Flowers like you say lasts a week for multiple people. Also unlike kitschy stuff you buy and just sits there forgotten, you appreciate them, you have to somewhat care for them, they add value to life.
To say they are "they are not essential" is saying life itself is not essential, just eat powder and sit in a room if this is the case.
I feel like what you are saying is you don't like flowers so no one else should.
And I really think it's callous for us to forget the "More than 150,000 people now toil on Kenyan flower farms, many of them women." These are the poorest of the poor, to take away what little they have is pretty thoughtless.
It sustains their life and thus serves an important purpose.
> Also unlike kitschy stuff you buy and just sits there forgotten, you appreciate them, you have to somewhat care for them, they add value to life.
Kitschy stuff is another ecological disaster, separately from cut flowers. People who appreciate flowers generally buy potted ones and care for them; cut plants are meant as gifts or decorations, and they get thrown away immediately (think of all the decorative flowers on social events) or after they wither (ain't nobody has time to care for the gift roses in the vase, or even notice them).
> I feel like what you are saying is you don't like flowers so no one else should.
I think GP is saying something else. They're taking a systems-level view. Flowers are cool, but we've created a system in which huge amount of energy is used to manufacture and ship around what amounts to reified mating signals, that could be manufactured and shipped locally instead. Now it would be fine in the era of free energy and matter replicators, but we're still in the era of scarcity and looming climate change. So it's fair to ask questions about unnecessary waste in the system.
Surely folks on HN understand that, if it was economically feasible to compete on this, then locally sourced flower start-ups would've already become a thing?
Yes shipping and storage seem wasteful, but there are economies of scale involved when centralizing production to areas with the right climate, with desirable soil qualities, with expertise in planting such flowers, etc.
To help local flower growers win out, we would need to increase the cost of shipping/storage/etc. (maybe because we think they are not properly pricing in externalities?). Then we're back in the realm of tariffs and protectionism, which is its own can of worms; personally, I think we can complicate our understanding of free trade, and reasonably choose to impose artificial costs/penalties when it comes to climate protection or environmental goals (as opposed to, propping up certain industries just because they're better at lobbying).
Consider that, it is cheaper/more-efficient for fisherman/crabmen in Alaska or the PNW to send their catch to China for processing (filleting, canning, etc.), before shipping it back to the US for retail. I always found that to be fascinating, that supply chains are such that, it's more economical to outsource the processing of seafood, than for the fisherman to dump their catch to a local processing facility that then sends it out for retail.
Economic efficiency and waste are not the same thing, unless you really are pricing in all the externalities. Also, while the concept of comparative advantage is elegant and powerful, excess fealty to it creates monocultures, much as too much sugar brings on diabetes.
And I really think it's callous for us to forget the "More than 150,000 people now toil on Kenyan flower farms, many of them women." These are the poorest of the poor, to take away what little they have is pretty thoughtless.
I'm willing to bet that given the choice many of them would rather not engage in such toil, and the reason they're poor is because wages are kept so low that they have little opportunity to save enough to make such choices.
Nobody buys flowers because they are trying to better the lives of agricultural laborers. I always find myself doubting the sincerity of such appeals, which only seem to arise in discussions of externalities. Many years ago I worked at an industrial floristry company for about a year, doing the manual work of handling the flowers as they came in from abroad and putting them in storage or preparing them for sale. I liked the work OK but I didn't get up every day thinking 'thank heavens so many people love the flowers we sell.' The pay wasn't that great and when I found a better job I took it.
Flowers like you say lasts a week for multiple people. Also unlike kitschy stuff you buy and just sits there forgotten, you appreciate them, you have to somewhat care for them, they add value to life.
To say they are "they are not essential" is saying life itself is not essential, just eat powder and sit in a room if this is the case.
I feel like what you are saying is you don't like flowers so no one else should.
And I really think it's callous for us to forget the "More than 150,000 people now toil on Kenyan flower farms, many of them women." These are the poorest of the poor, to take away what little they have is pretty thoughtless.