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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]

#101

Post by bnegreve »

rendall wrote: post #77
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…

I disagree. As humans, we have a tendency to be pessimistic, but we are in aggregate enjoying unprecedented peace and prosperity, have done for an unprecedented length of time, and data point to that continuing. The leisure that many of us enjoy is a byproduct of that trend.

> As humans, we have a tendency to be pessimistic

Maybe, but it is not because we tend to be overly pessimistic in general, that serious problems cannot happen to us. Entire civilizations have diapered in the past, so we should remain vigilant.

After all, another bias that humans have, is a strong tendency to believe that what is true now, will remain true forever.

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

#102

Post by gowld »

elric wrote: post #44
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.

That statement feels wrong but I have no data to back up my gut feeling. Only a handful of generations ago even something as menial as doing your own laundry was hard work. Maybe we spend more time in offices, but if anything, I suspect we work a lot less hard in general.

For most of human history most people didn't "do" laundry.

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

#103

Post by ajuc »

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…

It's funny - you're both right.

Peasants (over 90% of the society) were usually working less hours but much harder than we do. And they were living in much worse conditions of course.

Farming (especially without modern technology) is very cyclical, most of the time you have too much labour and too little land/food. Then for a few months you have too few people to do everything that needs to be done.

And there was no easy way for vast majority of people to store surplus for more than a few years. And there was a real possibility of starvation if a few factors independent of you happen at the same time.

So the whole society and economy was structured around these constraints - that's why it doesn't follow our intuitions. It made no sense to increase gains by 10% if you had to increase risk by 1% to do that. It made no sense to work harder if you have enough and it's gonna spoil anyway. You're just risking injury to throw it all away later.

There was a great series of articles about it: https://acoup.blog/2020/07/24/collections-bread-how-did-they...

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

#104

Post by gowld »

nosianu wrote: post #22
galgalesh wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this longer than the average life expectancy of that time? I wonder what kind of incentives they had for such long-term projects.

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…

I find that suspect. 1 because I doubt statistics for the poor were as accurate, and 2 because people alive today aren't dead yet so we don't know their life expectancy, which has been steadily trending upward for a century even for middle aged people.

https://www.infoplease.com/us/health-statistics/life-expecta...

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

#105

Post by mensetmanusman »

rendall wrote: post #77
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…

I disagree. As humans, we have a tendency to be pessimistic, but we are in aggregate enjoying unprecedented peace and prosperity, have done for an unprecedented length of time, and data point to that continuing. The leisure that many of us enjoy is a byproduct of that trend.

Peace from violence between sons sent off to die for no reason. Sure.

Peace from violent thoughts leading to depression and anxiety which are at all time highs, no.

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

#106

Post by fanf2 »

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…

At that time clocks did not have minute hands so they would not have been able to measure time that precisely.

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

#107

Post by gowld »

Swenrekcah wrote: post #24
galgalesh wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this longer than the average life expectancy of that time? I wonder what kind of incentives they had for such long-term projects.

I'd guess the kings, clergy and nobles liked their legacy and the people generally, then as today, like to work on something that improves society. And also, the average life expectancy at birth is a lot lower than the age an adult can expect to live to. People got old in the middle ages, it was just not as common, but probably more common for the aristocracy.

> like to work on something that improves society.

like to have other people work on something that improves society.

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

#108

Post by mensetmanusman »

_Microft wrote: post #13
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.

I rather wonder what our descendants will marvel at that we are doing. Will they think that it was ingenious to design machines in different parts, from different materials, then assembled and shipped to where they are needed? With the limited technology and methods of our time? That we used to engineer and create special machines for these different purposes because in their world, everything you can conceive will c…

They will marvel at the transistor.

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

#109

Post by FrankyHollywood »

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.

I had this feeling recently reading Voltaire quotes >200 years old, but could have been written today :) https://www.azquotes.com/author/15138-Voltaire

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

#110

Post by rendall »

bnegreve wrote: post #101
rendall wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. As humans, we have a tendency to be pessimistic, but we are in aggregate enjoying unprecedented peace and prosperity, have done for an unprecedented length of time, and data point to that continuing. The leisure that many of us enjoy is a byproduct of that trend.

> As humans, we have a tendency to be pessimistic Maybe, but it is not because we tend to be overly pessimistic in general, that serious problems cannot happen to us. Entire civilizations have diapered in the past, so we should remain vigilant. After all, another bias that humans have, is a strong tendency to believe that what is true now, will remain true forever.

Very, very, very true. The light of civilization is a flickering candle in the darkness

I often think about the city-states along the Silk Road: healthy, peaceful, cultured, unprecedented prosperity for their time. All defeated when the hordes of Genghis Kahn rode by, many utterly destroyed

The Empire of Mali. The Kingdom of Lithuania. Macedon. Tyre. Babylon. Carthage. Samarkand. Assyria. All once mighty, all gone, perhaps a place-name remains, if that

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