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Tech attracts a lot of "undesirables", for want of a better word, and there is no great way to separate them from the quality people you'd actually want to have a union with. The MLB union works exceptionally well because the business naturally screens out anyone who isn't in the upper echelons of baseball society. Try advocating for a baseball union that includes the MLB down to every small town B-league team and you'd get the same pushback.

The trouble is that there is no MLB of tech. Anyone random yahoo who no more than the smallest amount of motivation to work in tech is pretty much guaranteed a place in it (at least that was the case up until recently). Even at companies that like to boast about only hiring the best end up with lots of the dregs all the same. The need for tech workers is larger than the number of quality people. When there is a social division then the desire to associate goes out the window.

For example, when we change "union" to "party" (as in political party) even those who claim to hate unions latch onto it as if it was the greatest thing ever conceived, despite being the exact same thing. Marketing matters.

Both? The messaging from the last 30+ years has already been that the only way to be successful is to develop your own capital, not to get a job. He's saying that learning how to use AI will be essential in developing the next generation capital.

In what way? Wheat hasn't even returned to early 2025 price levels yet. It is up relative to where is has been recently amid what were very low prices, but still have a long way to go to get where things had been through much of the 2020s.

Nah. Wheat isn't profitable if you look at it in isolation, but it is still net advantageous to have in the rotation.

> (“Roundup ready” of course)

Nah. IP soys aren't as attractive as they once were, granted, but the premium is still compelling enough to grow some.

It is, but is generally post facto instead of pre facto, which may be why you don't recognize it as such? In the US, subsidies are given by covering a portion of crop insurance premiums. When crops fail, the insurance covers the losses. Whereas Australia waits until crop failure occurs and then provides assistance to affected farmers "bailout"-style.

Edamame is limited to special varieties that are harvested before ripening, which isn't the soybeans those supplanting wheat will be growing. You're probably thinking of tofu, natto, or something in that vein.

Not just technically. It is a relatively common food. A fair bit of it is crushed (i.e. turned into cooking oil). But it is also a product used in a number of processed foods, tofu, etc. Granted, it does seem to be eaten less commonly in the USA, but is more often used in Asian cuisines.

> Are there different grades of soybean?

All crops have different grades. Poor weather conditions is the most likely reason for a downgrade.

You'd have to have lived a pretty sheltered life to not have picked up those things long before reaching the typical age of attending university.

University's role is to give you a place to apply those qualities to subjects where you otherwise wouldn't have access to the necessary resources to fulfill your interest in the subject, like where you need equipment that costs many figures beyond what a personal budget could ever dream of.

Which is also where the job skill conflation comes from as those same resources are often used to fulfil job training, like where one needs to learn how a certain costly machine works before messing with the real thing in industry.

OOP didn't really take off either, but mostly because it is hard to optimize and impossible to type.

Except here the appeal to emotion suggests that it isn't useful. The results would be useful on their own without having to fabricate additional information to make it useful otherwise.

It is understandable why scientists are getting wrapped up in their emotions, but anyone in science is intended to learn how to separate logic and emotion. That is what the education system is for. That breakdown we're seeing leads to complex communication issues.

Whether or not it is tragic depends on the beholder. Some people are quite happy to watch the demise of humanity. Science is only interested in what is. How you feel about it is up to you. Certainly scientists are going to have their personal feelings about the science. They are but simple humans, after all. But those feelings are no more useful than your arbitrary feelings.

Historically, that's what the locals did. This is 'do what the locals do' always referred to. Other comments call out entities like Bourdain who pushed 'do what the locals do' into popularization, but even he spent his time talking to the locals. That was his whole schtick.

It may be fair to say that in the modern age locals no longer talk to each other. Perhaps that is the source of disconnect we're now seeing?

Oh well. Its mine, not yours, so who cares?

> basically any science that involves the study of processes that might have important consequences for mankind.

Scientists seek to gain the understanding, but generally taking that understanding and turning it into what a society is concerned with is left for other disciplines (e.g. engineering). Generally, scientists don't also have the social understanding of the application of science. It is not impossible for them to. Humans can do many things. But it is generally impractical given that there is only so much time in the day. Having the beat of the social ground is a full-time job in and of itself.

I know HN leans towards DIY and struggle to think that they can't do it all, but out there in the real world there is much greater division of labour. A random scientist's warning holds no more weight than a hobo on the street's warning after said hobo has read the same research.

You're talking about a consultant now. Yes, consultants take scientific understanding and help translate it into what the customer wants to hear: doing their best to interpret what the other person is likely to think is "good" or "bad". Which, I will add, is not absolute. Often patients reject the doctor's opinion of what is "good". It is technically possible for someone to be both a scientist and a consultant, of course. Humans can do many things. But generally medical doctors are focused on operating consultancies alone. There usually isn't enough time in the day to be both deeply engrossed in science and other professions at the same time. Generally speaking, medical doctors are not scientists in any meaningful sense. That's literally why we call them medical doctors or physicians instead of calling them scientists... Yes, there are some exceptions, as there always is. But, to be sure, even in those exceptional cases, we don't call them scientists when they are operating in a consulting capacity.

It is concerned with understanding health. It is unable to decide what is "good" or "bad" as that is in the eye of the beholder. That is why medicine presents the options gleaned from the gained understanding, leaving the individual to decide for themselves what is "good" amid all the different tradeoffs. The universe has no fundamental concept of "good" or "bad". It is something humans make up. It is curious that someone who seems to have an interest in science doesn't realize that.

The cleaner isn't the problem with respect to the cleaning itself, but what about the culpability in exploiting someone who has lost their mind? In this case Zuckerberg is willing to accept the exploitation that occurred in the past simply for what it is, but now that he has had a moment of clarity he also cannot let it continue.

Which is the same reason everyone else seeks relationships with other people. That is the value social interaction brings. Now that you've cracked the code, so to speak, do you find this behaviour grating because you don't normally like to have your thoughts and ideas challenged/enlightened?

The Western world lives under democracy. Power is held by the population at large. If it appears that the older population is holding more power, that is simply because they have more time, being retired, to exert their democratic duty.

Exactly. Humans crave novelty and hate doing what everyone else is doing. That idea was presented because it was still a fairly novel experience to live in the city. Getting to live in the city was seen as something special. Now it is what everyone does, so it isn't novel anymore. You no longer "need to live in the city" because, generally, you are now already there. The novelty is gone. The happy youth have moved on to living the next big thing. Once everyone else starts to recognize what they are doing, general happiness will temporarily increase again... until that new normal loses its novelty and the cycle repeats once more.

It is the tale as old as time. This is ultimately the same reason for why people set out to discover and settle in America in the first place!

It tried to, at least, but I'm not sure it succeeded. The growing secularization up to 2020 follows the long-term trend towards unhappiness and peak secularization and peak unhappiness line up too. Happiness has even started to improve in line with the growing return to religiosity that has occurred most recently. The data it presents as supposedly dismissing religion actually makes a reasonable case for religion.

Of course, the reality is that there never one reason. Americans are sad for millions of different reasons. The idea that if we fix that one thing all will become right with the world is pure fantasy.