Quote:
Originally Posted by rice_classic
Random thought.
Before mankind civilized, when we were still hunter/gatherers, there was no human use for horses, humans had no idea the value a horse was to them, yet. The horse population was tiny. Then mankind learned how control their food supply about 10,000 years ago as the neolithic era began and suddenly mankind had a use for horses, a big use. For thousands of years horses were a lot of things but primarily function of transportation.
|
Not to complain too much about a very thought provoking essay, but it should be pointed out that
horses were not used by any Neolithic cultures at all. They were domesticated during the
early Bronze Age, around 3500 BCE and probably with that occurring in the central Asian steppes north of the Caucasus mountains, especially within the Botai culture. In fact, horses were not used for plowing, etc., until the invention of the horse collar (5th c. CE). Also, and to me this is an important distinction, horses were domesticated by humans and not the other way around. These and more recent industrial inventions have been made by humans to benefit humans.
In a sense, your argument could be viewed as a repetition of the Luddite fear of the industrial revolution, with robots substituting for steam engines. To me, a much bigger and more real concern is whether or not humanity has the collective will and wisdom to correct man-made climate change before it gets completely out of control. That is what keeps
me up at night...
