urubullish on Nostr: During the Second Industrial Revolution, horses, already in decline due to steam ...

During the Second Industrial Revolution, horses, already in decline due to steam engines and electricity, were used en masse in World War I. Millions died in battle or were abandoned after the conflict, serving as a “veiled disposal”—not the initial intent, but the war provided a convenient way to deal with an excess of horses that a mechanized society no longer needed. The leaders of the time didn’t explicitly plan this, but the outcome was a drastic reduction in the equine population that aligned with the economic interests of modernization.
Now, in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, with humans being replaced by AIs and robots in various fields, we could imagine a scenario where future wars might serve as a “veiled disposal” of surplus human populations. If automation reduces the need for workers on a global scale—generating mass unemployment, inequality, and social tensions—a war could, theoretically, be used by elites or power systems as a pressure valve to “manage” this population surplus. It wouldn’t necessarily be a declared plan, but rather a convenient byproduct of orchestrated or tolerated conflicts.