[HN Gopher] How AppHarvest's indoor farming scheme imploded
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How AppHarvest's indoor farming scheme imploded
Author : rntn
Score : 28 points
Date : 2023-12-17 20:18 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (grist.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (grist.org)
| underseacables wrote:
| I think America has entered a post labor world in which manual
| labor is getting harder, lower paid, and lowered value. Labor
| will always be needed, but there are less and will be even fewer
| of those jobs to go around. As more low income, low education
| laborers proliferate, it will get increasingly hard for others to
| get a job in that market.
| earthnail wrote:
| By this logic - and I'm not saying you're wrong - a good
| strategy for low education workers would be to try and limit
| the supply and this limit low education immigration.
|
| Which would explain current American (and most of western
| Europe's) politics and its right wing culture rather well, and
| indicate that low education workers make rather rational voting
| decisions.
|
| Happy to hear other analyses :).
| xrd wrote:
| I really wanted to down vote your comment based on my own
| reactions to it, but I can't fault your conclusions.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Yeah, the problem with political discourse these days is
| assuming that the "other side" is _irrational_. Vast
| majority of people have beliefs that are at least
| defensible if you take care to look into their individual
| situation. They may be _globally_ irrational, but they are
| usually _locally_ rational (in the algorithmic sense of
| "global"/"local", not geographical).
|
| (If in doubt, the reason for any widespread and stable set
| of beliefs is usually economical in nature.)
| naasking wrote:
| > in which manual labor is getting harder, lower paid, and
| lowered value
|
| I think the trades are paid more than ever, and they're scarcer
| than ever. I'm not sure this will change anytime soon.
|
| AI is likely to make a respectable dent in knowledge work.
| CaliforniaKarl wrote:
| I wonder what the extended friends network looks like for a lot
| of folks here. I think maintaining diversity in your network of
| friends would go a long way towards preventing situations like
| this.
| cratermoon wrote:
| Oh, I know this story.
|
| The founder/CEO from Kentucky got a business degree, moved to
| D.C. to work as a contractor on renewable energy projects and
| then in 2018 Congress passed a farm bill, to distribute over $40
| million in grants to controlled environment agriculture.
| AppHarvest was founded in 2018. One of the lead investors? The
| USDA.
|
| Just grifting taxpayers through the public/private revolving
| door, happens all the time. Maybe this story is especially
| interesting because it involves a startup and agriculture. If it
| were some military or management industry grift, it'd be just
| another Thursday.
|
| ETA: I'd love to see a journalist look into any interests
| Kentucky elected officials had in any of the investors. Did
| anyone in Kentucky politics, either state or federal, make money
| off this?
| Terr_ wrote:
| > "People with billions of dollars became aware of this industry
| and they think it's the wave of the future," said Bugbee, "but it
| doesn't mean there's been a scientific shift. It staggers me how
| much money they're putting in."
|
| This description seems like it could fit quite a few other
| disasters in different business-areas. Manufactured hype is taken
| as social-proof that something fundamental changed.
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(page generated 2023-12-17 23:01 UTC)