Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Animation of how bridges were built in Central Europe in the Middle Ages [video]

youtube.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 247 posts

Re: Animation of how bridges were built in Central Europe in the Middle Ages [video]

#51

Post by HPsquared »

pizzapill wrote: post #37
prennert wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These projects employed skilled journey men (level between apprentice and master). At some point they then traveled to work on the next project, spreading the know-how. Once something was working, it was often copied as modifications were risky.

To add to this: those were highly sought after specialists with a lot of privileges. This had consequences that sound strange to us nowadays. Stonemasons were heavily involved in medieval diplomacy, since everybody in power needed them to build or repair fortresses. They could travel freely between kingdoms that were at war with each other and exchange messages between the respective rulers.

They were the tech aristocrats of their day.

Re: Animation of how bridges were built in Central Europe in the Middle Ages [video]

#52

Post by pjc50 »

raducu wrote: post #28
DavidHm wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a pretty typical mistake. We are just as smart as our predecessors. We just have a much higher population, a higher % of them are well educated, and we have an enormous body of historical knowledge (as well as easy ways for anyone to access it). "On the shoulder of giants" etc.

Our brains decreased by a golf ball size in the past couple thousand years. It is much easier for stupid people to survive today.

[citation needed]

Re: Animation of how bridges were built in Central Europe in the Middle Ages [video]

#53

Post by aequitas »

yread wrote: post #4

Note that the construction took 45 years.

It's to bad the animation doesn't convey this information very well. Also all the manual labor and additional tools like boats involved. At the beginning the poles just fall out of thin air until they use some sort of pile driver to ram them in.

Re: Animation of how bridges were built in Central Europe in the Middle Ages [video]

#54

Post by pjc50 »

DavidHm wrote: post #12
DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #10

I used to be tempted to think that our modern generations are extra smart because of the cool gadgets we have. Seeing stuff like this, and reading ancient political / philosophical writings, gives me a much-needed reality check.

It's a pretty typical mistake. We are just as smart as our predecessors. We just have a much higher population, a higher % of them are well educated, and we have an enormous body of historical knowledge (as well as easy ways for anyone to access it). "On the shoulder of giants" etc.

This has really brought out the eugenicists, it seems?

But you're absolutely right; we get to use the infrastructure, explicit (written) knowledge, tacit knowledge of our society, social structures, institutions, legal systems, property distribution, and peacemaking of our predecessors.

Re: Animation of how bridges were built in Central Europe in the Middle Ages [video]

#55

Post by mbank »

pjc50 wrote: post #52
raducu wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our brains decreased by a golf ball size in the past couple thousand years. It is much easier for stupid people to survive today.

[citation needed]

Intro of the movie "Idiocracy" sums it up pretty good ;)

Re: Animation of how bridges were built in Central Europe in the Middle Ages [video]

#56

Post by jankotek »

antocv wrote: post #47
jacquesm wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is absolutely no difference between a human from 6000 years ago and one today. You could be an Einstein level genius back then, and likely unable to use any of those skills other than for the optimization of your environment. Also, you likely would not be able to use the bulk of it because your education would be non-existent, so your IQ compared to someone today would be much lower even though your raw intelli…

Thats just... dude, 6000 years ago the knifes where sharper than what you find in your kitchen. What blunt knife? Similary, high IQ people today are given "blunt knifes" considering they are surrounded by 8 billion retards, see handling of covid, climate change, flat earthers etc. If anything, back then a high iq person would have motivation and belief in bringing discoveries to the table. Today, why would anyone inv…

Bronze knifes are bad. Malnutrition sucks. Life expectancy (if surving birth) was 30 years.

But I am sure they would handle covid better ;)

Re: Animation of how bridges were built in Central Europe in the Middle Ages [video]

#57

Post by bhickey »

jacquesm wrote: post #39
nosianu wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average was skewed by child and women (during/after birth) mortality. In lecture [0] the professor mentions as an aside: > And what is interesting, if you take out the childhood mortality, the Victorian person between 1850 and 1880 lived slightly longer, if he was a male, than you do today That's well after the middle ages, but still also well before modern medicine and technology, such as good sanitation and wat…

Dental work is also a big driver in longevity, as is washing hands by doctors.

Can you expand on this? Were abscesses killing people or something else?

Re: Animation of how bridges were built in Central Europe in the Middle Ages [video]

#58

Post by nom »

amelius wrote: post #29
DavidHm wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a pretty typical mistake. We are just as smart as our predecessors. We just have a much higher population, a higher % of them are well educated, and we have an enormous body of historical knowledge (as well as easy ways for anyone to access it). "On the shoulder of giants" etc.

We work harder than our predecessors (8+ hours workday, 5 days a week, both men and women), so I'd say we aren't really as smart as them.

We work harder? Seriously?

Most of the time in human history people were struggling to even stay alive. You had to work until you got enough food to feed your family, or you'd die. Live was not great, it was very stressful and inefficient (but people were used to it). This is still the case in most of the world, although overall not as bad as it once was, it is improving constantly.

We're the lucky ones who can sustain ourselve with 8 hours of work, food is cheap and abundant, we can afford luxury items like iphones even if a 300$ android smartphone would do the same job.

No, at average, people are not working harder now, because we don't have to. We managed to improve efficiency so much already and quality of life continues to rise.

Re: Animation of how bridges were built in Central Europe in the Middle Ages [video]

#59

Post by frankjr »

Fun fact: Charles bridge (depicted in the video) was damaged during a flood in 1890. With the water level risen, broken down rafts were beating its arches and two of them fell apart, along with three pillars that were undermined by the water. During the reconstruction of the pillars, they decided to make them hollow (to cut on the weight) and you can actually go inside! It's not open to the public but there's a video that shows the inside of a pillar number 6 [0].

[0] https://www.novinky.cz/domaci/clanek/jak-vypada-karluv-most-...

Re: Animation of how bridges were built in Central Europe in the Middle Ages [video]

#60

Post by watwut »

amelius wrote: post #29
DavidHm wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a pretty typical mistake. We are just as smart as our predecessors. We just have a much higher population, a higher % of them are well educated, and we have an enormous body of historical knowledge (as well as easy ways for anyone to access it). "On the shoulder of giants" etc.

We work harder than our predecessors (8+ hours workday, 5 days a week, both men and women), so I'd say we aren't really as smart as them.

You ... don't know much about lifestyle of men and women in the past, do you?

With exception of very rich people in few periods (idle aristocracy, middle class 1950 household), majority of people needed to work a lot. That includes both women and men.

Post reply on HN