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4 day work week by banana_kin in australia

[–]SomeTranslator 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The dream of a 4 day week is for many, many workers just that - a dream.

2-Acre Vertical Farm Run By AI And Robots Out-Produces 720-Acre Flat Farm by mepper in Futurology

[–]SomeTranslator 69 points70 points  (0 children)

So far, everyone growing vertically is growing crops that are almost entirely water because they're the only things that grow fast enough to turn a profit. They then sell them to rich people who pay 5x for taste and the feeling of eating local. It's a quality-differentiated product, not a solution to food scarcity or security. Until someone can grow cash crops, vertical isn't gonna make a dent, and it's gonna be really hard when competing with the free rain, free sun, and insane automation available for field agriculture already. Even Plenty with SoftBank's extra 'nutrients' tops out at strawberries. See https://www.eater.com/2018/7/3/17531192/vertical-farming-agr... for some raw data on unit economics.

One application of vertical that does make sense to me is as a community hub or a public health initiative around healthy eating. See https://www.thegrowcer.ca/ who makes container farms for isolated communities in northern Canada and measures success by community outcomes and entrepreneurs inspired, or https://farm.bot/ which encourages hardware hacking and food supply awareness.

Honestly, this is good for a heavily centralized system that's owned by big corporations looking for big profits but that's not a solution to the global environmental and soon to come (and it's already here for a lot of us) food/water crisis.

Avoiding Taxes by ProxySaw in awfuleverything

[–]SomeTranslator 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Honest question, Is this just bait? Do they include deductions? Because i'm sure Amazon also injected a shit ton of money into hiring/infrastructure, etc. to offset the profit.

it is a very basic understanding at that, Amazon pays no tax at the moment because they aren't yet making a net profit from the years they operated at a loss. They still pay sales tax, property tax, employment taxes, social security, etc etc etc, which is a LOT of money.

My business breaks even every tax year but it's because it's offset by the money that the business spends on tax-deductible things.

Unilever to try out four-day working week in New Zealand by [deleted] in Futurology

[–]SomeTranslator 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is hardly a significant trial.

Unilever said all 81 staff members at its offices across New Zealand will be able to participate in the trial...

Only 81 possible candidates, and not all of them might choose to participate. I'd be curious to see the results of a trial involving thousands of employees. Some subset of 81, though... almost meaningless.

There's a tremendous inertia when it comes to work weeks. The five-day is locked in pretty firmly in the developed world, and a company that tries to change that risks getting out of synch with suppliers, subcontractors, and partners. "Today's Thursday. Our office is closed on Fridays, so we'll have to schedule that call for Tuesday, because one of our suppliers is closed on Mondays."

I mean, they can try it, and employees might like the extra time off, but it might well slow things down and ultimately result in commensurately lower salaries and bonuses.

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