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tachikoma
@tachikoma.elsewhereunbound.com

the problem is that a teleportation machine would practically be very, very useful. you could still try to climb the mountain as a hobby, but if there were some life-saving medicine at the top or a mechanism to defend yourself in a war, i'm using the teleporter.

Clément Canonne
@ccanonne.github.io

I'm not denying that, but that's not the point made with this metaphor! (But to go with your point then... without building this insight yourself out of trial and error to know where to go and what to expect, how would you know there's something at the top, of which mountain, and what it's for?)

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Stuart Presnell
@logopetria.bsky.social

If you see the base of the mountain rising into the clouds then you don't know exactly where the peak is (or indeed if there's a real peak there at all). The teleporter sends you there and now you know there really is a peak, and where it is. You may even be able to see some of the route from here

Stuart Presnell
@logopetria.bsky.social

And sometimes the teleporter pops you up there and you find that this isn't a mountain at all, it's an extinct volcano. That's useful to know. Instead of trying to climb to a non-existent peak you should be planning how to explore the caldera (or perhaps just moving along elsewhere)

tachikoma
@tachikoma.elsewhereunbound.com

well the metaphor starts to warp but at some point the teleporter learns the intuitions the hikers had and can use it to teleport you to the right place. and then at some point it's not teleporting a human because the teleport goes into space, the moon, Mars, and a drone is better there.