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A general advice that I have found useful in life is that if you see something that requires a change (in organization, business process, lifestyle or just about anything that has humans as a component) that doesn't directly involve yourself, then the best way to point it out is never to start with the assumption that people are just "lazy/ignorant". This is hostile and will usually have a negative effect on the willingness of the concerned individual to change.

Even in this case, the farmer who are farming on their own land are under no obligation to change their way of life or farming process. Even though we know that the methods they are using may be sub-optimal and a net-negative in the long run, we simply cannot make them change it, and certainly never by labelling them negative. We can make them see the benefits, or how it plays out in the long run and help them choose a better solution but ultimately, it's them doing the choosing.

At the end, if something is really really required, then it must be the Governments making regulation. This is how it generally works (I'm not saying I like it).

1 comments

Let's try this: There are lazy/ignorant software engineers who write everything in a single file with no function because it's the easiest to write/initially run & test. This is a known terrible practice, but if you never have to deal with the code down the line, you wouldn't know this. There's nothing wrong with calling out the fact that these people are being lazy/ignorant.

Can the bad farmers continue to farm debt (primarily)? Sure, but if they're doing it to themselves we shouldn't feel bad for them, or bail them out.

No. If the code they write works for them, then they have done their job. People only realized that it was a bad practice once they found that the code was NOT doing their job (i.e. it was difficult to fix/debug when error occurred, it was immensely difficult to update, and it was nigh impossible to make sense of by your cohorts reading your code).

People only do what a) They are taught in the first place (programming classes, reliable blogs etc.), b) Their work environment imposes on them (organizations having coding practices or standards), c) They, through some personal experiences, find out that it makes their job easier down the line, or d) It is the right thing to do.

Expecting everyone to follow (d) is out of the question and in my experience all "good" work happens via (b) i.e. rules, regulations and standards that have been enforced. If some sub-optimal choice minimizes effort while maximizing rewards, then that is not sub-optimal, at least for the individual, even though it clearly could be a sub-optimal for the collective.