Why are lighthouses still necessary?

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With GPS systems and other geographical technology being as sophisticated as it now is, do lighthouses still serve an integral purpose? Are they more now just in case the captain/crew lapses on the monitoring of navigation systems? Obviously lighthouses are more immediate and I guess tangible, but do they still fulfil a purpose beyond mitigating basic human error?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

“The GPS says land is .25 km away.”

“Oh, there’s the lighthouse. Keep away from those rocks.”

Human brains don’t translate numbers into reality on a very intuitive level. For short-range navigation, you really need to see what you’re doing.

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