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The scarcity of the long term

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Re: The scarcity of the long term

#91

Post by zokier »

r14c wrote: post #88

I have trouble squaring "people can't do long term planning" and the existence of megalithic structures like the pyramids in Egypt and the Americas or even the Great Wall of China. All of which took generations to build. Especially calling that lack of long-term planning/executing ability "human nature". I have to wonder if there's something about the current material conditions that orients us towards short term thi…

Wikipedia says that Great Pyramid of Giza took 27 years to build. Long time, but I wouldn't call it generations. Smaller pyramids presumably were faster to build.

Cathedrals might be more typical example of centuries long projects, although for me its not clear how expansions and renowations are delineated from initial construction

Re: The scarcity of the long term

#92

Post by zokier »

patrickmay wrote: post #89

"There’s an ethical dilemma around transmitting a mission into the far future. We don’t necessarily want to burden a future generation with obligations they had no choice in; we don’t want to rob them of their free will to choose their own destinations." This is why government deficits and long term debt are evil (regardless of one's political views). Spending money today that must be paid back by people not yet born…

That only holds if you think that goverment debt will ever be paid off in full. With current economics, that seems unlikely.

Re: The scarcity of the long term

#93

Post by idontpost »

patrickmay wrote: post #89

"There’s an ethical dilemma around transmitting a mission into the far future. We don’t necessarily want to burden a future generation with obligations they had no choice in; we don’t want to rob them of their free will to choose their own destinations." This is why government deficits and long term debt are evil (regardless of one's political views). Spending money today that must be paid back by people not yet born…

[dead]

Re: The scarcity of the long term

#94

Post by pfdietz »

denton-scratch wrote: post #15

> The only real scarcity would be of a long attention span. I get the author's drift, and broadly agree. But I don't think it's really a long attention span that would get in the way of (e.g.) a Mars colony, or interstellar travel; it's that people's views change from one generation to the next. My kids have been imbued with some of my attitudes, sure; but I've not had much of a hand in the raising of my grandchildre…

In my head canon, the authoritarianism of the Star Wars imperium is there because they got a bee in their bonnet about long term megaprojects, and decided the only way to make them succeed was suppress freedom of thought and change in the society as a whole. After the revolution the engineering visionaries responsible are put up against the wall.

Re: The scarcity of the long term

#95

Post by zokier »

samatman wrote: post #70
admp wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cologne cathedral didn’t actually take 500 years to build — construction was restarted after a 250+ year halt. “Construction of Cologne Cathedral began in 1248 but was halted in the years around 1560, unfinished. Attempts to complete the construction began around 1814 but the project was not properly funded until the 1840s.”

So it took 500 years to build. If a building took one year to build, but they didn't work on the weekends, would you object and say no, it only took 260 days?

Lets take an example closer to home. Babbage famously started working on his Analytical Engine 1837. He never got it very far though, and the project remained dead for 150ish years. Until jgc and friends got the idea to complete the project and construct the Engine.

So would you say it took 200 years to build Analytical Engine, or would you consider the Babbages original attempt and the current day attempt two separate projects?

Re: The scarcity of the long term

#96

Post by Arainach »

patrickmay wrote: post #89

"There’s an ethical dilemma around transmitting a mission into the far future. We don’t necessarily want to burden a future generation with obligations they had no choice in; we don’t want to rob them of their free will to choose their own destinations." This is why government deficits and long term debt are evil (regardless of one's political views). Spending money today that must be paid back by people not yet born…

That doesn't hold at all - particularly if spending now yields dividends over time (infrastructure), and particularly with inflation - debt is a great investment (it's why any person or business with liquid assets is usually leveraged).

Re: The scarcity of the long term

#97

Post by lukas099 »

JackFr wrote: post #45
lukas099 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they were thinking of Jesus as the founder of the Catholic Church. Although I think that is what the Vatican itself would say (?)

I think the Vatican's perspective would be that it's a theologically meaningless and mostly ill-formed question.

How so? Don't they derive authority from being an unbroken line back to Christ or at least St. Peter?

Re: The scarcity of the long term

#98

Post by r14c »

zokier wrote: post #91
r14c wrote: post #88

I have trouble squaring "people can't do long term planning" and the existence of megalithic structures like the pyramids in Egypt and the Americas or even the Great Wall of China. All of which took generations to build. Especially calling that lack of long-term planning/executing ability "human nature". I have to wonder if there's something about the current material conditions that orients us towards short term thi…

Wikipedia says that Great Pyramid of Giza took 27 years to build. Long time, but I wouldn't call it generations. Smaller pyramids presumably were faster to build. Cathedrals might be more typical example of centuries long projects, although for me its not clear how expansions and renowations are delineated from initial construction

Ok, but you get the point right?

Re: The scarcity of the long term

#99

Post by yen223 »

pbw wrote: post #71
denton-scratch wrote: post #15

> The only real scarcity would be of a long attention span. I get the author's drift, and broadly agree. But I don't think it's really a long attention span that would get in the way of (e.g.) a Mars colony, or interstellar travel; it's that people's views change from one generation to the next. My kids have been imbued with some of my attitudes, sure; but I've not had much of a hand in the raising of my grandchildre…

> people's views change from one generation to the next I think that's what Kevin Kelly means by attention in the essay. He writes: > It is much easier to build a rocket that will sail 500 years to the nearest star, then it is to ensure that the future generations of people born on board that 500-year rocket maintain the mission So he doesn't mean we'll flake out and flit our attention to something else on a whim. He…

To be fair would you expect people to spend 2 minutes to read all those words? We've got other things to be distracted by!

Re: The scarcity of the long term

#100

Post by scotty79 »

XorNot wrote: post #28
scotty79 wrote: post #17

What's scary is that at time scales of one generation or longer societies seem to forget even very important things. How pandemic looks like. That war and militarization is not such a good idea.

> That war and militarization is not such a good idea. These are really not two sides of the same coin.

They are the same side, just stretched over time.
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