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Steam engines and their descendants largely replaced the jobs which were done by horses and mules, and they did that successfully - there are some jobs for hors

Steam engines and their descendants largely replaced the jobs which were done by horses and mules, and they did that successfully - there are some jobs for horses still remaining, and initially many new jobs were created for horses in cooperation with the engines (peak-horse was at 1920-0ish), but the total number of jobs for horses has collapsed to nearly zero compared to what it used to be. So the analogy of steam engines suggests that this can be quite dangerous indeed. Also, we do have historical evidence at how fast human society reacts to changes when technology causes great shifts in needed jobs - not fast at all. Even getting to terms with decades-long changes caused significant social upheaval and strife, as in, for example, the automation of textile industry; If the current speed of technological change would cause a disruption in jobs which happens over the course of just a few years, it will be hectic and violent even if there is the same number of new, different jobs created.

kgwgk 4y ago
> Steam engines and their descendants largely replaced the jobs which were done by horses and mules > for example, the automation of textile industry How many horses and mules were working in the textile industry again?
- PeterisP 4y ago
  As you have noticed, the last paragraph is about other types of automation during the industrial age than the steam engine.
  - kgwgk 4y ago
    What do you think that was powering that automation exactly?
    - PeterisP 4y ago
      In the textile industry many of the major changes were from better devices, not neccesarily of how they were powered. The cotton gin revolutionized the industry while it was still people-powered, including by slave labor (edit: and also horse-powered); and the Luddites (some decades after Ned Ludd) rebelled not against the looms being powered by steam but rather against the Jacquard loom - an add-on to the exiting looms which allowed complex products to be weaved by unskilled people, removing their bargaining power despite not changing a thing about how the loom was powered.
      - kgwgk 4y ago
        The "how they were powered" was quite important in the magnitude of many of those changes though. "Although some were driven by animal power, most early mills were built in rural areas at fast-flowing rivers and streams using water wheels for power.[3] The development of viable steam engines by Boulton and Watt from 1781 led to the growth of larger, steam-powered mills allowing them to be concentrated in urban mill towns, like Manchester, which with neighbouring Salford had more than 50 mills by 1802.[4]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_mill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_mill
calvinmorrison 4y ago
Or worse some silly French commanders throw legions of frogs over the dugout, this time not against mechanized machine guns, but literal sentient death machines. How high the toll would be

kgwgk 4y ago

> Steam engines and their descendants largely replaced the jobs which were done by horses and mules > for example, the automation of textile industry How many horses and mules were working in the textile industry again?

PeterisP 4y ago
As you have noticed, the last paragraph is about other types of automation during the industrial age than the steam engine.
- kgwgk 4y ago
  What do you think that was powering that automation exactly?
  - PeterisP 4y ago
    In the textile industry many of the major changes were from better devices, not neccesarily of how they were powered. The cotton gin revolutionized the industry while it was still people-powered, including by slave labor (edit: and also horse-powered); and the Luddites (some decades after Ned Ludd) rebelled not against the looms being powered by steam but rather against the Jacquard loom - an add-on to the exiting looms which allowed complex products to be weaved by unskilled people, removing their bargaining power despite not changing a thing about how the loom was powered.
    - kgwgk 4y ago
      The "how they were powered" was quite important in the magnitude of many of those changes though. "Although some were driven by animal power, most early mills were built in rural areas at fast-flowing rivers and streams using water wheels for power.[3] The development of viable steam engines by Boulton and Watt from 1781 led to the growth of larger, steam-powered mills allowing them to be concentrated in urban mill towns, like Manchester, which with neighbouring Salford had more than 50 mills by 1802.[4]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_mill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_mill

calvinmorrison 4y ago

Or worse some silly French commanders throw legions of frogs over the dugout, this time not against mechanized machine guns, but literal sentient death machines. How high the toll would be