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A comment on Horses: AI progress is steady. Human equivalence is sudden. Parent comment

Re:Horses: AI progress is steady. Human equivalence is sudden by _DeadFred_ on Tuesday December 09, 2025 @12:25PM (#46207709)
Sending all the useless horses to glue factories in that time was so prevalent it was a cartoon trope. The other trope being men living in flop houses, and towns having entire sections for unemployable people called skid row.

The AI people point to post 1950s style employment and say 'people recovered after industrial advance' and ignore the 1880s through the 1940s. We actually have zero idea if the buggy whip manufacturer ever recovered or just lasted a year in skid row before giving up completely, or lived through the 2 world wars spurred by mechanisation.

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Re:Horses: AI progress is steady. Human equivalence is sudden by tyre on Tuesday December 09, 2025 @02:33PM (#46209461)
Horses were killed more often for meat that was used in dog food than for glue.

I did a deep research into the decline of horses and it was consistent with fewer births, not mass slaughter. The US Department of Agriculture has great records during this time, though they’re not fully digitized.

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Re:Horses: AI progress is steady. Human equivalence is sudden by giardini on Tuesday December 09, 2025 @09:41PM (#46213410)
Horse meat is tasty too! Pretty popular in France. Hmmm, remember my first steak tartare in Belgium! Ymmmm!
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