Comment by akerl_
7 months ago
I'll bite, I guess.
The saw stop wasn't a replacement for manual saws. Table saws existed (and still exist!) and have a nasty habit of removing people's fingers. The saw stop was designed as a better table saw.
The point being that it's wild to start with the idea that hammers must be a danger to thumbs, and then double down by trying to claim that any hammer that wasn't a danger to thumbs wouldn't be called a hammer. Getting a table saw with a saw stop on it doesn't make it not a table saw.
But table saws are a replacement for manual saws. Table saws weren't invented first. Table saws fulfilled a niche use case for sawing. So by that saw stop is a replacement for a manual saw.
If you've ever used a hammer, a tool that has been around for tens of thousands of years, you will know by it's very nature of its operation it is a danger to thumbs. Trying to think that you can do "on an iPhone" and start with the assumption that a hammer fulfilling the functions and utility that it has and has had for 10,000 years cannot be a danger to thumbs is an erroneous thought and it shows the height of hubris.
Can you have tools that fulfill some of the functions of the hammer that are not dangerous to thumbs? Absolutely and we have those already. Any of the automatic nailers have built-in safety features to prevent accidents. Sometimes people disable those safety features because they do cause problems in legitimate use cases but they are built with those safety features. This would be analogous to saw stop which works in table saws which is a very limited saw.
Just like a table saw cannot fulfill all of the functions of a hand saw. A device that pounds nails or other things that has features to prevent it from accidentally hitting thumbs would not be able to fulfill all of the functions of the hammer.
From what we've seen with saws, this is your example not mine, all of the electric saws that have ever been built have never been able to eliminate the usefulness or utility of the simple handsaw which is dangerous to use. So where is the hubris to say that because you can invent a safer nailing device, which they have, it will somehow supplant and replace the hammer? The evidence says that's not the case.
I think we've almost certainly bottomed this out, but I feel obligated to point out that table saws can do a bunch of things that are borderline impossible with a hand saw. Table saws are not a replacement for hand saws. The fact that hand saws and table saws both have blades with teeth is about where the similarities end.
You're forgetting that table saws were invented thousands of years after hand saws. Master Craftsman used hand saws to do all of the things that are done with table saws. Many things are much easier on a table saw and much faster to do than with a hand saw. They are absolutely a replacement for hand saws that fulfill a niche. I suspect you haven't done a lot of actual woodworking for you to make this statement like this.
Just because we use table saws to rip lumber or massive table saws to cut up trees into lumber doesn't mean that no one could have created lumber prior to the invention of the table saw. We just factually know that's not true. Faster, easier, better, absolutely but all of it could be done and was done with hand saws. Maybe you're thinking the hand saw is limited to this simple hand saw that we have now or a simple Japanese hand saw and not the actual large hand saws that took two people to operate but are still hand saws that come with all of the dangers of the hand saw.