But horses were not send to the glue factories. Horses population has passed its minimum and now is around 6.65 millions in the US. The peak was around 20 million in 1912. Minimum was 4.5 million in 1959.
Native American population declined 20 times after Columbus, but rebounded after that and almost returned to pre-Columbian levels now (I don’t have exact number).
There was an episode of Stargate SG1 where, instead of killing humans, aliens subtly sterilized the whole population while greatly increasing the well being of existing humans.
This is not a great outcome for the future of humanity, and non-violent population collapse and slow recovery is not necessarily a great outcome for horses, Native Americans, or anyone else. It still serves to illustrate the central point, just with less rhetorical flourish.
May be it is more interesting to ask a question: why we preserve horses if we do not need them for transportation? I think the answer will be that their previous function made an imprint in our value system and now people have pleasure from horse-riding.
With respect to the horses, I did not check Eliezer’s claim. However, the exact numbers of the horse population do not really seem to matter for Eliezer’s point or for mine. The same is true for the rebound of the Native American population.
But horses were not send to the glue factories. Horses population has passed its minimum and now is around 6.65 millions in the US. The peak was around 20 million in 1912. Minimum was 4.5 million in 1959.
Native American population declined 20 times after Columbus, but rebounded after that and almost returned to pre-Columbian levels now (I don’t have exact number).
There was an episode of Stargate SG1 where, instead of killing humans, aliens subtly sterilized the whole population while greatly increasing the well being of existing humans.
This is not a great outcome for the future of humanity, and non-violent population collapse and slow recovery is not necessarily a great outcome for horses, Native Americans, or anyone else. It still serves to illustrate the central point, just with less rhetorical flourish.
May be it is more interesting to ask a question: why we preserve horses if we do not need them for transportation? I think the answer will be that their previous function made an imprint in our value system and now people have pleasure from horse-riding.
Yes, that is also an interesting question.
With respect to the horses, I did not check Eliezer’s claim. However, the exact numbers of the horse population do not really seem to matter for Eliezer’s point or for mine. The same is true for the rebound of the Native American population.