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This is a fun piece... but what killed off the horses wasn't steady incremental progress in steam engine efficiency, it was the invention of the internal combus
by s17n 11mo ago
This is a fun piece... but what killed off the horses wasn't steady incremental progress in steam engine efficiency, it was the invention of the internal combustion engine.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- dcre 11mo agoAccording to Wikipedia, the IC engine was invented around 1800 and only started to get somewhere in the late 1800s. Sounds like the story doesn’t change. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_combustion_engine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_combustion_engine
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- pcrh 11mo agoQuite. For reference, the horse population of France didn't decline significantly until the late 1940's [0]. [0] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7023172/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7023172/
- mkl 11mo agoEngines, not just steam engines.
- s17n 11mo agoSure, but if you look at more complex picture of engine development you could just as easily support the proposition that programmers are currently not in any danger (by pointing out that the qualitative differences between IC and steam engines were decisive when it comes to replacing horses, and the correct analogy is that much like a steam engine could never replace a horse, a transformer model can never replace a human). Not detracting from the article, I think it's a fun way to shake your brain into the entirely appropriate space of "rapid change is possible"!