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

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

#61

Post by watwut »

BerislavLopac wrote: post #45
amelius wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As opposed to 12 hours a day (depending on daylight), 6 days a week, both men (in the fields) and women (at home, without the luxury of washing machines and vacuum cleaners). Yeah, we certainly work harder...

For women "at home" often means bulk of animal care, home production of goods (crafts basically) and other similar farm-like work. And having jobs in cleaning, sewing and what not. It is not like every one of them had living husband or every husband earned a lot.

Good case are miners areas - men work hard like 12 hours a day under ground and die young. Women have to earn for themselves and for kids once they are dead however possible.

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

#62

Post by stareatgoats »

andrepd wrote: post #48
stareatgoats wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a pretty typical mistake. It's an even more typical mistake to believe that our time is the pinnacle in all respects (because of all the cool gadgets that we have). But we are not the pinnacle in all respects; perhaps the largest danger is that we are delegating all multifaceted work (which ultimately is what produces skill) to automation and/or extreme specialists, so that we can push the enjoyment button (or…

Less work is a good thing.

Less mindless and debilitating work is a good thing, but to replace work that challenges human capabilities in all its aspects with leisure and enjoyment is probably not a good thing.

If for example reasoning was automated (we're not there yet, but it is on the horizon) then human capacity for nuance would likely diminish further, to the extent where concepts and ideas might only placed in a 'good' or 'bad' category without capacity for further analysis ...

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

#63

Post by vetinari »

jankotek wrote: post #56
antocv wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ;)

> Life expectancy (if surving birth) was 30 years.

That was average lifespan that includes child mortality. Once you survived puberty, chances were high you will live to your sixties, at least.

Also, compare Africa ~50 years ago and today.

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

#64

Post by usgroup »

stareatgoats wrote: post #31
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.

> It's a pretty typical mistake. It's an even more typical mistake to believe that our time is the pinnacle in all respects (because of all the cool gadgets that we have). But we are not the pinnacle in all respects; perhaps the largest danger is that we are delegating all multifaceted work (which ultimately is what produces skill) to automation and/or extreme specialists, so that we can push the enjoyment button (or…

Certainly nothing a bit of extra theology and geometry won’t fix.

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

#65

Post by feralimal »

Nice animation, but I bear in mind that stuff that is presented like this is really just hearsay - we don't really know that it was built as presented. It could well have been built as shown - its a plausible hypothesis. But it is also plausible that the bridges were only built in the 18th century. Or maybe they were built 100's of years earlier.

With any historical claims, we should have access to the source to be able to confirm.

On the wiki page that was posted we read:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bridge

"Throughout its history, Charles Bridge has suffered several disasters and witnessed many historic events. Czech legend has it that construction began on Charles Bridge at 5:31am on 9 July 1357 with the first stone being laid by Charles IV himself. This exact time was very important to the Holy Roman Emperor because he was a strong believer in numerology and felt that this specific time, which formed a palindrome (1357 9, 7 5:31), was a numerical bridge, and would imbue Charles Bridge with additional strength.[4]"

Where 4 is:

"Frucht, Richard (2005). Eastern Europe : an introduction to the people, lands, and culture. 1. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. pp. 251. ISBN 9781576078013."

https://archive.org/details/easterneuropeint0000unse/page/25...

When you search that book on archive.org though, there are no references to "1357", "5:31", "numerology". There is a single reference to "numerical" but this relates to 1944.

So we have a paragraph in wiki, that has some very specific information, that it claims is from a book that doesn't seem to contain that info.

This is to say that 'we' don't know anything about this bridge - the sources do not check out.

I was hoping to get a little further than this. I wanted to track the primary or secondary source for this claim about the bridge build date. But I couldn't even get that far.

What should one conclude, when the detailed information being provided does not check (or should that 'Czech') out?

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

#66

Post by dd36 »

watwut wrote: post #61
BerislavLopac wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As opposed to 12 hours a day (depending on daylight), 6 days a week, both men (in the fields) and women (at home, without the luxury of washing machines and vacuum cleaners). Yeah, we certainly work harder...

For women "at home" often means bulk of animal care, home production of goods (crafts basically) and other similar farm-like work. And having jobs in cleaning, sewing and what not. It is not like every one of them had living husband or every husband earned a lot. Good case are miners areas - men work hard like 12 hours a day under ground and die young. Women have to earn for themselves and for kids once they are dead…

Good point. Children are animals.

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

#67

Post by yread »

feralimal wrote: post #65

Nice animation, but I bear in mind that stuff that is presented like this is really just hearsay - we don't really know that it was built as presented. It could well have been built as shown - its a plausible hypothesis. But it is also plausible that the bridges were only built in the 18th century. Or maybe they were built 100's of years earlier. With any historical claims, we should have access to the source to be a…

You can find better references in the czech version of the wiki article

https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karlův_most

Basically, it is just a hypothesis by some astronomist. Contemporary chronicler recorded just the year that the construction was started

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

#68

Post by raducu »

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]

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1102.5604v1.pdf

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

#69

Post by Mr_T_ »

khazhoux wrote: post #27

Great video, but could have used a scale reference. The pile driver at 00:21 looks to me to be about 30-40', but the wikipedia page for pile drivers suggests it's probably https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pile_driver It's also unclear how the piledriver gets re-positioned for each pile. It does not look readily movable.

TIL that pile drivers are a real thing and not just a sex position.

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

#70

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]
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