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How dairy robots are changing work for cows and farmers

(spectrum.ieee.org)
225 points DonHopkins | 4 comments | 15 Apr 25 22:26 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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gingkoguy ◴[16 Apr 25 00:39 UTC] No.43700106[source]▶
How come no one makes fun of agriculture in america ?

If we can successfully produce agricultural products in America why is manufacturing impossible?

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HeyLaughingBoy ◴[16 Apr 25 01:06 UTC] No.43700269[source]▶
This again!

We manufacture plenty in America. Every company that I've worked for over the last 30 years has manufactured something or the other. We just don't manufacture cheap stuff like toasters.

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trollbridge ◴[16 Apr 25 11:23 UTC] No.43703981[source]▶
Or cheap stuff like $3,000 laptops?
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1. 9rx ◴[16 Apr 25 13:29 UTC] No.43705283{4}[source]▶
Exactly like a $3,000 laptop. $3,000 is insanely cheap when you think about it. With a $3,000 laptop in hand you can produce more value for the world than with tools that cost millions of dollars. Economies of scale is a weird and wonderful thing.
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2. trollbridge ◴[17 Apr 25 21:34 UTC] No.43722477[source]▶
I’m not sure I’d agree with that. A skilled person can use a laptop to create a lot of value, but a laptop on its own isn’t going to produce much. (And a skilled programmer could produce nearly as much value with a $300 laptop.)
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3. 9rx ◴[17 Apr 25 23:36 UTC] No.43723400[source]▶
What value do you think a multi-million dollar passenger jet creates own its own, absent a skilled pilot and crew? But where skilled operators are at the helm, the laptop has the potential to create considerably more value, yet costs almost nothing. It is really quite amazing how cheap they have become. Early general-purpose computers did cost about as much as a jet, so them becoming dirt cheap wasn't a foregone conclusion. But we're lucky they did.
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4. trollbridge ◴[18 Apr 25 15:12 UTC] No.43728817{3}[source]▶
We can know the value of something by simply conducting an auction and seeing what it sells for; that's the floor of its value. We can establish the ceiling of its value by seeing what it retails for. Fancy Apple laptops float around $3,000. They're not worth more than that, and not worth less.