21–30 of 112 posts
While the analysis is interesting, I think the 300 working days a year is too long. Likely, work on these types of public projects was mostly done during the flood season, which was around 4 months (120 days [0]) so maybe 100 work days at best, so the calculations for required workers should probably be multiplied by 3.
This is very cool to see. The main takeaways for me were: 1. It's easy to underestimate what is possible when you limit thinking to a short timescale. I think of the cathedrals, temples, mosques, etc. that have been built all over the world, where the people who started the work knew they wouldn't live to see it finished, but that didn't dissuade them. Or conversely, it's easy to overestimate the difficulty of someth…
> I think of the cathedrals, temples, mosques, etc. that have been built all over the world, where the people who started the work knew they wouldn't live to see it finished, but that didn't dissuade them. That's mind-boggling. Why would building a cathedral/mosque/temple take longer than a lifetime (or half)?
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There is a star trek episode where they encounter a civilization which has built a benevolent AI a long time ago and has since lost capabilities to do much more than give commands to the AI. Our society has managed to write down some things like math for example so our knowledge as species won't be lost if mathematicians suddenly died. But it's harder to find permanent storage for the more skills based human activiti…
I think you're correct about the importance of the context in which the expertise exists in. But even so, I think it's clear that with more broad documentation, we are in a better position to pick up the expertise of the past. So in the future, all the wonderful, nutty youtubers that keep alive old arts and give demos would be especially invaluable. Not just in clarifying specific techniques and knowledge, but by dem…
Archive the channels you care about - they might otherwise be impossible to find in a few decades, or a few years. Youtube-dl is one of my favorite pieces of software.
Digital artefacts could be, paradoxically, less durable going in the future - if you write and publish a physical book, it might get forgotten in a library somewhere and rediscovered 200 years after you die.
If you publish an ebook on your website and die and no one cares, the probability of anyone discovering it by happenstance 200 years later goes down to 0.
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Not an answer to your question, but the Sagrada Famila [1] began construction in 1882, and is projected to be completed around 2030. It's an immense (and beautiful) structure. Just want to point out that it's not just a matter of the buildings being built a long time ago; this kind of long-term construction is still happening today.
I... just can't wrap my head around this. Is it that they actually take that long with enough people, or they have too few people working on them?
When you see it, the timeline starts to make sense.
This is very cool to see. The main takeaways for me were: 1. It's easy to underestimate what is possible when you limit thinking to a short timescale. I think of the cathedrals, temples, mosques, etc. that have been built all over the world, where the people who started the work knew they wouldn't live to see it finished, but that didn't dissuade them. Or conversely, it's easy to overestimate the difficulty of someth…
There is a star trek episode where they encounter a civilization which has built a benevolent AI a long time ago and has since lost capabilities to do much more than give commands to the AI. Our society has managed to write down some things like math for example so our knowledge as species won't be lost if mathematicians suddenly died. But it's harder to find permanent storage for the more skills based human activiti…
This is very cool to see. The main takeaways for me were: 1. It's easy to underestimate what is possible when you limit thinking to a short timescale. I think of the cathedrals, temples, mosques, etc. that have been built all over the world, where the people who started the work knew they wouldn't live to see it finished, but that didn't dissuade them. Or conversely, it's easy to overestimate the difficulty of someth…
There is a star trek episode where they encounter a civilization which has built a benevolent AI a long time ago and has since lost capabilities to do much more than give commands to the AI. Our society has managed to write down some things like math for example so our knowledge as species won't be lost if mathematicians suddenly died. But it's harder to find permanent storage for the more skills based human activiti…
Don't think that was the case
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I think you're correct about the importance of the context in which the expertise exists in. But even so, I think it's clear that with more broad documentation, we are in a better position to pick up the expertise of the past. So in the future, all the wonderful, nutty youtubers that keep alive old arts and give demos would be especially invaluable. Not just in clarifying specific techniques and knowledge, but by dem…
Totally agree with you, with the one caveat that Youtube is not operated with long term accessibility in mind. Videos routinely are removed by their creator, or get taken down for silly reasons. And one day Youtube will disappear as well. Archive the channels you care about - they might otherwise be impossible to find in a few decades, or a few years. Youtube-dl is one of my favorite pieces of software. Digital artef…
Certainly, we can and should individually archive what's important to us, but more generally (archiving information for the next 1000 years say), I dunno. I hope someone will figure it out.
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Sometimes writing it down means very little. Like Perelman's Poincaré conjecture solution. It took some of the best mathematicians years to even prove it being correct.
Didn’t the Egyptians write it down? But we still have no idea how to understand their hieroglyphics. Or how they even figured out their math.
I'd be interested in seeing whether some of the new dating methods could be used to scientifically date the Pyramids. Because there's more than one reason to think it might be -a lot- older than 4,600 years ... an anecdotal number. For one easy reason, you don't just build one from scratch without a lot of experience. A lot of artifacts of that period are -way- too impressive for the same reason. Where's the evidence…
You seem to be implying some kind of "aliens did it" conspiracy theory but there is ample evidence that empires lasting thousands of years are easily able to build such structures. There's nothing all that complicated about it and we don't need aliens to explain it.