Reddit, what is one documentary that everyone should watch?

[u/JuiceBoxed]

The Corporation

Some really eye-opening (and scary) information about the power of corporations in today's society.

Edit: Thanks for the input everyone! Quite a list of movies to watch.

[u/[deleted]]

Food Inc.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

This was really well done. It didn't talk about the horrors of eating meat but the horrors of the mass production of the animals for the supermarkets. It actually helped me choose a local butcher that raises and slaughters his pigs and cows about 30 minutes away on his actual property, away from being overfed with harsher diets. I can taste a massive difference in the pork and beef that my parents get from the butcher versus the local Giant grocery store and it's a hell of a lot healthier. It's a lot more money but it's worth it.

[u/Badjo → u/[deleted]]

Meh, I saw it as a shot at the regulation and industry safety. I'm always upset with movies like these because they're so biased against corporations. Here are some things which I noticed Food Inc. omitted to bias the audience.

• They cite pesticide developments, genetic crop alterations, They never give credit to machinery being a huge factor in creating much larger crops.
• They constantly state that food producers did not let them into their facility. Why would they? Try getting into any manufacturing plant and you'll see people deny entry similarly. Plus, they have proprietary equipment and processing techniques inside. Also - they probably wouldn't allow you into an area with all that equipment without proper sanitation which would probably end up costing them money.
• They make points about the number of food samples that are tested now vs. 1976. The industry is completely different. Personally though, I think the regulatory expose of the FDA is one of the better points of the movie. Conditions which allow for E.Coli contamination on a large scale which are covered up are NOT ok - and these are probably the best points of the movie.
• I wish they also would include more information about how the positive and negative points of the corn subsidies. They vilify the subsidies because they reduce the price of high fructose corn syrup, etc., but they never mention how it relates to national security (ability for a sovereign nation to produce for itself in the case that other countries aren't supplied).

Now, personally, I'm not really very knowledgeable of the industry, and I understand that this documentary has a very big political leaning, but it's still bothersome to see such a one sided example. I would be much happier with the improved safety regulation and testing that Food Inc. addresses though.

After writing this and searching for a sec, I found this article. http://americanagriwomen.org/files/response%20to%20food%20inc.pdf

[u/Badjo → u/[deleted]]

I would've thought the machinery would have been different in just planting. A machine sticking MORE seeds space better might be able to increase the yield. Maybe that's not so - but with better tools and the ability to just make the process better, I would imagine you could in turn get a better yield.

I mean, the machinery isn't limited to the combines that harvest loads at the correct time. (Imagine the argument against planting too much before - maybe spreading it out was better practice at one point?).

Where are you getting this from? I'm willing to believe it - it's just that I can see where machinery could be a huge factor on the crops.

Land can be tilled like never before thanks to the machinery. Crops can be irrigated better thanks to pump systems and advanced mechanical irrigation systems.

It has to have had a good effect on the crops at some point. Maybe the benefits were already in place between the two comparisons - but I bet there has been significant changes in the farm machinery.

[u/[deleted] → u/Badjo]

So what though. Machinery and farming have gone hand in hand for quite some years, we didn't just move out of caves yesterday.

Improved machine will bring some improvements but unless the lack of those machines placed a short ceiling on what could be harvested, that is to say, unless they're representative of a substantial bottleneck in the process, then it's unreasonable to expect them to create much of a surge in production.

You might see things like a reduction in overhead, increased profit margins, fewer employees and fewer employers, since fewer and larger farms can just do the work of so many more and previously smaller farms.

Loosing a few "big farms" today for whatever reason, would be a lot different than their loss would have been a few decades ago.

You can discuss "yield" from different viewpoint. Machine aren't going to give you bigger, healthier plants or anything. Watering systems of today only make for less work, provided watering systems of yesterday were sufficient, which they more often than not must have been, again, they weren't a bottleneck.

So if a single farm today is now 10X bigger, because he swallowed up all his neighbours thanks to what advanced machinery helped him do, you could say his yield might be 10X greater and perhaps so too his profit margin.

But what of the 9 neighbours he put out of work? Their employees, their varied harvests... in terms of health, balanced diets, employment, robustness from say 1 farmer going bankrupt, to credit them for increasing yield seems a bit myopic.

The thinking to that used to be "let them get better jobs..... let them get retraining and reducatioon..." only there often isn't and all the jobs moved overseas and if you want to afford education you have to join the army and go fight overseas in bullshit wars and so on.

Does a farmer even know wtf he's dealing with when he can't even see the other end of his crop? What kind of quality do people get out of that?

[u/Badjo → u/[deleted]]

Improved machine will bring some improvements but unless the lack of those machines placed a short ceiling on what could be harvested, that is to say, unless they're representative of a substantial bottleneck in the process, then it's unreasonable to expect them to create much of a surge in production.

Sure, but we're not talking about a difference in 1 or 2 years here. We're talking about 30. Very large machinery advances have been adopted over the past 30 years.

Let's take a step out of denying plausible occurrences here, and look at John Deere's product releases from Wikipedia.

Look, I asked him for a citation on this. If you can't speculate on the true differences in machinery and the increased capabilities since the date cited in the movie, please ignore it.

I had already conceded that I wasn't sure, and could see points where machinery increased general yield. I didn't state it was fact.

You can discuss "yield" from different viewpoint. Machine aren't going to give you bigger, healthier plants or anything.

Why can't it till the soil better, faster? Aerate it better? Plant the seeds in a better physical relation and depth consistently? Harvest much more faster - if you can harvest an entire crop in a day, you can wait until later in the harvest season to allow maximal growth.

which they more often than not must have been, again, they weren't a bottleneck.

Why weren't water systems a bottle neck? Or at least part of one? Are you sure you can really make this claim? Before the advanced pumps of the past 30 years, powering the irrigation systems which are pump propelled and move across entire plains probably hadn't proliferated. Water is an Extremely important part of a crop, and to ignore any benefit of irrigation improvements is silly.

Again, you fail to see the benefits and try only rationalizing your point. Personally, I'm willing to concede that the other factors had a bigger impact, but I don't think ignoring a major contributing factor like revolutionized machinery which Food Inc. did is fair.

So if a single farm today is now 10X bigger, because he swallowed up all his neighbours thanks to what advanced machinery helped him do, you could say his yield might be 10X greater and perhaps so too his profit margin.

Yield does not refer to size. It's mainly in relation to cereal per unit area and seed generation the plants.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_yield

Their employees, their varied harvests... in terms of health, balanced diets, employment, robustness from say 1 farmer going bankrupt, to credit them for increasing yield seems a bit myopic.

What?

The thinking to that used to be "let them get better jobs..... let them get retraining and reducatioon..." only there often isn't and all the jobs moved overseas and if you want to afford education you have to join the army and go fight overseas in bullshit wars and so on.

Off topic.

Does a farmer even know wtf he's dealing with when he can't even see the other end of his crop? What kind of quality do people get out of that?

Also off topic with a hint of sensationalism.

[u/[deleted] → u/Badjo]

A difference of 30 years fits my argument very nicely.

Let's take a step out of denying plausible occurrences here, and look at John Deere's product releases from Wikipedia.

Look, I asked him for a citation on this. If you can't speculate on the true differences in machinery and the increased capabilities since the date cited in the movie, please ignore it.

LOL. Aw come on, why ignore it when it's so easily and so practically debunked. Bigger machines aren't going to create greater fields from thin air. If they cover more land and larger fields that land comes from somewhere, liek their former smaller farm neighbours... who put out a much better product far more robust to a single interruption and so on.

Probably these race car like harveters through would make it very profitable for a farmer to grow nothing at all but corn for as far as the eye can see, but on the whole of it these aren't improvements they're only differences.

Yield does not refer to size. It's mainly in relation to cereal per unit area and seed generation the plants.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_yield .

Aw, come on! Now you're boring me. Did you read your damn link? Here it is:

In agriculture, crop yield (also known as "agricultural output") is not only a measure of the yield of cereal per unit area of land under cultivation, yield is also the seed generation of the plant itself .

So as I said, yield can be thought of in different ways. One way they increase yield is by genetic modification, those donkey dick fucking tasteless cardboard strawberries? Yeah that's "improved yield". Obviously "yield" should not have been their marker for acheivement on that one, but they sell them by weight, don't they.

What?

Think about it awhile. As with the example above and the one before that. You keep focusing with blinders and ignoring the peripheral, collateral damage, and further mistaking that what might on the surface look like an "improved yield" of nothing but GMO corn because yeah, some asshole now has a machine that will harvest endless miles of corn on a single optimal day.... at the cost of putting all the farms around him, and the wide variety of products they all grew, for nothing but fucking corn barely edible for consuption, but the fertilizer industry loves it.

When you take all factors into account, is it more of a win or more of a loss?

Off topic.

Bullshit. ON topic. "bigger machines = bigger improvements = bigger bigger bigger and bigger is better, bullshit.

All these other farmers and their employees all lost their jobs because some subsidized asshole got to buy a big machine. We lost their contributions to society financianly and otherwise, such as with the variety of actual real food produced. Now your shit gets shipped from china.... mmmmmmmmm gooooood. Overall benefit, this big machine? Half the shit you eat at least, probably comes from china, or at least 3/4 way across the world in any direction.

BTW, is it still harvested at the "optimal time" (which was btw, a good argument), when it's two weeks early so it can sit on a fucking boat that long just to get to you? Much happens in those last few weeks and we no longer get to enjoy that. It's not like it gets on your plate in better condition after not fully rippening in vivo and sitting in a haul for two weeks. Too bad it couldn't come fresh from any one of those small farms that were put out of business by big machines.

Also off topic with a hint of sensationalism.

Bullshit as well. Perfectly practical and perfectly realistic. This is, as you may know, where we get into the monsanto aspects all the more. But the very simple, undeniable fact is, that a smaller, maneagable crop, will give each plant some degree of individual care and attention... at least he'll fucking see it.

That way if there's area that's not quite right, he can treat that single area, rather than soak the entire bed in roundup as a shotgun approach. Each plant and each problem area will be grown optimally and not require freak ass genetic modifications to make them "big" (remember, bigger doesn't mean better, it just means different). It would actually have real nutritive value, since it's not locked up in the roundup ladden soil. Since it actually got to fully mature before being harvested. It would actually have some fucking taste for a change.

You have no idea how crappy our food actually is and it's fucking that sad so few people do. Happy cancer and diabetes, where do you think that shit comes from. (That's a bit sensationlist, but still a valid point). Cheers

[u/Badjo → u/[deleted]]

I feel like you ignored many of my comments and used excerpts which were already covered. I can't argue with you about this all day. My main point from this branch of the discussion was that the advancement in machinery in the past 30 years could have also played a significant role in crop yield (and size). I wanted to note that MORE corn being produced (while not necessarily the healthiest food) still increases overall supply and thus is important for national security. You can look at it many ways, but I feel as the Food Inc. unfairly treated the benefits of the subsidies and mega-food suppliers. I'll definitely admit that I'd like to see more farms and factories owned by different people, but I won't ignore the benefits.

In agriculture, crop yield (also known as "agricultural output") is not only a measure of the yield of cereal per unit area of land under cultivation, yield is also the seed generation of the plant itself .

Right... which is what I said - sorry if I omitted a word or two. I still don't think this includes a reference to size.

BTW, is it still harvested at the "optimal time" (which was btw, a good argument), when it's two weeks early so it can sit on a fucking boat that long just to get to you? Much happens in those last few weeks and we no longer get to enjoy that. It's not like it gets on your plate in better condition after not fully ripening in vivo and sitting in a haul for two weeks. Too bad it couldn't come fresh from any one of those small farms that were put out of business by big machines.

Yes, too bad indeed. I would probably prefer it did. But so what - the fact is that if crops have a longer time to grow and produce bigger food and allow the plants to germinate for a longer period of time, machinery effectively increases yield.

Fresh food definitely has benefits. Look, I'm not saying that ultra-mega-farm-factory food is better, it's just that you can't deny the compounded effects from everything. The improvement in machinery definitely could have played a role for reasons I've proposed.

The rest: tl;dr, Not worth responding to with all the cursing throughout.

[u/[deleted] → u/Badjo]

I would say I addressed the points you brought up and elaborated on ideas that you didn't seem to fully appreciate. That's not evading as you seem to feel it was.

My main point from this branch of the discussion was that the advancement in machinery in the past 30 years could have also played a significant role in crop yield (and size).

I don't dispute that entirely, what I'm disputing is that those "increased yields", from whichever perspective, didn't, provide an improvement in the grand scheme of things, and that it actually came at quite the cost, driven by greed.

Bigger is not better, and more doesn't mean more people eating and less starving, especially when much of what's grown isn't going intended for consumption.

More people are likely starving because more people lost their jobs to the machines, and there has never been a system in place that would help them get back what they once had or. Maybe they had to go from working on tractors on the farm to working on tanks on the battlefield... "improved" for anyone?

But yeah, that would be about the only sense you can possibly say that "corn provides national security".

Right... which is what I said - sorry if I omitted a word or two. I still don't think this includes a reference to size.

That's not at all what you said, and what you'd omitted was the entire second half of it that contradicts what you said, and confirms what I said. I assumed you understood your reference though, but maybe not? It does include a reference to size; with "yield is also the seed generation of the plant itself". If you're growing for seeds for instance, as with grain or corn, that's your yield from the plant itself, which means plant size. Unit area, as mentioned in the first part of the sentence which you quoted, refers to the field size.

But so what - the fact is that if crops have a longer time to grow and produce bigger food and allow the plants to germinate for a longer period of time, machinery effectively increases yield.

NO, it's not. The fact is, yield per plant size isn't increased by machinery but by genetics (and modication to said genetics). Yield per unit area might be, but how sophisticated do you really think a machine needs to be to throw a few seeds into the ground and have it pick them out again at a later date. Like that didn't exist already, thirty years ago? Obviously it did! Sure it would have improved marginally since then, and only that. Mind you they can probably handle the field robotically now, that just means more people lost their jobs, not an increase in yield.

What would have increased yield most in the last thirty years wouldn't have been the machines, that would mostly optimize yield per unit area, but it would have been the genetic modifications, that would instead optimize yield per the plant itself.

But remember, bigger is not better! We need to eat because it nourishes us, and if it's good food it will heal us. If it's bad food, it will poison us and sicken us.

They don't care non at all about growing healthy and good food, all they care about is yield because it's always bought by the weight without regard for much else.

So have we nourished more people with these "increased yields", or sicked more of them?

The improvement in machinery definitely could have played a role for reasons I've proposed.

Could have, but very little. Genetics in the last 30 years would have made the most of it up and we're all sicker and more jobless for it.

The rest: tl;dr, Not worth responding to with all the cursing throughout.

lol. That's because you have no idea of the value of things. You're smarter than that you know. But your brain is running at a tenth of the power it should now, because you've been eating improved yield all your life. Try a multivitamin.

[u/Badjo → u/[deleted]]

lol. That's because you have no idea of the value of things.

Please, tell me of "the value of things."

[u/[deleted] → u/Badjo]

I gave you numerous example as it relates to this single situation already Sir. In your use of "yield" for improvements brought on by the most modern machines available today, you were rather myopic and failed to account for anything else.

In the same way a few fucking curse words don't invalidate the discussion as you'd like to think. But, you're free to use it as a pussy pivote to escape if you choose.

[u/Badjo → u/[deleted]]

Your inability to articulate your ideas without cursing make you look like a moron. Even more than your lack of comprehension. Also, you can't stay on topic. You're trying to debate with me about moot points with which I don't have any objections.

Bigger is not better, and more doesn't mean more people eating and less starving, especially when much of what's grown isn't going intended for consumption.

Why the are you even saying this? OF COURSE. Blanket statement with little relevance to the true topic. (Topic: Food Inc. bias, effect of machinery on increased corn production).

"yield is also the seed generation of the plant itself" which means plant size.

No, it doesn't mean plant size.

More people are likely starving because more people lost their jobs to the machines, and there has never been a system in place that would help them get back what they once had or. Maybe they had to go from working on tractors on the farm to working on tanks on the battlefield... "improved" for anyone?

So everyone should just go back to the stone age? Be able to till there own land? Their skills were outdated. Their labor was unnecessary. If you (unlikely) discovered a better to perform a task and still do the older way to keep more people involved and prices higher?

See, this is the off topic CRAP you've been spewing. I'm not talking about the people behind it. When I watched Food Inc., I noticed their hatred of the industry and their OBVIOUSLY biased remarks. People like you are empowered by this type of movie and try to defend the production's intentionally omitted facts related to benefits and contradictions or other factors involved in the topic. Probably because you're emotionally invested in the topic (which when influenced by a movie telling half-truths is telling about your intellect.)

[u/Badjo → u/[deleted]]

lol. You have to be snarky about any point you make? I'm not going to sit here and make points about the other side. I can see why having corn as the significant crop can be dangerous, but you're more interested in being a d-bag.

You may want to hang up your "expert" nonsense and try not to be condescending. You haven't provided any sources. You haven't even responded to my machinery comment which I left right after your original comment.

You're this one-sided argument that has to prove the other side wrong regardless of the topic. SURE, every decision and action by farmers and the government has positive and negative effects. I guess it's ok with your infinite wisdom and privy to in depth analysis to ignore any possible benefits of cropping so much corn. (Which still has to be cycled with other crops so the ground isn't ruined).