You're bang on the money with

> exposed to Deere’s propaganda and believed it.

and I feel we can add a dash of smug superioty over presumed to stupid farmers.

I worked on sheep shearing robots in the 1980s at UWA and went on to have a global career in geophyical data aquisition, processing, and interpretation with a sideline in developing "Google Earth" pre current Google Earth .. all funded by part time work in 800 million tonne per annum iron ore mining projects.

Now I'm hanging about with farmers in rural WA.

"Giant John Deere tractors" are small fry compared to mining machines .. and many farmers here have FiFo (Fly In - Fly Out) minesite experience working as electricians | mechanics | operators on mining operations.

The bulk of local area mechanics that come to fix tractors have that same background .. understanding the technology is not the issue with agricultural machine repair, it's gate-keeping by the companies and system protocols designed to hinder part replacement, board updates, diagnosis, etc without a commission going back to oginal manufacturer.

This reminds me of when I taught a robotics class for a week at a university in Mauritius, off the East coast of Africa near Madagascar. We're exposed to so much nonsense about how "people over there" are simple and can't understand complex concepts. But those kids from Kenya, South Africa, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Morocco were exactly as talented as students from Palo Alto. People don't need to be treated like babies, they need to be given tools. No matter how special some engineer thinks they are, there's loads of equally talented people all over the globe.

By the way please show your farmer friends my open source farming robot. Sounds like you and yours would appreciate it. https://community.twistedfields.com/t/join-the-solar-farming...

I would like to have a couple of sock-puppets to upvote this more!

I jest, of course, but, this is such an important point that engineers and the designers of a product don't have monopoly on intelligence and people need not to be babied. I think some people even come to believe it themselves and develop some kind of learned helplessness.

Hey, I joined up a few days ago and wrote a little intro post, but I seem to be blocked from posting pending admin approval. I know you’re busy, so I don’t want to bother you, but I’m eager to participate.

ooh thanks for letting me know! I am slow to do admin stuff there. I have approved your post. Welcome!

Cheers!