Partially agree. I do happen to think the cartoon raises a very valid point.
But... having known a lot of farmers they are indeed usually quite well off. And many of them are not aweshucks salt of the earth types people often perceive, but rather more like a sort of spoiled generational semi-duke or noble type thing looking down upon the little non-land owning commoners who they often pay very little and sometimes wantonly abuse.
That being said.. what was the guy thinking? He has to know who financially supports the paper. Maybe he was ready to do something else.
I've known a lot of farmers too, admittedly none of them from Iowa, and none of them were like what you describe. Maybe it's due to regional differences but I'm inclined to think you exaggerated rather a lot there.
Nope. No exaggeration. I've known probably 30+ farmers in 4 or 5 states (and even worked for a few) and many have attitudes exactly as I state
It's not that they were bad people or unkind (although some are... bordering on abusive), but it's the attitude of inherited big landowner. It absolutely exists.
In retrospect I suppose "spoiled" (in the sense a gulf state prince might be) probably isn't the right term. Every farmer I've known has worked hard and paid attention to their task. But the attitude I speak of is pervasive. The landed nobility and the little people. At least in my experience. And I found it unpleasant.
The prevention to this type of problem is probably the same measure needed to fix many forestry problems.
Regular fires.
But now we have homes right up to the forest and no one wants to look at charred land for two decades. So I suppose it's still a no go. The thing about fire though is eventually it probably happens anyway.
It's unfortunate that most the public isn't aware of how important forest fires are. Humans suppressing forest fires cause more damage in the long run.
As far as I understand, fires essentially burn up the dead bits on the ground. When it happens naturally, the fires don't hurt the trees. But humans stop areas from burning and the dead bits build up and burn hotter, setting the trees ablaze and then we get these crazy forest fires. We just need to let them burn on their own, it'll sort itself out.
I hear this all the time from people I work with, Forestry department at a University.
Perhaps what we need is to better understand how to make effective fire breaks and better manage planned fires. The reason people fight forest fires is to stop them from burning down homes and businesses, not just out of an anti-fire aesthetic. Letting a fire rage and then saying, oh we'll just stop the fire from burning this gas station, hotel, and town that is here, is damned hard to do.
Sure, people built close to forests. People also built close to fault lines, flood plains, tsunami zones, unstable soil, on top of limestone, near industrial areas, in hurricane, tornado, ice storm, or "lake effect" zones, etc. There are precious few places that are devoid of some periodic natural ravaging. We can't just say, ah well, let it all happen and don't do anything about it.
Here in the South the government regularly does controlled burns and it doesn't seem to seriously bother people, even though there are plenty of people that live in (with some breaks) and around the burning areas.
My impression is that it's an American West political problem, not a fire management problem. Maybe I'm wrong. It is drier there.
For SOD, there's actually a fairly simple preventative step everyone could take that is poorly publicized.
It wasn't until I happened to be out with someone who does environmental impact studies for the army corp of engineers that I learned how easily SOD can be transported from place to place through the soil that collects on clothing. Most of us wash after a trip outside, but we should be bleaching our shoes. The pathogen is quite hardy and can survive the seasons without a plant host. Without a thorough wash, the next trip we take is likely to drop off a few spores, risking its introduction to plants we touch and the watershed.
That said, this is just one of many preventative steps, and one that's unlikely to be broadly adopted. We're likely too far down the road already for a lot of impacted forests.
This sounds very familiar. In New Zealand we have a lot of trouble with "didymo"[1], an invasive algae which thrives in cold freshwater environments, clogging up rivers with lots of green slime. It is very easily spread by humans doing recreational activities such as fishing and boating, inadvertently carrying it from one place to the next.
As such we've had intensive public education campaigns here, instructing people to carefully clean down things like boots and boat hulls with either hot water or bleach solution[2]. Its spread continues, though perhaps less quickly than without such a campaign.
I don't think regular fire would solve this problem (it would solve other problems, though).
Fire might strip out some of the carriers of the disease (California Bay Laurel), but infected tress would still spread the infection and many of the affected oak species have very thick bark and are very well adapted to survive fires. I suppose regular fires would get rid of the dead trees, which might or might not be a good thing.
No, central economic planning has traditionally been viewed as disastrous.
Doesn't mean it "is" or "always will always be".
In fact, you undoubtedly live to some extent under the auspices of some form of central economic planning right now. Why? Because at some point it was realized complete lack of central economic planning is disastrous.
But you are really arguing against government controlled rent prices no? I tend to probably agree in most cases.
And, heh, I've seen it argued persuasively that the U.S. now operates with the same degree of inefficiency (i.e. resources allocated less than optimally, not responsive to market conditions, etc.) of a centrally planned economy, just due to the concentration of money now. Sort of a de-facto central planning, even though it certainly isn't one in name.
I tried to find the links where I saw this, couldn't. I'll keep looking.
It's disastrous due to game theory dynamics that apply to all large societies. It will always be disastrous.
The spontaneous order of an unregulated, freely configured economy, is the only way to utilize the vast volume of knowledge that is diffused throughout the population. Protection of private property and market rights is the absolute best way to both allocate capital for maximum economic returns, and maximize incentives for productive activity.
> Why? Because at some point it was realized complete lack of central economic planning is disastrous.
There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that was the reason. You're making a reckless leap of logic to rationalize and justify authoritarianism (central economic planning).
I think the point is for complex UI applications (or a team with interchangeable members) you would use a framework. But for less complex applications you might very well not.
Enjoyed this article. I like JavaScript, I use it almost daily, I'd like to learn React or Angular but just haven't had the real need. For the amount of JavaScript in the apps I build there just doesn't seem to be the payoff. I did venture into npm. What a nightmare of goop and time wasting. Although there were some cool utilities the amount of time setting up and dealing with in most cases didn't really pay out.
Don't manipulate the DOM. Why not? Works fine for what I do.
Maintainability. Maybe. But well organized code is well organized. If there were a lot more of it this probably becomes a valid point but JS doesn't do everything in my apps. It does the things JS was originally designed to do.
I figure when the dust settles I'll probably dive into a framework. But right now stored database procedures, database triggers, a light Flask/Bottle layer and judicious use of well organized jQuery/ native JS works really well and doesn't have a bunch of unneeded parts.
Then again I'm still using Slackware. I like things simple. The less abstraction and "helpfulness" between me and what I'm trying to get done the better. Simple, powerful, modifiable tools without a lot of glitz and overhead are my preference. I mistrust black boxes and complexity. Maybe React is the kind of tool that could be useful... don't know. Might look into at some point when I feel it's reached puberty.
But... having known a lot of farmers they are indeed usually quite well off. And many of them are not aweshucks salt of the earth types people often perceive, but rather more like a sort of spoiled generational semi-duke or noble type thing looking down upon the little non-land owning commoners who they often pay very little and sometimes wantonly abuse.
That being said.. what was the guy thinking? He has to know who financially supports the paper. Maybe he was ready to do something else.