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Re:There’s no such thing as a tree, phylogenetically by carapace on Sunday May 09, 2021 @02:12PM (#27098225)
Nope, in this case it's just science. Specifically ecology.

It turns out that when we understand what the plants and animals are doing in detail (through science) we can arrange them in time and space in ways that are vastly more efficient than what we've been doing these last ~12k years.

Think about it, if it wasn't so that would mean that our ancestors discovered optimal farming in antiquity, eh?

Just think: we used to burn chaff rather than composting it. It turns out that that is not a good idea. It's that sort of thing that I'm thinking of when I call ag "the dumbest way" to grow food.

Re:There’s no such thing as a tree, phylogenetically by Aardwolf on Sunday May 09, 2021 @02:57PM (#27098646)
> Think about it, if it wasn't so that would mean that our ancestors discovered optimal farming in antiquity, eh?

Farming has undergone several fundamental changes throughout history after that though, notably in medieval times and then everything industrialization brought

Re:There’s no such thing as a tree, phylogenetically by tremon on Sunday May 09, 2021 @03:09PM (#27098743)
Farming has undergone several fundamental changes

Can you name some that can't be reduced to "but on a [insert new machine]"? The only one I can think of is artificial fertilizer, which isn't a sustainable practice in the long run either.

Re:There’s no such thing as a tree, phylogenetically by saalweachter on Sunday May 09, 2021 @04:59PM (#27099687)
US Corn Grain Yield Trends Since 1866: https://www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/corn/news/timeless/images/US...

It may take years for new practices to be widespread and accepted, but I assure you, if you can make that chart continue to go up, ~every grain farmer in the US will happily be on board.

There is a certain world-view and a romanticizing to farming, but at the end of the day, farmers are businessmen who just want to grow as much food as possible, as cheaply as possible. They may grumble as much as a software developer when forced to learn new tools, and they won't drop everything for an unproven promise, but they'll happily abandon their old ways in favor of new ones once they're proven.

Re:There’s no such thing as a tree, phylogenetically by ajuc on Sunday May 09, 2021 @03:26PM (#27098921)
Bosh-Haber process increased food supply several times in less than a decade. There was no starvation in a developed country ever since it got adopted on mass scale. It happened less than 100 years ago.

Compared to that every other revolution in farming was insignificant.

Re:There’s no such thing as a tree, phylogenetically by mistrial9 on Sunday May 09, 2021 @06:37PM (#27100472)
Re:There’s no such thing as a tree, phylogenetically by ravi-delia on Sunday May 09, 2021 @05:48PM (#27100153)
Crop rotation replacing leaving fields fallow was a huge leap, as was the first really heavily selected strain of wheat.
Re:There’s no such thing as a tree, phylogenetically by bch on Sunday May 09, 2021 @03:08PM (#27098732)
> It turns out that when we understand what the plants and animals are doing in detail (through science) we can arrange them in time and space in ways that are vastly more efficient than what we've been doing these last ~12k years.

This assumes both systems are optimizing for the same thing.

Re:There’s no such thing as a tree, phylogenetically by carapace on Monday May 10, 2021 @11:41AM (#27107269)
Excellent point!

We know that evolution is optimizing for continuation or duration (technically "evolution" isn't a thing, it's a non-volitional chemical tautology with no purpose or intrinsic meaning so "it" cannot optimize, however, in practice, life is optimizing for more and continued life, overcoming radiation, impacts, and it's own consequences (like the advent of oxygen and aerobic metabolism)) so what is the other system optimizing for?

(As an aside, is "life is optimizing for more and continued life" a definition for "life"?)