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> Humans spent millennia working out the navigation problem. And you think we spend any less time trying to identify food animals that lay tasty eggs?
by josefx 2y ago
> Humans spent millennia working out the navigation problem.
And you think we spend any less time trying to identify food animals that lay tasty eggs?
- rnewme 2y agoYes.
- xboxnolifes 2y agoOnce we discovered a handful of sustainable ones that can be farmed? Significantly. Identifying the 100th egg laying bird after you have your egg laying factory is much less interesting.
- krisoft 2y agoDemonstratably less energy was spent on automating that task, yes. Just look into the history of the School of Sagres, the longitude rewards, the Nautical Almanach published by the Royal Observatory, the LORAN project, the Transit project, and the NavStar system. These were all huge governmental undertakings with serious financial backing sustained over centuries. The power and might of empires were at stake. Can you name anything similar to the bird identification problem?
- wasmitnetzen 2y agoHumans spent hundreds of thousands of years identifying birds, before there were even empires.
- krisoft 2y agoAnd humans spent even more effort to navigate themselves. As they were getting to the birds, as they were observing the birds and as they were getting back from the birds. Everyone who is not blindly thumbling or being pushed by winds or water does some sort of navigation. Even if just relative to their surroundings. I would argue that observing birds by eyes does not really help you teach a slab of silicone to distinguish birds. But if you feel that it does, then surelly all the walking, riding, sailing around humans did should also be counted to the navigation task.