Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by jMyles 70 days ago
...are you suggesting that horses would prefer to endure the conditions under which they built much of the modern world on their backs?

I hate cars way more than I hate AI, but relieving horses of the burden which they carried and the gruesome lives they lived... that's not one of my objections.

If AI can do for humans what cars did for horses (but without the flooding cities with traffic violence part), I'll feel just fine about that.
2 comments
keybored 66 days ago
The mind of the blue-eyed must be serene.
link
guzfip 70 days ago
> I hate cars way more than I hate AI, but relieving horses of the burden which they carried and the gruesome lives they lived... that's not one of my objections.

I’m so glad those horses got a peaceful retirement at the glue factory.

I wonder what they’ll process your corpse into. Soylent green? Or do you think you’re one of the lucky horses that a wealthy owner take care of?

link
jMyles 70 days ago
Not sure if you're able to set your snark aside for a moment, but are we really just talking about fewer humans being economically needed? Perhaps biological human population decreasing?

Is that... so bad?

Do you think that horses are upset that there are fewer of them today, and that somehow they'd rather their population increase but bear the industrial age burdens again?

link
guzfip 70 days ago
> but are we really just talking about fewer humans being economically needed? Perhaps biological human population decreasing? Is that... so bad?

Yes, this isn’t a matter of the “well we’ll reach a natural equilibrium overtime”.

If a fair percentage of the people in your society are now no longer economically, needed, they still have upkeep. They still need food. They don’t magically disappear into thin air, and they still need food/shelter /water/etc. How are they to get those things?

Will our leaders, contrary to everything they’ve ever shown us suddenly open their arms and act as mass charity for the masses? They can’t even design an effective welfare program for a pre-AI world.

Will the people displaced simply lie in a ditch somewhere and say “guess it’s time to starve to death”? I suppose Canadian-style suicide-as-service fits my previous Soylent green reference.

link