Worse, it was just almost all horses. There are a few in Central Park pulling tourists and that’s enough for the Pollyanna’s to point to and go “See! We’ll be fine!”
Horses where the plaything of the rich. Farmers were using oxen not horses for the most part. However the modern plow (invented in the mid 1830s - John Deere being the best known inventor, but others were inventing them about the same time) needed the faster speed of a horse to work well, but if the previous farming technology worked for you then oxen (or donkeys ... - there are several other work animals used in different areas for farming) were better.
There are likely more horses today than there were in 1900 - but now they are play things for the upper middle class living in the exurbs (commuting via car to their city job). Sure there are a few Amish (and other similar groups) making a living with a horse, but most of them are toys for the wealthy.
Do you have a citation for the horse number? My research [0] shows we have a 1/5 out peak number in ~1900 and our population has 5x since then. This means per capita horses in the country is down 96%, while absolute count is down 80%. Both are huge numbers.
Good call! They have info on general population which shows about double the number of horses I originally thought (at least in 2016), and declining at a good clip of 10%+/decade)
. So drop is still large but just a bit smaller.
The general point is before cars horses were used a lot, entire industries were based around them and our now gone. The toy factor does not compensate because of cost and inconvenience of owning a horse.
zug_zug · · focus · HN ↗
There’s no quick answers, but intuitively I think we all get that the % of jobs not doable by AI and robotics approaches 0 over time.
Pet_Ant · · focus · HN ↗
bluGill · · focus · HN ↗
There are likely more horses today than there were in 1900 - but now they are play things for the upper middle class living in the exurbs (commuting via car to their city job). Sure there are a few Amish (and other similar groups) making a living with a horse, but most of them are toys for the wealthy.
Game_Ender · · focus · HN ↗
0 - <a href="https://datapaddock.com/usda-horse-total-1850-2012/" rel="nofollow">https://datapaddock.com/usda-horse-total-1850-2012/
pfdietz · · focus · HN ↗
Game_Ender · · focus · HN ↗
The general point is before cars horses were used a lot, entire industries were based around them and our now gone. The toy factor does not compensate because of cost and inconvenience of owning a horse.
0 - <a href="https://datapaddock.com/" rel="nofollow">https://datapaddock.com/