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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]

#91

Post by Tokelin »

stareatgoats wrote: post #62
andrepd wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I would like to reply to just the first sentence of your post. While I agree that just being leisurely and seeking enjoyment rarely leads to long lasting meaningful experiences, I do not believe we humans are striving to replace all work with those activities. There are many examples of people who have the possibility to do nothing but enjoy themselves and they still push their capabilities and try to find new challenges. Leisure is nice, but only leisure gets boring.

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

#93

Post by azepoi »

ainiriand wrote: post #6
coder1001 wrote: post #2

Thank you! Seems very similar to the bridge in Córdoba: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_bridge_of_C%C3%B3rdoba

Really similar! To be honest I think I have seen many similar bridges all around Spain and Italy, not just Central Europe.

this type of bridge is common throughout Europe.

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

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

since antiquity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_bridge

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

#94

Post by chmod775 »

WalterBright wrote: post #43
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…

> you likely would not be able to use the bulk of it Evolution rarely produces something useless, especially something that consumes a lot of precious energy like the brain. More likely these people were exquisitely knowledgeable about their environment. Either that, or their brains were the same size as ours, but far less efficient.

The human brain has actually been shrinking since about 40k years ago. There is some correlation between brain size and intelligence, but admittedly it isn't too strong.

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

#95

Post by azepoi »

microtherion wrote: post #81

Other places may have done it that way, but the Swiss simply subcontracted their bridges to Satan: https://www.andermatt.ch/en/discover/holidays-for-culture-lo...

medieval trope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil's_Bridge

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

#96

Post by Fricken »

nom wrote: post #58
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.

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 susta…

We haven't improved efficiency at all, it takes far more resources to keep a person going today than it did in the 14th century. It takes a couple decades of education before a person can even begin to enter the workforce. Raising kids was once an investment, now people can barely afford to raise 1 or 2.

Our inefficient stuff is made by people in foreign countries working in factories whose lives really aren't any better than middle ages Europe.

Also, People like farming and hard physical labour. In the suburbs every household has a little miniature hobby farm that yields a useless crop, and people farm it for fun over and above their regular job. When people don't have to do any hard labour as part of their job, they go to a gym and pay money for the privelege of moving heavy things around even though it serves no practical purpose.

All this inefficiency is destroying the planet, which is the dumbest thing of all.

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

#97

Post by woadwarrior01 »

I was in Rimini, Italy a couple of years ago and came across an ancient bridge called Ponte di Tiberio[1]. It's mind blowing to see modern cars plying on a bridge that was built nearly 2000 years ago.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponte_di_Tiberio_(Rimini)

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

#98

Post by dmurray »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #41
dotancohen wrote: post #17

Seriously, why is the submission to a lower-quality, sped-up Twitter gif?

As _Microft says, the gif is making rounds on the Internet (I've seen it last night on Mastodon). And to be honest, I'm not surprised that it beats the video - it communicates the exact same information, and the same sense of awe as the original video, but in a much more time-efficient manner. Watching the original now, I can't shake the feeling of how boringly slow it is.

If you think the 3-minute video was slow, the actual original took 45 years.

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

#99

Post by PoignardAzur »

prennert wrote: post #14

It looks similar to the description of the bridge being built in "World without End" by Ken Follett. One bit that is missing from this animation is that there is no rubble placed in the water around the piers. In the book this had the all important function of preventing the foundations from being washed out by the river. Maybe that was fiction or it was too much detail for the animators since the water is not transp…

Yeah, my first thought when seeing the cofferdam was "hey, I know what these things are!"

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

#100

Post by gowld »

nom wrote: post #58
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.

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 susta…

Your confusing hardness of work with grimness of life. No one was working 200hrs/week to make polio vaccines from themselves.
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