Comment by IAmBroom
4 months ago
Having farmers in the family, I can confirm they are unhappy about living next to anything other than what they grew up next to.
Also, the rainfall. Some farmers go from morning to night never saying a word that isn't a complaint about the rainfall being wrong.
It is something I have noticed about the definition of 'eyesore' and it isn't just farmers. If it is something which is useful and new it is considered an eyesore. Like, say wind turbines. Yet older practical things which are no longer of use are considered pretty. Like say windmills. They also don't complain nearly as much about things which are 'established and ugly' like powerlines or coal power plants, the latter of which are replaced.
My best guess it is because it causes them existential dread by demarcating to them that there once was a time without the new feature. Now kids will be growing up always having there been the new feature. Thus highlighting their own inevitable death.
“I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:
1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time
> They also don't complain nearly as much about things which are 'established and ugly' like powerlines or coal power plants
I like industrial architecture and some plants inspire awe but post-war coal plants are as ugly and boring as it gets. Older ones look much better in my eye and I’m glad that some buildings are preserved after the stations are shut down.
Above ground power lines are a sin.
> Also, the rainfall. Some farmers go from morning to night never saying a word that isn't a complaint about the rainfall being wrong.
Yes. Some of them use proper rain gauges but some just complain about it. Basically none of them understand the difference between a point measurement and an areal average estimate.
Farmers will always have reason to complain about rain.
Farmers need rain, but there is never a perfect time for it to rain. There is always something they need to do that can't be done because it rained. If rain was 100% predictable months in advance farmers would just plan to not do those things on rain days (rain days often last a couple days because things need to dry), but it isn't and so they often are in the middle of something that cannot be interrupted when rain interrupts them.
Of course the other problem is sometimes it doesn't rain and then they can get all the jobs done above - but because there is no rain nothing grew (well) and so the harvests are bad...
> Some of them use proper rain gauges
OOOhh is there a device I can get that tracks this for home?
Easiest thing in the world, put a cup outside: https://www.zoro.com/acurite-rain-gauge-magnifying-12-12-in-...