> regions where sickles (or machetes) are traditionally used
I don't understand how it's possible that there are regions that don't use scythes (for crops that warrant them), when scythes have been around for over a thousand years?
I would venture to say that if they haven't transitioned yet it's because they don't want to (for whatever reasons--no idea what those might be).
dtquad 14 minutes ago [-]
Insane that a country that hasn't invented the scythe yet has also produced one of the authors of the "Attention is all you need" paper.
1 hours ago [-]
efm 1 hours ago [-]
The Future is already here, it's just unevenly distributed. William Gibson
What is the skill tree of development, and how do we speed run it?
Syonyk 41 minutes ago [-]
The skill tree depends on awful lot on what you care about, and don't assume that western "high tech" solutions are the best, because they're the most complicated.
From a "Built out of locally available resources, with minimum energy, and robust repairability," it's hard to beat a scythe or other similar tool.
And I guarantee a well built scythe will still work, if tolerably cared for, long past the last of our over-complicated tractors rusting in fields because the right software to update the firmware to allow you to start the engine after changing the oil was trying to talk to some server that no longer exists...
Unless you're making this argument. I can't actually tell which way you're arguing for.
vdupras 1 hours ago [-]
In terms of joules spent per blade of grass cut, a well honed scythe in the hands of a skillful operator is more efficient than mechanized solutions. If you have an area where you already have an abundance of agricultural workers, it might be that scythe is a better solution than having your agriculture sector being dependent on fossil fuels.
troupo 40 minutes ago [-]
"If you already have a bunch of people doing back-breaking labor, do not even think about giving them efficient machines"
Syonyk 30 minutes ago [-]
"Efficient" in terms of what outputs, for what inputs?
You can't just handwave the term as a synonym for "I think it's better!" - it actually does imply inputs, outputs, and depending on what you want to optimize for, you may get very different results.
If a scythe is genuinely better for the job than a sickle, great!
But in a country without a lot of infrastructure and without modern supply chains, I'm pretty sure a tractor is the wrong solution to the problem. Unless, of course, your problem is "how to burden nations with loans they will never be able to pay back so you can come in and take over."
vdupras 34 minutes ago [-]
Working in the field is difficult, yes, but the western world still hasn't figured out an answer to the question "what happens when we run out of dead dinosaurs[1] to eat?". Until it has, any idea to not exacerbate the problem until we figure it out is, in my mind, a good idea.
[1]: fossil fuels, with poetic license
xupybd 28 minutes ago [-]
You have to incrementally improve. You can't jump an economic step.
I'd love to have everyone have no labour to do and be served by robots but let them eat cake doesn't work in reality.
HideousKojima 1 hours ago [-]
>What is the skill tree of development, and how do we speed run it?
There used to be an easy answer to this, now it's not politically or morally acceptable to support: colonization. Colonization is what brought modern farming practices (and their accompanying massive yields) as well as the development of the infrastructure needed to support it and other developments.
HideousKojima 1 hours ago [-]
I mean it's an interesting idea, but it's weird to imagine that small time farmers in poor countries are capable of obtaining and using a sickle but are somehow not capable of obtaining and using a scythe.
At least looking for ones here in the US, a decent quality sickle seems to run in the $30-$60 range while places that sell scythes seem to cost $100-$300, so I can't imagine it's some massive price barrier either
burnte 1 hours ago [-]
It's usually lack of knowledge/understanding and simple inertia, "this is how we've always done it."
broken-kebab 45 minutes ago [-]
I'm afraid you just dismissed the question, not answered it. Plenty of things changed in agriculture in spite of simple inertia. Why does sickle-for-wheat-scythe-for-hay concept seem to prevail for different cultures in distant lands for so long?
vdupras 39 minutes ago [-]
I'm not sure, but what I've read is that there's a loss of grain associated with using the scythe on wheat when it falls on the ground. Maybe it's a concern in some areas.
But I think that with a proper apparel such as the one we see in the video on the website, the fall can be made gentler while still keeping the significant efficiency gain that the scythe offers over the sickle.
crabbone 21 minutes ago [-]
Well, with a sickle you hold what you cut, and then you bind it together, so the grain doesn't fall on the ground. With a scythe you will have to somehow pick it up and organize in such a way that you can later collect it (without much dirt stuck to it etc.)
NB. In high-school, I worked one summer cleaning and otherwise maintaining the local after-school building. It had a huge lawn behind it, which I had to trim with a scythe once every few weeks. So, I thought I knew how to do that reasonably well...
And then, one day, some years later, me and few friends of mine went on a trip into the mountains, and we put our tent, as we later discovered, on some farmer's field. He got mad at us, and wanted us to cut the grass for him, as a form of compensation. Using a scythe on an incline, as opposed to flat surface is a... whole different story. I lodged it into the ground a few times, and then the farmer almost killed us :) In the end, we bought him some alcohol and left.
So, the moral of the story: scythe might not be always the best tool, and in some situations it's far from obvious how to use it efficiently.
haccount 6 minutes ago [-]
A high speed processor And lidar with digital blade angle control will probably make it work effortlessly on an incline too.
Rendered at 21:37:34 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
I don't understand how it's possible that there are regions that don't use scythes (for crops that warrant them), when scythes have been around for over a thousand years?
I would venture to say that if they haven't transitioned yet it's because they don't want to (for whatever reasons--no idea what those might be).
What is the skill tree of development, and how do we speed run it?
From a "Built out of locally available resources, with minimum energy, and robust repairability," it's hard to beat a scythe or other similar tool.
And I guarantee a well built scythe will still work, if tolerably cared for, long past the last of our over-complicated tractors rusting in fields because the right software to update the firmware to allow you to start the engine after changing the oil was trying to talk to some server that no longer exists...
Unless you're making this argument. I can't actually tell which way you're arguing for.
You can't just handwave the term as a synonym for "I think it's better!" - it actually does imply inputs, outputs, and depending on what you want to optimize for, you may get very different results.
If a scythe is genuinely better for the job than a sickle, great!
But in a country without a lot of infrastructure and without modern supply chains, I'm pretty sure a tractor is the wrong solution to the problem. Unless, of course, your problem is "how to burden nations with loans they will never be able to pay back so you can come in and take over."
[1]: fossil fuels, with poetic license
I'd love to have everyone have no labour to do and be served by robots but let them eat cake doesn't work in reality.
There used to be an easy answer to this, now it's not politically or morally acceptable to support: colonization. Colonization is what brought modern farming practices (and their accompanying massive yields) as well as the development of the infrastructure needed to support it and other developments.
At least looking for ones here in the US, a decent quality sickle seems to run in the $30-$60 range while places that sell scythes seem to cost $100-$300, so I can't imagine it's some massive price barrier either
But I think that with a proper apparel such as the one we see in the video on the website, the fall can be made gentler while still keeping the significant efficiency gain that the scythe offers over the sickle.
NB. In high-school, I worked one summer cleaning and otherwise maintaining the local after-school building. It had a huge lawn behind it, which I had to trim with a scythe once every few weeks. So, I thought I knew how to do that reasonably well...
And then, one day, some years later, me and few friends of mine went on a trip into the mountains, and we put our tent, as we later discovered, on some farmer's field. He got mad at us, and wanted us to cut the grass for him, as a form of compensation. Using a scythe on an incline, as opposed to flat surface is a... whole different story. I lodged it into the ground a few times, and then the farmer almost killed us :) In the end, we bought him some alcohol and left.
So, the moral of the story: scythe might not be always the best tool, and in some situations it's far from obvious how to use it efficiently.