Re: Re: Re: Re: Cuban Genetic Engineering (was Jesse Lemisch)

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

Michael Perelman wrote:
>
> Farmers like workers to bend over.  It makes it easy to spot who is
> relaxing.  If strawberries were grown in raised beds, like you see in some
> greenhouses, little bending would be required.  But mechanization would
> be difficult.

It's been about 55 years since I picked strawberries, but my memory of
it is crawling along on one's hands & knees. I can't imagine bending to
do it. Of course with the huge (and hence not very sweet) strawberries
of today picking would go much faster I suppose. But all fruit picking
is miserable work.

Incidentally, on the romanticization of agriculture. Biologically modern
humans go back 100,000 years; agriculture 12,000 or so -- it's a late
perversion, like writing. Industry, on the other hand, goes back several
million years. And it is around industry, play, and moving about, not
being stuck like a slug on one plot of land, that human life ought to be
organized. Agriculture by its nature is anti-human, and hence in a
decent society would be radically sub-divided and spread out over the
entire population, like KP in the military. Scrubbing toilets is far
more human labor than tilling the soil.

Carrol