5 ms·

But ... it's crazy that we created giant international supply chains to rush around flowers so they can be gifted with no awareness of season or region. Flowers

by abeppu 5y ago

But ... it's crazy that we created giant international supply chains to rush around flowers so they can be gifted with no awareness of season or region. Flowers are flown thousands of miles, and refrigerated in transit. At some point, flowers were something we appreciated in nature. (It is interesting that we appreciate part of another life form's reproductive cycle in a relatively non-utilitarian way). Then flowers were something you could enjoy seasonally, and with a connection to the land and seasons around you. But at some point, we decided that it made sense for jets to move flowers sometimes between continents, so you could buy roses any month of the year. And that's a little amazing and a little ridiculous. Flowers make no demands on the recipient to enjoy other than that perhaps, they shouldn't think too much about where they came from.

dylan604 5y ago
Those jets were already being used, the flowers are just using what capacity was there. It's not like FedEx/UPS/etc said we need to increase capacity for flowers. Growers took advantage of a service that was there to increase their sales while also making them available to people that would ordinarly not be able to have them. Do you like fresh fruit in the winter? Do you like bananas? All of these things are not normal for most people in northern latitudes, yet we all now get to enjoy them.
- perfunctory 5y ago
  Oh, free capacity. How nice.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    Nobody said it was free. Just available.
- justinpowers 5y ago
  It sounds like you are saying that air-shipped flowers ONLY use excess capacity on already scheduled flights. And then it sounds like you are implying the same about fruits, in particular bananas in the winter. This is probably not what you meant. But, if you did, I would absolutely love to read the data you gathered this from.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    No, I'm just saying that shipping things globaly became a thing, and people started taking advantage of those abilities. A service was created, and it got customers. Only they didn't have to pay a bot farm to create fake users to hype up their service, so that may be confusing to this crowd of readers.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- stiglitz 5y ago
  Are you claiming that flowers are shipped entirely (or even mostly) with unused transport capacity that would be otherwise wasted? Because that seems very unlikely.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    Where are people reading this from my comment? >But ... it's crazy that we created giant international supply chains to rush around flowers The GP's comment made it sound like capacity was made specifically for flowers. I responded that growers were just using existing shipping capacity, and then stated shippers specifically did not increase capacity for flowers. Where's the disconnect?
jdavis703 5y ago
> It is interesting that we appreciate part of another life form's reproductive cycle in a relatively non-utilitarian way Flowers evolved to attract insects to aid in reproduction. Accidentally it also turned out that humans would also be attracted by them and aid in their reproduction by farming them.
- bobm_kite9 5y ago
  Is it just accidentally?
  - robotresearcher 5y ago
    Yes. There’s no look-ahead in evolution.
    - Smaug123 5y ago
      Well, I think one could plausibly argue that the early small mammals which liked to be around flowers were more likely to survive because they could eat the abundance of insects attracted to the flowers. That effect compounds, and in general, places with lots of flowers (in the ancestral environment) tend to be pretty busy ecosystems full of things to eat. Which is not to say that this is in fact how it came about, but it's plausible enough that I wouldn't be comfortable asserting "it's pure coincidence". (By the way, David Deutsch asserts that flowers are, in some sense, objectively beautiful. I think he's wrong, but The Beginning of Infinity contains quite a bit on this subject.)
      - alisonkisk 5y ago
        Evolution creates by coincidence and perpetuates by utility.
    - 13of40 5y ago
      In recent centuries, flowers have evolved to be more attractive to humans because we've intentionally manipulated the evolutionary pressure on them. So it's not accidental, but it's our volition driving it, not the flowers'.
bumby 5y ago
"He digs through his Book of Dougs and notices a discrepancy: One Doug gave his grandmother flowers and earned 145 Good Place points, while another Doug did the same thing and actually lost four points. It’s all about unintended consequences: The second Doug used a smartphone made by a kid in China, bought roses raised with pesticides… Michael realizes that “every day, the world gets a little more complicated, and being a good person gets a little harder.” - The Good Place Season 3, Episode 11 [1] https://tvline.com/2019/01/10/the-good-place-recap-season-3-episode-11-the-book-of-dougs/ https://tvline.com/2019/01/10/the-good-place-recap-season-3-...
SergeAx 5y ago
Flowers are relatively easy to grow in a greenhouse. Is really it economically feasible to fly them from other continent?
- s5300 5y ago
  Yup - economies of scale + cheap labor. We ship a lot of animal products (I think medium sized fish and chicken were some of the examples) to entirely different countries to have them processed and then sent back to us. I've been completely amazed at seeing assembly lines in things as simple as sardine canning factories. Dozens upon dozens of workers literally just shoving sardines in cans, and they aren't sold for much. The tins actually cost more than the sardines going in them. Absolute dirt cheap wages, quite depressing to think about as somebody from the US That said though, the domestic US flower industry could be potentially ripe for disruption if somebody wanted to front the money to do so.
  - SergeAx 5y ago
    Chicken is dirt cheap, like $2/kg wholesale. Price of air freight is about the same on large long contracts and twice of that over the counter. Hauling chicken two ways will increase a final product price at least threefold. Sorry, I can't believe it. BTW, fish are mostly canned right in the sea on board of fishing vessel or on a bigger factory ship nearby.
    - s5300 5y ago
      Some articles in no explicit order with some fairly visible biases but: https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2014/03/chicken-from-china-your-seafood-is-already-being-processed-there/ https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2014/03/chicken-from-china-yo... https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-seafood-industry-vulnerable-to-tariffs-aimed-at-china-1533812400 https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-seafood-industry-vulnerable... https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2016/12/05/tale-fish-two-countries https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2016/12/05/tale-fish-two-cou... https://boingboing.net/2018/09/14/usda-approves-shipping-slaught.html https://boingboing.net/2018/09/14/usda-approves-shipping-sla... https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/china-chicken-reshipped/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/china-chicken-reshipped/ https://weuseit2.com/blogs/we-use-it-2/shipping-live-hogs-poultry-to-china-to-process-and-send-back-to-usa https://weuseit2.com/blogs/we-use-it-2/shipping-live-hogs-po... I'm unfortunately still not able to remember for the keywords of the one good reputable article I know of that details most of what is shipped for processing and back to multiple countries and the margins involved, but it's out there if you ever feel the need to dig into it. I am aware of the fish being canned on board vessels and factory ships. There are still a large amount that aren't. Here is one video demonstrating a large amount of people being involved in the simple canning of cheap sardines... It's definitely much better and more orderly than another video based out of a somewhat open-air assembly line in Portugal I believe. https://youtu.be/WPpFjl8qeM4 https://youtu.be/WPpFjl8qeM4 I could however be completely wrong about all of this. There is some information on the internet that is not amazingly easy to find and verify. When you think about the fact there are many countries with large populaces that are still treated as literal slave labour though and also lesser quality standards involved, so more ability to quite literally cram a shipping container to the brim with whatever they want, margins are incredibly slim, but still money is being made.

by abeppu 5y ago

dylan604 5y ago

Those jets were already being used, the flowers are just using what capacity was there. It's not like FedEx/UPS/etc said we need to increase capacity for flowers. Growers took advantage of a service that was there to increase their sales while also making them available to people that would ordinarly not be able to have them. Do you like fresh fruit in the winter? Do you like bananas? All of these things are not normal for most people in northern latitudes, yet we all now get to enjoy them.

perfunctory 5y ago
Oh, free capacity. How nice.
- dylan604 5y ago
  Nobody said it was free. Just available.
justinpowers 5y ago
It sounds like you are saying that air-shipped flowers ONLY use excess capacity on already scheduled flights. And then it sounds like you are implying the same about fruits, in particular bananas in the winter. This is probably not what you meant. But, if you did, I would absolutely love to read the data you gathered this from.
- dylan604 5y ago
  No, I'm just saying that shipping things globaly became a thing, and people started taking advantage of those abilities. A service was created, and it got customers. Only they didn't have to pay a bot farm to create fake users to hype up their service, so that may be confusing to this crowd of readers.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
stiglitz 5y ago
Are you claiming that flowers are shipped entirely (or even mostly) with unused transport capacity that would be otherwise wasted? Because that seems very unlikely.
- dylan604 5y ago
  Where are people reading this from my comment? >But ... it's crazy that we created giant international supply chains to rush around flowers The GP's comment made it sound like capacity was made specifically for flowers. I responded that growers were just using existing shipping capacity, and then stated shippers specifically did not increase capacity for flowers. Where's the disconnect?

jdavis703 5y ago

> It is interesting that we appreciate part of another life form's reproductive cycle in a relatively non-utilitarian way Flowers evolved to attract insects to aid in reproduction. Accidentally it also turned out that humans would also be attracted by them and aid in their reproduction by farming them.

bobm_kite9 5y ago
Is it just accidentally?
- robotresearcher 5y ago
  Yes. There’s no look-ahead in evolution.
  - Smaug123 5y ago
    Well, I think one could plausibly argue that the early small mammals which liked to be around flowers were more likely to survive because they could eat the abundance of insects attracted to the flowers. That effect compounds, and in general, places with lots of flowers (in the ancestral environment) tend to be pretty busy ecosystems full of things to eat. Which is not to say that this is in fact how it came about, but it's plausible enough that I wouldn't be comfortable asserting "it's pure coincidence". (By the way, David Deutsch asserts that flowers are, in some sense, objectively beautiful. I think he's wrong, but The Beginning of Infinity contains quite a bit on this subject.)
    - alisonkisk 5y ago
      Evolution creates by coincidence and perpetuates by utility.
  - 13of40 5y ago
    In recent centuries, flowers have evolved to be more attractive to humans because we've intentionally manipulated the evolutionary pressure on them. So it's not accidental, but it's our volition driving it, not the flowers'.

bumby 5y ago

"He digs through his Book of Dougs and notices a discrepancy: One Doug gave his grandmother flowers and earned 145 Good Place points, while another Doug did the same thing and actually lost four points. It’s all about unintended consequences: The second Doug used a smartphone made by a kid in China, bought roses raised with pesticides… Michael realizes that “every day, the world gets a little more complicated, and being a good person gets a little harder.” - The Good Place Season 3, Episode 11 [1] https://tvline.com/2019/01/10/the-good-place-recap-season-3-episode-11-the-book-of-dougs/ https://tvline.com/2019/01/10/the-good-place-recap-season-3-...

SergeAx 5y ago

Flowers are relatively easy to grow in a greenhouse. Is really it economically feasible to fly them from other continent?

s5300 5y ago
Yup - economies of scale + cheap labor. We ship a lot of animal products (I think medium sized fish and chicken were some of the examples) to entirely different countries to have them processed and then sent back to us. I've been completely amazed at seeing assembly lines in things as simple as sardine canning factories. Dozens upon dozens of workers literally just shoving sardines in cans, and they aren't sold for much. The tins actually cost more than the sardines going in them. Absolute dirt cheap wages, quite depressing to think about as somebody from the US That said though, the domestic US flower industry could be potentially ripe for disruption if somebody wanted to front the money to do so.
- SergeAx 5y ago
  Chicken is dirt cheap, like $2/kg wholesale. Price of air freight is about the same on large long contracts and twice of that over the counter. Hauling chicken two ways will increase a final product price at least threefold. Sorry, I can't believe it. BTW, fish are mostly canned right in the sea on board of fishing vessel or on a bigger factory ship nearby.
  - s5300 5y ago
    Some articles in no explicit order with some fairly visible biases but: https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2014/03/chicken-from-china-your-seafood-is-already-being-processed-there/ https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2014/03/chicken-from-china-yo... https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-seafood-industry-vulnerable-to-tariffs-aimed-at-china-1533812400 https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-seafood-industry-vulnerable... https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2016/12/05/tale-fish-two-countries https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2016/12/05/tale-fish-two-cou... https://boingboing.net/2018/09/14/usda-approves-shipping-slaught.html https://boingboing.net/2018/09/14/usda-approves-shipping-sla... https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/china-chicken-reshipped/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/china-chicken-reshipped/ https://weuseit2.com/blogs/we-use-it-2/shipping-live-hogs-poultry-to-china-to-process-and-send-back-to-usa https://weuseit2.com/blogs/we-use-it-2/shipping-live-hogs-po... I'm unfortunately still not able to remember for the keywords of the one good reputable article I know of that details most of what is shipped for processing and back to multiple countries and the margins involved, but it's out there if you ever feel the need to dig into it. I am aware of the fish being canned on board vessels and factory ships. There are still a large amount that aren't. Here is one video demonstrating a large amount of people being involved in the simple canning of cheap sardines... It's definitely much better and more orderly than another video based out of a somewhat open-air assembly line in Portugal I believe. https://youtu.be/WPpFjl8qeM4 https://youtu.be/WPpFjl8qeM4 I could however be completely wrong about all of this. There is some information on the internet that is not amazingly easy to find and verify. When you think about the fact there are many countries with large populaces that are still treated as literal slave labour though and also lesser quality standards involved, so more ability to quite literally cram a shipping container to the brim with whatever they want, margins are incredibly slim, but still money is being made.