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> Think about the fact that almost 140 years ago, civil engineers stopped building bridges that fell down. They stopped building them because the failure of one
by UncleEntity 8y ago
> Think about the fact that almost 140 years ago, civil engineers stopped building bridges that fell down. They stopped building them because the failure of one bridge was laid bare so publicly.
Yes, but how many bridge projects failed in the last 140 years because of cost overruns/missing deadlines which is a more direct analogy for most of the arguments in TFA.
And I'm guessing we're just talking about the UK since earthquakes have taken down a bridge or two in my lifetime...
- dredmorbius 8y agoExceptionally good point. Confounding failure of a project to deliver wwith the catastrophic public failure of that project's deliverables is a truly extraordinary category error. I was reading just recently of a failed megaproject, the Nicaraguan Canal. Forecast costs range from $40 - 100 billion, though I cannot find a report of actual expenditures. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_Canal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_Canal Contrast this with actual engineering failures, such as Fukushima or Banqiao. This is an apple-juicer to oranges comparison. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam