@artemis TL;DR from my reading of the wikipedia entry: In my view it's an archaic holdover of an idea with roots that trace to *literally* centuries ago, it only really found broad acceptance around the time of World War I as a way to conserve coal, and it experienced a resurgence thanks to World War II. So far as I can tell there is no reason beyond institutional inertia for it to exist.

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@LexYeen @artemis@vulpine.club the original idea behind it (to increase productivity on farms) has also been shown to be complete nonsense iwrc
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