oh to hell with it. Have we fallen so far as a civilization that people no longer know where their food comes from? Have never seen butchering and slaughtering done? Have never killed an animal themselves, skinned, cleaned, and done their own cuts. I can probably answer myself too. Yes to all of the above.
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
-Lazarus Long, Time Enough For Love (Robert Heinlein)
Did you mount a military-grade, variable-focus MASER on an unlicensed artificial intelligence?
No they're skills that will make or break you getting to the post-apocalyptic bit. But being a realist, I don't believe we'll be heading to that point in my lifetime.
Om, nomnomnom...
I think everyone should see this at least once: http://vimeo.com/22077752 Shows how proper butchering is done and where our food comes from.