Discussion

My Experience As A Rice Farmer

anonymous908213: This was mostly a nice read, I do enjoy these kinds of slice-of-life blogs. I think it might have been a bit better without making claims about the economic future and history of rice farming or whatever, if the author doesn't even speak the language it's unlikely they have any real insight to offer and whatever shallow information they got off a random Youtube video is liable to be spreading misinformation that misleads uninformed readers than being actually informative. Farming a rice field does not a rice economist make.There is one particularly funny point I'd quibble on:> This was part of a system to discourage communism initially by encouraging ownership of business and preventing absentee landlords accumulating large tracts of land where people who work the fields would be forced into renting.I'm dubious about the credibility of this assertion, but it is amusing to think that the goal would be to "discourage communism" by a policy that is essentially communistic in nature, in the true definition of the economic system (ownership of the means of production, ie. you own your own labour rather than renting it out).I am, of course, nitpicking. It's rather easier for me to write comments complaining about things than praising them at length, but I was entertained by the view into the author's experiences and anecdotes.

CobrastanJorji: You have to remember that in 1950, the US had a tremendous influence in Japan, to put it mildly, and also in 1950, the US was rabidly, performatively anti-communist. When McCarthyism was getting started stateside, we were also carrying out a "Red Purge" in Japan.Anyway, yeah, in this context, Japan passed the Agricultural Land Act of 1952, which was intended to turn land owned by a few rich landlords into small, independently owned private farms. That may sound like the opposite of capitalism, and it is, but as I understand it, the idea was to turn what were basically serfs into a proper middle class, which would then prevent communism from being as appealing. I don't know about the logic, but I guess it worked, since Japan isn't communist?

aurareturn: As a child, I grew up in a village in China and our family farmed rice. It was mostly my mom who was doing the farming while my dad worked in the city.Some things I remember:* Hired buffalos tilting our fields* Playing with frogs and catching tadpoles in the fields* Someone with a machine that removes the husks would come to our village during harvest* The smell of rice fields. I recently smelled it again and it's very comforting.Now I work in high tech, working on AI, and the fancy stuff. There is just something about rice fields that I love - maybe just memories, childhood, smell, how serene it looks when it's full.My one hope for AI, robotics, self driving cars, is that they can enable people in cities to migrate back to rural places. When I was younger, I used envy those who grew up privileged in a big modern city. Nowadays, I absolutely am glad I grew up in a little village in a farming community and I consider myself lucky to have.

alech: One thing that’s worth noting though is that Japan is known for having a large degree of small business ownership, and it’s also a pretty well documented effect that high rates of small business ownership = high rates of support for capitalism, because small business owners themselves get a taste of capitalism and see it’s benefits.

huijzer: > to think that the goal would be to "discourage communism" by a policy that is essentially communistic in natureWar is peace,Freedom is slavery,Ignorance is strengthThe point, as I see it, being that politicians like to make contradicting statements. Good for sales you could say. It is possible to cut through such lies by using logic, good on you for doing that. Unfortunately, many people take such statements as true and mostly get confused by it.

fer: How is that communistic?The reasoning behind Gentan was that a landless peasantry was more likely to revolt. It's not dissimilar to pre-1929 kulaks, though the kulaks were encouraged/enabled to become a relatively wealthy/middle class peasantry who employed people and were directly involved in the production without owning large swathes of land, acting as a kind of a social dampener against a revolution.Unsurprisingly the Soviet Union killed the kulak model and moved to collective farming[0], which was arguably actually communistic.[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dekulakization

statedin: You are a absolutely right the coming generation would have no idea about the carming, or wouldnlack to see the real process

ForOldHack: Your choice of adjectives "rabidly" particularly underscores the times.

TurdF3rguson: That suitcase of rice story though, I'm finding it problematic lol.- First of all a 95% increase in the price of rice means it less than doubled which is no big deal.- I think maybe you meant it 20x'ed ? If so I will just eat corn until it comes down (my house eats 100kg of rice in a month)- Can a suitcase of rice even get through customs?

TheDong: Indeed it's a roughly 2x increase (5kg supermarket bag from 2000 jpy to 4000).Whether that's a big deal or not depends on the person, their finances, how much rice the family eats, etc etc.

sheept: > My one hope for AI, robotics, self driving cars, is that they can enable people in cities to migrate back to rural places.Wouldn't it be better, at least for the Earth, for everyone to live in cities? This way, more of the world can remain fairly untouched by humans, and it could still remain easy accessible from the city for recreational purposes.The solarpunk ideal of living a rural life requires more road infrastructure, which cuts off wildlife routes and natural drainage, and even with EVs, still pollutes the air from tire wear.

thaumasiotes: > Whether that's a big deal or not depends on the person, their finances, how much rice the family eats, etc etc.There's a nasty interaction among those concerns: as the basic staple food of the diet, rice is consumed in larger amounts by poorer people who can't afford real food, like meat.Which means that a spike in the price of rice is effectively targeted at people who can't afford to substitute other foods.

troupo: > My one hope for AI, robotics, self driving cars, is that they can enable people in cities to migrate back to rural places.Why? Honest question.A kid in a town/city has access to a billion opportunities many of which exist only because there are enough people interested.

lukan: "A kid in a town/city has access to a billion opportunities many of which exist only because there are enough people interested."Most of those opportunities involve getting hit by a car.

aurareturn: Why? Honest question. I don't necessarily think everyone should move out of cities to go back to living in rural areas and villages. I want it so that living in outside of the city more viable than it is today.In a village, everyone knows everyone. Kids play with each other and run around freely. Every house protects all the kids and help each other. Everyone trusts everyone. You never feel lonely. Life is slower, much less stressful.I feel sorry when I see kids today depressed, lonely, and distrusts society. This just didn't happen when I was growing up in a village. There is a joke that Asian parents don't think depression exists. I think part of that mindset is rooted in how many of them grew up - depression was just not really a thing in a village.I sometimes hear of people who try to move to the country side, only to hate it and want to move back to cities. I get it. It's not for everyone. But I think it can be aided with technology such as AI+robots helping with your farms or house work, self driving cars taking your kids to school a bit far away, AI doctors who can do most of the basic healthcare work, etc. And if you can build a business with 1 or 2 people + AI, then it also makes remote work more viable. Basically, I think tech can bring a lot of the city quality of life to the country side.If kids want to move to a town/city for more opportunities or networking, they'd be free to do so when they're older. Most do.

indemnity: I grew up in a similar environment, similar trajectory, but in Africa.Dad was a teacher in a rural school, mum stayed at home.Until I went to school I would stay outside all day with my friends, playing in and around the rivers and dams, making our own fun with abandoned cars and rusted out farming equipment.Our school had one computer, and I was lucky enough to get to use it after hours from time to time.I would study the manual from front to back so I could optimise my time while on the computer.Practiced typing on a typewriter to type in code listings faster later (aging myself here ;)Today I build AI agents and infrastructure to run them for a hyperscaler, and my car drives me around. Feels like another lifetime ago.

lostlogin: > my house eats 100kg of rice in a monthWhat’s the maths on that? A cup of rice would seem a fair bit for a person for a meal. A cup is about 200g.That’s 500 portions a month. 5.5 people for 3 meals a day?

TurdF3rguson: Corn is still cheaper. If you're really poor in Asia you're eating corn (and complaining about it).

TurdF3rguson: It fluctuates but on average maybe 5 humans and 10 dogs.

adrianN: Cars in rural settings are generally faster and more indispensable for their owners. It is much easier to enact policy that reduces car traffic in cities than in villages.

adrianN: That is my understanding too, but many people equate rural life with „natural“. Unfortunately the rural environment is all but natural. The cultural landscape that has been engineered over centuries all but displaced true wilderness and is largely devoid of biodiversity. The better we become at industrial agriculture, the worse the situation is.

elwray: I and my wife live in the city for work. While most people flock to the city and settle there as an upgraded life, we always felt empty here. Our dream is to buy a piece of land at our village and come back to our roots. I dont enjoy farming that much but my wife does. I however like the bliss of living close to nature. There is a river that flows nearby and taking a dip in that fills me with so much joy that I could never find anywhere in the city.

TrackerFF: It is probably a nice experience to have, but imagine your body after doing this for 50-60 years. You're one serious back injury away from being unemployed.

esseph: [delayed]

ekjhgkejhgk: > In a village, everyone knows everyone. Kids play with each other and run around freely. Every house protects all the kids and help each other. Everyone trusts everyone.Seems like a recipe for rampant child abuse.

aurareturn: I never felt unsafe as a kid or abused in any way although my mom would make me memorize our village's name and location in case I get abducted while playing with my friends. We played until dawn and then went home to have dinner.We'd often go over to neighboring villages to play because some of our friends from school lived in a different village.

metalman: I was prepared to be dissapointed, but I am not. Honest, simple, carrys that sense of work is good and doing what needs to be done is enough and that you are just another critter.

ForHackernews: It's true, every small business owner enjoys larping as a capitalist until it comes time to declare bankruptcy https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/coronavirus/assistan...

vkou: A very large fraction of land (~50%) is currently used to grow biomass to feed 8 billion humans.The land that people live on, whether it's in a city, a suburb, or in a rural manner is a rounding error compared to those demands.

dilawar: I grew up in North India, close to Ramganga river (Jim Corbet park is on this river). We grew rice in addition to sugar cane.The smell of paddy (and also of large quantity of cooked rice) is absolutely soothing for me and it brings back memory.During my grandfather time, it was very common for a crab to grab your fingers when you are planting the paddy. My father would chase turtles and large frogs when he was a kid.When I was a kid, the crabs and turtles were gone but frogs were pretty abundant. In last twenty years, there are hardly any frogs left. Earthworms are also under stress.The Japanese style of planting paddy wasn't very common in India before green revolution. Then we had a some new varieties that took over almost all old varieties for a simple reason for yield. My grandmother used to complain about a lost variety a lot. Apparently it had such a strong aroma that whole village would know what rice you have cooked. Glad to see more efforts preserving old varieties [1].[1] https://ruralindiaonline.org/article/let-them-eat-rice

sudo_cowsay: Doesn't happen that much. Possibly the environment in which people grow up in is so free and kind. Sort of like Hawaii's aloha spirit (search it up).

thaumasiotes: If you go into a Chinese supermarket, it will quickly become apparent that the default cooking oil is corn oil.I find this an interesting contrast with the United States, where the default cooking oil is Canola oil (if you're a person looking to cook your own food; this is the sense in which the Chinese default is corn oil) or soybean oil (if you're a company looking to sell packaged food in grocery stores). As far as I'm aware, traditional China would have had sesame oil and maybe soybean oil, and certainly not corn oil. The advantage of corn oil must be the price.But if corn oil is so cheap, why does the cheapest oil available in the US seem to be soybean oil?

ssl-3: We've already touched ~all of the arable land that's near to where people want to live. Forests clearcut, swamps (and deltas and the Netherlands) drained, rivers rerouted, reservoirs established, plains tilled, roads built, mountains conquered: We've been shaping and expanding the habitable Earth as it suits us for a very long time.We're humans. We do that stuff.And we're natural creatures like the rest of them are.

ErroneousBosh: > Wouldn't it be better, at least for the Earth, for everyone to live in cities? This way, more of the world can remain fairly untouched by humansWhere's the food going to come from?

numpad0: Corn??? I don't think corn in bulk is cheaply available in Japan at all. There's a mention in Wikipedia of a Chinese-Mongolian corn meal porridge thing but it looks pretty local.

lmm: > In a village, everyone knows everyone. Kids play with each other and run around freely. Every house protects all the kids and help each other. Everyone trusts everyone. You never feel lonely.In Japan that's true in a lot of city neighbourhoods as well. The high trust is extremely valuable but villages are not the only way to achieve it.

lostlogin: That’s an amazing volume.

ErroneousBosh: This is rural Scotland in the late 1970s / early 1980s.I'd like my small son to have the same opportunities that I had, instead of a school where the playground has lots of very carefully manufactured play equipment and they get to sit and look at iPads instead of working out for themselves how to program a BBC Micro.

bwv848: And the best way for Earth is we all migrate to Mars aboard Elon Musk's spaceship.

seer: Is this the “city experience” in general or specifically for the United States? It famously has very poor urbanism so might not mean the same as in Europe for example.I have grown up in rural Russia in the 80s and that was also similar - a forest started 50m from our house and I would just get lost there from time to time - not fun for my parents but magical for me.Then we moved to the middle of a European capital city (Sofia) and I _still_ had almost a forest right next to the apartment block we used to live in - enough of a forest that as a 10yo kid I could find a nook to build myself a small hut with a burning fireplace inside it and nobody complained.There are plenty of big European cities that are 10-20mins short unsupervised trip to a wilderness that a kid can do.For example - Valencia has an uninterrupted bicycle highway that gets you from the city center to a wilderness preserve and a beach in less than an hour cycling.To me all of these nature vs city laments are just US car dependency. Cities don’t have to be this way at all.

defrost: Farms - with a near infinitesimal number of farmers compared to the numbers living in cities .. exactly as things are trending now.It's common enough, here at least, to have a small family cropping 13,000 old school acres - tilling, seeding, waiting, harvesting, etc with big machines and Ag-bots.eg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpNMSSGWnOI

ssl-3: I think that's a profoundly balanced perspective on a possible future wherein automation has successfully dealt with most of the mundanities of producing the things we need to live and enjoy life.It allows for supremely-intense levels of automation, and also for personal productivity, and for at least some aspects of free market economics to work together.(Can it happen? Perhaps we'll find out.)

Terr_: [delayed]

numpad0: [delayed]

ncruces: > In a village, everyone knows everyone. Kids play with each other and run around freely. Every house protects all the kids and help each other. Everyone trusts everyone. You never feel lonely. Life is slower, much less stressful.That just means we need to structure cities differently.I live in a 1 sq km neighbourhood (literally, 1 km square) that houses 10k people.It has almost everything I could wish for at walkable distance, schools for all ages, parks, a gym, a pool, sports campgrounds, medics, pharmacies, stores, markets, etc.What doesn't exist (e.g. a movie theater, a library) I can reach by public transit in half an hour. The city has 2M people, there's plenty of stuff to do.I've lived here all my life, my kids go to school with the kids of my school mates. They walk to school from at least 10yo, they visit each other's houses. During school breaks and weekends, they play in the park with their school friends while their parents grab a beer in a nearby kiosk.You can build communities like this within cities.

lukan: I see. Have you lived with kids in a village and also in cities to see the difference in reality?I did and am moving back to the village now.

adrianN: I grew up in a city and my wife grew up in a village. We now live in a city and don’t own a car.

Doing a day of manual labour, chatting shit, then going for the onsen and some BBQ and beers is far better than grinding away at some enterprise SaaS that will probably disappear in a few years.

aledevv: > Doing a day of manual labour, chatting shit, then going for the onsen and some BBQ and beers is far better than grinding away at some enterprise SaaS that will probably disappear in a few years.I particularly agree with this statement.I don't know why manual work has been so denigrated over the last century. We believed that office labor was more important and healthier than manual labor. I don't think so.As a developer, sitting all day typing in a stuffy office, without natural light, without sun, without air, is certainly no healthier than being outdoors, connecting with nature and other people. We come from nature and are made to be active, outdoors, and in the sunlight.Today, with AI, many white-collar jobs are being called into question, and perhaps we can go back to loving certain traditional jobs.

sdevonoes: I’d love to do manual labor as long as: I have a decent house, decent health insurance, can afford decent food/stuff, can afford taking sabbaticals, can afford getting sick and not losing my income, can afford decent education for kids, etc.Unfortunately, many of us are chained to the modern way of life.