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We invented horseless auto mobile but required continuous human attention for steering and managing the machine. With a horse indeed we already had semi-drive
by diminish 8y ago
We invented horseless auto mobile but required continuous human attention for steering and managing the machine. With a horse indeed we already had semi-driverless operation in some scenarios.
We are reinventing the "horse" - sometimes I think.
- evanlivingston 8y agoAnd I believe less consumption of fossil fuel
- i_am_proteus 8y agoAutomobiles consume much less fuel during long-term idle periods.
- coldtea 8y agoUnfortunately they also encourage much more use, and thus, less idle periods, long-term or otherwise.
- evanlivingston 8y agoHowever, automobiles require significantly more resources and energy to produce.
- agumonkey 8y agoWe're reinventing Nature anyway. When we'll have to go very tiny, green we'll have insects/animals. Except with a programmatic interface. Not sure which is best.
- mrfusion 8y agoMaybe all of biology is the previous civilization reinventing nature. (Deep thought)
- Fricken 8y agoIf Henry Ford had asked the people what they wanted, they would've asked for a better horse.
- coldtea 8y agoAnd what a better alternative world that would be...
- spullara 8y agoI often remark that people really did want a faster horse.
- starbeast 8y agoDeath's robot horse from Hickman's 'East of West', ideally. https://latimesherocomplex.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/eastofwest03_finalpage.jpg https://latimesherocomplex.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/easto...
- ars 8y agoHow hard would it be to put an actual horse in control of a car? You get the speed of a car, and the self driving of the horse (or some other animal).
- starbeast 8y agoHere's a brief history tracking the progress of developments in that area. I'm not sure where this tech lies on the Gartner Hype Curve though. Pigeon controls missile - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeon Horse drives car - https://www.horseandhound.co.uk/videos/news-videos/butterscotch-horse-driving-car-kentucky https://www.horseandhound.co.uk/videos/news-videos/buttersco... Goldfish controls robot - https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/26/robot_goldfish_tank/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/26/robot_goldfish_tank... edit to add one more as I realised that one of my favorite 'most worrying tech developments' fits right in... Rat neurons cultured on silicon substrate control robot - https://www.technologyreview.com/s/401756/rat-brained-robot/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/401756/rat-brained-robot/
- shpx 8y agoAt least cars don't produce four tons of manure per year https://99percentinvisible.org/article/cities-paved-dung-urban-design-great-horse-manure-crisis-1894/ https://99percentinvisible.org/article/cities-paved-dung-urb...
- rabidrat 8y agoWorse, they produce 4.75 tons of CO2. https://www.reference.com/science/much-pollution-average-car-produce-7f2a3d41ed9d2689 https://www.reference.com/science/much-pollution-average-car...
- eeZah7Ux 8y agoSurprisingly, the environmental impact of a horse is even higher. Public transportation or perhaps electric scooters are the only sustainable ones.
- ant6n 8y agowalking & cycling.
- metildaa 8y agoElectric bikes can be quite enjoyable to ride, the Bafang BBSHD can make it a breeze to go up even steep hills here in Seattle at a swift clip. The downsides come in the form of risk in transit (your in the weather, and have minimal to moderate protection from the road and others on it) and in securing your newfound transport in between use. There are very few dry, secure placea to store bikes & scooters, and fewer yet that have an outlet to charge. Shared bikes and scooters mitigate this problem somewhat, but thus far they seem to have serious maintenance issues after relatively short periods outdoors. Who wants to ride a rattly transport device thats missing screws?
- ndnxhs 8y agoIts not so much of an issue if you own the bike. How many people work at a place that has literally nowhere to place a bike inside and no free power points to use. I have always placed my bike next to my desk.
- pishpash 8y agoPretty sure horses needed continuous human attention. "Driver" wasn't the operator of a machine, just like "car[riage]" wasn't originally an automobile.
- blattimwind 8y agoHorses are pretty good at finding back to their stable on their own.
- Nasrudith 8y agoThe difference is that a cars don't react unpredictably unlike horses. Spooked horses are very dangerous things and can run off on their own. We certainly wouldn't accept horse brained cars on the road.
- trhway 8y agoa well trained knight's horse i think would be harder to spook than the most of the human drivers we have around.
- Nasrudith 8y agoTechnically true but they would be more akin to a severe case of road rage. Those warhorses were kept isolated from others to be kept 'trained' in the right animal frame of mind and essentially meant to act like violent psychopaths - 'working as intended' was to attack anyone except the rider, even when the rider was unhorsed. There is a reason why they were rare, expensive, and why they also had separate general riding horses with much gentler temperaments who could actually share stables. Romanticizing the past and thinking of it as an ideal that never really was and using it as a model is a rather dangerous pattern throughout history which has never really ended well. One of the most common pieces of equipment for horses were 'blinkers' or 'blinders' - whose function was to limit their peripheral vision.
- Farradfahren 8y agoA wild idea appears: Lets just put a horsehad in a amniotic fluid tank inside the car and give it steering capability for the car - voild we are done with it.