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

How are Rome's monuments still standing?

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 218 posts

Re: How are Rome's monuments still standing?

#111

Post by trompetenaccoun »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #89

It's struck me, reading roman authors, that they were considerably more obsessed with building a legacy than we are. Not just getting powerful or famous in life, but entering the history books, to become big name like Scipio Africanus. May be that it comes with living in an "eternal" city that's been the same as long as anyone can remember, with generations coming and going and most human activity washed away like sa…

Hard to know if their culture was different, it could easily be a case of survival bias. Those obsessed with creating a legacy for themselves were more likely to create a legacy that lasted.

Think about all your contemporaries, unless they're incredibly famous their story will be lost in time.

Re: How are Rome's monuments still standing?

#112

Post by yosito »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #89

It's struck me, reading roman authors, that they were considerably more obsessed with building a legacy than we are. Not just getting powerful or famous in life, but entering the history books, to become big name like Scipio Africanus. May be that it comes with living in an "eternal" city that's been the same as long as anyone can remember, with generations coming and going and most human activity washed away like sa…

When I was in Rome, I was struck by how many wealthy people had created monuments to themselves. There were statues of people, everywhere.

Re: How are Rome's monuments still standing?

#113

Post by lmm »

roca wrote: post #26

Did the Romans really know that using certain volcanic rocks would make their concrete structures last longer? Or did they mostly just use whatever aggregate was convenient and the structures that have survived are the ones that used the right rocks? The latter sounds more plausible to me. Of course we can still learn valuable lessons from these surviving structures.

They famously shipped the right kind of volcanic ash to e.g. Spain rather than using local materials. They didn't know the chemistry for why (otherwise they could have found the materials with the right characteristics locally), but they definitely knew that particular aggregates lasted better than others.

Re: How are Rome's monuments still standing?

#114

Post by conductr »

yosito wrote: post #112
marginalia_nu wrote: post #89

It's struck me, reading roman authors, that they were considerably more obsessed with building a legacy than we are. Not just getting powerful or famous in life, but entering the history books, to become big name like Scipio Africanus. May be that it comes with living in an "eternal" city that's been the same as long as anyone can remember, with generations coming and going and most human activity washed away like sa…

When I was in Rome, I was struck by how many wealthy people had created monuments to themselves. There were statues of people, everywhere.

It was their version of instagram. You got to be famous if you had a statue. Upon which you could gain status.

Or that’s my guess anyways

Re: How are Rome's monuments still standing?

#115

Post by xmprt »

thoughtsimple wrote: post #75
SQueeeeeL wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jonathan Blow makes a bunch of great points about our simplified view of ancient people, versus the reality of their complex achievements which could only be brought about by lots of ingenuity and iterations. https://youtu.be/pW-SOdj4Kkk

He started off well with the history of civilization collapse but then he got the heart of his presentation with the misguided idea that modern software is more broken recently. He showed some incomprehensible bugs in Visual Studio. All I have to say is that on Windows the Blue Screen of Death was a prominent problem for many years. On the original MacOS that was non-preemptive multitasking and no memory hardware pro…

I think software will never feel like it's improved because as technology improves and changes, new features will be expected of software and so while some parts of software improve, other new parts will bring down the average quality.

It reminds me of Shepard Tones which sound like they are infinitely increasing in pitch which is impossible because the human ear can only hear certain frequencies. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzNzgsAE4F0)

Re: How are Rome's monuments still standing?

#116

Post by wombatpm »

pengaru wrote: post #79
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how you can call the climate "harsh" with a straight face since it never rarely get moist enough for long enough for water and bacteria to do much to wood and masonry. There's a reason you pretty much never see 100yr old unmaintained wood and masonry structures in New England, midwest, the PNW, etc.

> I don't see how you can call the climate "harsh" with a straight face since it never rarely get moist enough for long enough for water and bacteria to do much to wood and masonry. Most modern products/methods/coatings deteriorate very quickly in the extreme temperature swings of the desert. If they're exposed to the sunlight, most things can't handle the UV in combination with the extreme temperatures. I own a dese…

Minnesota routinely sees 90 days in summer and -20 days winter. Water plus 110 degree temperature swings destroys a lot of things quickly. Plus vegetation, mold, animals

Re: How are Rome's monuments still standing?

#117

Post by moosedev »

bennysomething wrote: post #12

Surely it should be "why are Rome's monuments..." Or am I mistaken, I'm not actually sure

Native speaker (Brit in USA) here. Either one is fine, although they have subtle differences in meaning and implication (to me) in this context.

The first thing that struck me before I gave this any real thought is that "How" here connotes a little incredulity or even amazement (to me). There's an implied, rhetorical sense of unlikelihood of the fact. ("How are Rome's monuments still standing?! Shouldn't they have fallen down by now?")

"How" also implies (to me) that we seek an explanation of processes, means, techniques, or methods. It invites an answer that's somehow more dynamic and more detailed. "Why" is asking "for what reason(s)?" The "Why" version of the question feels more direct, but the answer space is broader and more abstract. "How" feels, forgive me, more concrete here than "Why" :)

How -> explain the processes, techniques, or workings. Why -> explain the reasons/causes. Obviously, there's overlap there, and the distinction is subtle, so perhaps some of this is only in my head :)

I found http://www.differencebetween.net/language/grammar-language/d... which seems to half-agree.

Re: How are Rome's monuments still standing?

#118

Post by _pastel »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #89

It's struck me, reading roman authors, that they were considerably more obsessed with building a legacy than we are. Not just getting powerful or famous in life, but entering the history books, to become big name like Scipio Africanus. May be that it comes with living in an "eternal" city that's been the same as long as anyone can remember, with generations coming and going and most human activity washed away like sa…

Maybe there's survivorship bias in that sample. Are ancient authors we still read more likely to be obsessed with legacy-building than the ones we've forgotten?

Re: How are Rome's monuments still standing?

#119

Post by nescioquid »

basementcat wrote: post #45
agumonkey wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did https://rome.tools/

Rome wasn’t written in a day.

In fact it was, but on the second day, it would no longer compile. After a long debugging session, Romulus realized Remus had unpublished the hWall (or aMoenia) function in the night. Romulus then murdered his brother.

Re: How are Rome's monuments still standing?

#120

Post by antod »

bennysomething wrote: post #12

Surely it should be "why are Rome's monuments..." Or am I mistaken, I'm not actually sure

How and why sound to me like slightly different questions and the best one might depend on the answer.

"Why is something still standing" could be circumstances related - eg all the other ones got demolished except this one for reason x, or y group of people stepped in to maintain it etc

"How is something still standing" sounds more like the method for it standing - eg the structure had some extra cross bracing on the lower level etc

Maybe it's just me :)

Post reply on HN