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Comment by karaterobot | Hacker News Reader

I'm trying not to be mean, but this article is so naive and insular that it's almost like it was published on a solar powered website or something. Like bikes and cars, we have both bows and arrows and guns already. We use them according to our requirements and their performance characteristics. That pretty much means bows get used for fun and to get a few extra weeks of hunting season, and guns are used for everything else. We use bikes more because there are more cases when they are useful. It's not a philosophical question for anyone trying to choose the right tool for actual, real world job.

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I don't think naivety is a good description.

It's something else. Mental habits that are entirely rhetorically based. Basically, George Orwell's nightmare

I mean that it's naive to think you can lay out an argument that governments around the world should wage war with bows and arrows instead of guns. It doesn't even stand up to the devastating counterargument: "but guns are better". There's no riposte to that except "well yes, but it's like how we should all use bikes instead of cars, which everyone I've talked to at my solar powered website agrees is self-evidently true".

It's a "naive" statement maybe.

But idk. Were Charles Manson or the unibomber "naive" to think they could achieve their goals, their way?

It's not a naive mindset, whether or not the conclusion is. I don't think it's lack of experience or depth that leads here.

Yeah, I was being glib and dismissive if we get right down to it. I did roll my eyes at the article, imagining how a lot of people I know would react to it. But, I appreciate someone making a spirited, essentially rational attempt at laying out a case.

Is it spirited? What's it in the spirit of?

It's the duck-witch skit from Monty python.

I appreciate the research and comparisons, but framing it like "what if we replaced..." is childish. I hunt with a traditional bow for my own reasons, and also hunt with rifles. It's interesting on its own to compare them and talk about their history, and the transitionary period where they were both used in combat. But it kind of ruins the story to trot out a silly argument like it's worth serious consideration.

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