Comment Yields of what? (Score 3, Interesting) 258
Water pumped steroid corn that has patents on it, and is harder for animals and humans to digest? Actually causes problems in animal studies but they sort of ignore that point because they have millions to bribe with, in political circles and at the ag colleges? Those "wonder" seeds? That academic and industry developed shit that is one of the main causes of obesity and diabetes, that stuff? Plus, you can't save seeds practically or legally with their crap, meaning you are in economic thrall to some other place forever and two days, have to pay what they demand, plus use their brand chemicals to even make the seeds work, again, whatever they demand in price??
No thanks, I'll stick to my country hayseed bumpkin non academic open pollinated seeds, save the very best ones from my yield every year, then plant those the next year. Well, as much as I can, until their patented crap has spread so much you can't do that any longer.
I don't care how much you alter them, you aren't developing *exact* good seeds for extreme specialized and local cases, the individual farm. I know my weather is different from just ten miles north of here. You have academic developed seeds to deal with that? I'll answer that, no, you don't.
If you want to do some actual research and learn something, go look how much franken academic/corporate whored off seeds have destroyed all the wonderful little specialized corn crops in Mexico, replacing nutritious corn with generic puffed water "almost could be called food" corn, and is causing economic chaos and a drop in the health of the people there because of it.
Just because you get more bushels an acre doesn't mean it is better quality, more nutritious, or even economically advantageous. It's economically advantageous to the seed and chemical companies and the asshole loan shark banks and wall street speculators and hustlers, that's it. You wind up *needing* more bushels an acre just to break even with increased costs of production.
The "green revolution" was due to cheap oil and cheap natgas and cheap phosphates and cheap weed and bug killers (especially when they didn't give a crap about long term environmental effects from those), none of which is true any more.
I farm and garden, and you can "plant" your monsanto and similar franken seeds where the sun won't shine on them.
Now, I think your point has some merit, some but not entirely, because your analogy didn't work based on real life stuff once you see through the PR propaganda that the corporate/ag-ademic heads push out. Ya, they can do it, but is it really a good deal? Just because you *can* do something like that, make cross species franken seeds, isn't the only reason that you should.
I also think you'll find the bulk of the youngerish pro farmers today have at least some college/university education and are usually *better* at general tech than most specialized IT people or pure career academics. Because they have to use such a variety of modern tech to make a living, they get more flexible at problem solving, because real life always has unexpected problems, wildcards.
There's a case to be made for single specialization, and just that, and obviously we need *some* people to do that, the very small in numbers extreme far out deep thinkers who can't tie their shoelaces or anything else much, but there's a better case to be made for higher level generalized knowledge in the "practical" world where stuff gets done. You won't get that in academia very much, it takes out in the "field" work to do that, the ag field or the shop or the data center or the factory floor or the design office, etc. Because that's where the wildcards show up that have to be dealt with *today*, thee is no luxury of another year or ten research, it has to be fixed *now*.
And that's what the article is about, in general terms, if you over specialize in just one thing, you can get shafted fast when reality changes, whereas if you do a high level generalization, learn several different disciplines well, and train your mind to *think* better and be more flexible, to think "wider", you are able to move smoothly from one situation to the next, you are able to deal with the unexpected better, and to grok the overall scene better. Military folks have a term for this way of thinking, because their work has rather harsh consequences for failure, it is called "situational awareness" and you will not get that in academia. Some guy could be top in his class at west point, have degrees, teach some specialized aspect of military thought and science, etc, then out in the field fail on day one at a real "job site".
And it's the same with every other discipline out there. Theory is nice, practice gets things done and smooths out the bugs in the theory. Both are needed, but the bug smoothing, the polishing of the thoughts, is the real-value added that society and civilization needs.
The above ^ in one sentence, a "theoretical" question..
Which is more practical and of more value, Minix, or Linux?