Regarding your second question, you imply that it would be easier to automate the vegetable production than to automate livestock production. In fact, current dairy farms are in many ways more automated than crop farms.
Modern dairy farms feed, milk, vaccinate, etc. automatically--without any human intervention. The automated systems alert humans if an animal does not show up for food after some threshhold of time. Otherwise, it can even supply custom rations per animal, detect various ailments, track weight gain, monitor milk quality all by itself.
For the more general gist of your question--complete self-sufficiency on a single acre, that is more problematic to automate. Industrial farmers already automate a lot. They have automated machinery to re-level fields, plow fields, plant fields, and harvest fields, and irrigate. but those systems are largely practical only for large parcels. They operate on fields of, for example, 40 acres. And they are sufficiently expensive as to require many hundreds of acres to justify their cost. Also, they tend to be single purpose. They can only harvest corn, or only wheat. Planting a variety of crops within an acre would require a variety of automated tools. Think how different your equipment would have to be to harvest carrots as compared to barley.
I don't mean to say that it can't be done. But it would take a lot of work from where we are now.
Incidentally, your seedstock.com link is not impressive because it is "advanced." It's most impressive feature is its size. Hydroponic greenhouses tend to be more labor intensive (but have higher yields), although you could put the same attention into earth-grown crops if you chose.
Just to be clear, you are arguing that that scantron machines are expensive and not feasible at every polling location so instead we should provide dozens of more expensive electronic voting machines at each polling location?
Each polling place can provide free "stump the chump" ballots that you can give back. So you throw the one they gave you away, fill out and submit your own, then hand them back a dummy ballot that won't get counted.
Or, alternatively, spend tons of money on electronic voting machines that allow the bad guy to game the system on a more massive scale without having to threaten as many people.
Japan has undergone massive changes in the last ~20 years due to their "missing decade." But their culture for forty years before that included employment practices that would surprise many USians.
For instance, until recently ir was unusual for a person to have more than one employer in their lifetime. You entered the workforce just after high school or college and stayed with that employer for the rest of your career. People didn't quit and get a different job. And employers didn't fire people.
The elderly person standing in front of the construction fence warning people to be careful because of the danger used to be construction worker. Maybe they worked their way up in the company until they bumped into the Peter principle or until they physically or mentally couldn't do the job. Then then moved over, around, and down as their abilities declined. The folks who made it high enough to earn a retirement retire. The folks who didn't build a nest egg or spent their egg on Grandma's hospice care, or whatever, depend on the company to keep them in the mail room or sweeping the front lobby or something that will pay the rent and buy groceries.
I have seen many US companies that created Mission Statements and formalized a list of Corporate Values that included Loyalty. But I have seen very few US companies that are loyal to their employees. I suppose there are a lot of ways to be disloyal, but Japanese companies have generally been loyal in maintaining some level of employment to even the least competent of their employees.
They don't need anyone to trust them and they have nothing to gain from decrypting your files.
They may be a 14 year old kid who ran some kit that somebody else made. If they collect $50 from 25 people, they will be stoked.
Or they may be a sophisticated criminal organization that want to built long term viability.
It's impossible to know which it is. But it is guaranteed that they are criminal and inherently untrustworthy. It is also guaranteed that any money you pay will finance the next wave of more sophisticated malware.
So, no, you cannot trust them to do good. You can trust them to do bad. Now, make your microeconimic choice.
Modern dairy farms feed, milk, vaccinate, etc. automatically--without any human intervention. The automated systems alert humans if an animal does not show up for food after some threshhold of time. Otherwise, it can even supply custom rations per animal, detect various ailments, track weight gain, monitor milk quality all by itself.
For the more general gist of your question--complete self-sufficiency on a single acre, that is more problematic to automate. Industrial farmers already automate a lot. They have automated machinery to re-level fields, plow fields, plant fields, and harvest fields, and irrigate. but those systems are largely practical only for large parcels. They operate on fields of, for example, 40 acres. And they are sufficiently expensive as to require many hundreds of acres to justify their cost. Also, they tend to be single purpose. They can only harvest corn, or only wheat. Planting a variety of crops within an acre would require a variety of automated tools. Think how different your equipment would have to be to harvest carrots as compared to barley.
I don't mean to say that it can't be done. But it would take a lot of work from where we are now.
Incidentally, your seedstock.com link is not impressive because it is "advanced." It's most impressive feature is its size. Hydroponic greenhouses tend to be more labor intensive (but have higher yields), although you could put the same attention into earth-grown crops if you chose.