One of the largest employers publicly engaging in a project which has the outcome of depressing wages. It's easier to "get" if you don't take the trillion dollar gorilla at face value.
> a weird backstory to public opposition to glyphosate which has very little to do with glyphosate itself
Is it required that the public have a "good reason" for wanting something?
> glyphosate is relatively benign and relatively inert compared other common crop and landscape treatments
We used to spray DDT everywhere. This isn't exactly a resounding recommendation. Perhaps there's a case for using as little additives in farming as is possible.
I think this a very unsound place to start an argument. Food production is vital and has been refined over the entirety of human existence to be stable and bountiful. I think it's extremely reasonable to critique Roundup for other reasons - but if you want to blank-slate farming and go with a no-additive solution we're bringing a lot of technology and technique into question that is helpful.
While it's more difficult to formulate on the internet through brief interactions - the correct answer here is nuanced. Somethings are beneficial to farm land productivity and also beneficial to consumers by lowering prices, increasing availability to healthy food etc - and some things are not but might be highly profitable to conglomerates. We need to pick issues like this apart carefully.
> We used to spray DDT everywhere. This isn't exactly a resounding recommendation. Perhaps there's a case for using as little additives in farming as is possible
It's not relevant to glyphosate, but there is such a thing. It's called Integrated Pest Management. I only know it wrt fruit crops. The main idea is to use the least-intrusive methods first, and pesticides last. For example, sanitation comes first: remove last year's debris where larvae and spores have over-wintered.
Glyphosate isn't a pesticide (unless it kills host plants? maybe?)
> Yes this is only probabilistic, but so is a human learning from mistakes.
Yet, since I'm also a Human being, and can work to understand the mistake myself, the probability that I can expect a correction of the behavior is much higher. I have found that it significantly helps if there's an actual reasonable paycheck on the line.
As opposed to the language model which demands that I drop more quarters into it's slots and then hope for the best. An arcade model of work if there ever was one. Who wants that?
There should be zero expectation that the solution is "novel." It could not have produced any of it were it not in it's training data set.
This is simply evidence that our search tools and academic publishing are completely broken and not at all evidence that a machine "thought up a novel solution."
Humans constantly anthropomorphize their environment. To their detriment.
This isn't true. There are solutions that are beyond apparent reason and logic. This is what a "breakthrough" is.
> The order and combination is what makes it special.
Given an infinite amount of time a team of monkeys will produce Shakespeare. Is that "special?" Perhaps we should leave some room for _how_ those combinations happen and how efficient they are.
> Is current human information access methods wrong
They are wrong. The largest search company is also the largest advertiser. I'm surprised that anyone either fails to apprehend this or pretends not to.
You're comparing the actions of individuals with the actions of a for-profit company. These are not compatible.
The expectations are that if you are driving for profit then you are held to a higher standard. Waymo wants to publicly excuse it's way out of this expectation for their own convenience. The way any common sociopath or selfish child would.
One of the largest employers publicly engaging in a project which has the outcome of depressing wages. It's easier to "get" if you don't take the trillion dollar gorilla at face value.
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