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Re: Automation and farming (was: Re: [ox-en] work)



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Stefan,
  
  I just want to say that I completely agree with this. Technology is not  neutral, but  a dimension of productive activity in a certain  context. It is therefore likely that in a different type of society,  automotation would be different.
  
  Michel

Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de> wrote:  -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

Hi Magius, Michel, all!

Last month (53 days ago) magius wrote:
I see a possible scenario.. mass food production through automated
farms and "for pleasure" food production through manual work heheheh

This is exactly what I'd strive for and Michel seems to agree as well:

Last month (50 days ago) Michael Bouwens wrote:
But I agree with the conclusion: let's automate what is burdensome,
and let people free to engage in freely productive behaviour,

Nevertheless, there is one point I'd like to reply to.

A plant is, at some level, and this is not mysticism but a
researched phenomenon, a 'feeling' organism, that reacts to care.

Absolutely. However, plants come from nature and nobody cares about
them there. May be they are worse off in nature ;-) .

They are not 'objects' that can be automated in some process. Well,
they can, but at a price. Have you ever tasted biodynamic produce,
and compared to the bland fare that comes out of automated  farming?
I know for one thing, that in Belgium at least, good tasting fruit
has practically disappeared from the market, and I'm really enjoying
the not-yet automated fruit one can find on local markets here in
Thailand.

I know exactly what you are talking about and because of this nearly
all of the food in my household comes from organic gardening.

However, I think the poor results of industrialized farming are not
due to the automation per se but due to the need to maximize profit.
And indeed organic farming *is* more expensive - the farmer where some
of my food comes from said for instance that crops are 10-50% less
with this method - though they are definitely more - and hard - work.

One of the differences between organic farming and capitalist farming
is that as far as I understood in the latter the plants are
nourished(?) by force (especially by nitrates(?)) while in the first
the plants take what they need.

Farmers want to care for their plants and animals, if you give them
the freedom to do so.

The question, however, is what care taking means actually. I mean a
plant does not live by love alone but also needs water, air, minerals,
light, ground, and so on. I could imagine that a highly computerized
system could give *each single plant* exactly what it needs because it
can measure what this particular plant is missing. I'd consider this
indeed a lot of caring. Also this would be an interesting Free Project
to write some software which does the very best in this regard using a
roboter.


Why I write this? I think when talking about concepts like automation
we need to distinguish carefully how these concepts are used today in
the given societal context and what of this are really inevitable
features of this concept and what depends on the societal context. For
example automation to me has no value in itself but it strongly
depends on the societal context it is used in. For instance today
automation is "evil" because it destroys jobs. But this is only a
problem in a society where the concept of wage labor is an important
one. If wage labor is abolished, however, in favor of Selbstentfaltung
then automation is a completely different thing.


      Mit Freien Grüßen

      Stefan

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