4 ms·

We haven't built too many pyramids or Gothic cathedrals either in the past few hundred years. Does that mean we couldn't anymore? Nope. We just don't bother, b

We haven't built too many pyramids or Gothic cathedrals either in the past few hundred years. Does that mean we couldn't anymore? Nope. We just don't bother, because we have better use of the necessary resources.

melling 4y ago
No one wants to fly supersonic commercially? Isn’t that simply a matter of being available and affordable?
- qwytw 4y ago
  Also physics. Supersonic travel is prohibitively expensive because it requires exponentially more energy than flying at ~900 km/h. More efficient engines can't really change that much..
  - MichaelZuo 4y ago
    Clearly millions, if not billions, of people would want to fly supersonically if they could afford it.
    - qwytw 4y ago
      I wouldn't mind a Gothic cathedral if I could get one for cheap and maintenance didn't cost anything. At the end Concorde failed because it was mainly a status symbol (for the governments, airlines and passengers). As long as subsonic remained considerably cheaper (and it probably would because of physics) I'm convinced most people would still ussually choose it even if supersonic became more affordable. I mean it's like saying most people would prefer to fly first class if it was more affordable, well.. obviously.
NoZebra120vClip 4y ago
We couldn't even build a Saturn V booster again! Do you know in the Bible, when Pharaoh took away the strawmen from the Hebrews so they had to make bricks without it? The Hebrews knew more about building pyramids than we do. There are endless pseudo-documentaries about how we think and surmise and suppose that the pyramids were built, but we don't actually know. So many of the basic and intermediate and advanced processes and materials have been lost, that we literally can't figure it out. Easter Island? Stonehenge? Lots of ink is spilled just on how the ancients moved stones, carved them, and set them vertically in place, without cranes or forklifts or power tools. Interesting you should mention Gothic cathedrals. Antoni Gaudí built masterful models and plans for the Sagrada Família (which is not a cathedral, but a basilica), and the models and plans were destroyed and pillaged during the Spanish Revolution and Francoist suppression of Catalan culture. So the church which you see being completed in this century is the best architectural guess at what Gaudí intended. The construction is based on reconstructions. And I guarantee that the artisanal methods being employed are vanishingly rare, both in skill and material, and it is more difficult to preserve continuity of training and knowledge through the generations.
- msla 4y ago
  > Do you know in the Bible, when Pharaoh took away the strawmen from the Hebrews so they had to make bricks without it? Yes, that's an origin myth with no basis in fact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Exodus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Exodus > Mainstream scholarship no longer accepts the biblical Exodus account as historical for a number of reasons.

melling 4y ago

No one wants to fly supersonic commercially? Isn’t that simply a matter of being available and affordable?

qwytw 4y ago
Also physics. Supersonic travel is prohibitively expensive because it requires exponentially more energy than flying at ~900 km/h. More efficient engines can't really change that much..
- MichaelZuo 4y ago
  Clearly millions, if not billions, of people would want to fly supersonically if they could afford it.
  - qwytw 4y ago
    I wouldn't mind a Gothic cathedral if I could get one for cheap and maintenance didn't cost anything. At the end Concorde failed because it was mainly a status symbol (for the governments, airlines and passengers). As long as subsonic remained considerably cheaper (and it probably would because of physics) I'm convinced most people would still ussually choose it even if supersonic became more affordable. I mean it's like saying most people would prefer to fly first class if it was more affordable, well.. obviously.

NoZebra120vClip 4y ago

We couldn't even build a Saturn V booster again! Do you know in the Bible, when Pharaoh took away the strawmen from the Hebrews so they had to make bricks without it? The Hebrews knew more about building pyramids than we do. There are endless pseudo-documentaries about how we think and surmise and suppose that the pyramids were built, but we don't actually know. So many of the basic and intermediate and advanced processes and materials have been lost, that we literally can't figure it out. Easter Island? Stonehenge? Lots of ink is spilled just on how the ancients moved stones, carved them, and set them vertically in place, without cranes or forklifts or power tools. Interesting you should mention Gothic cathedrals. Antoni Gaudí built masterful models and plans for the Sagrada Família (which is not a cathedral, but a basilica), and the models and plans were destroyed and pillaged during the Spanish Revolution and Francoist suppression of Catalan culture. So the church which you see being completed in this century is the best architectural guess at what Gaudí intended. The construction is based on reconstructions. And I guarantee that the artisanal methods being employed are vanishingly rare, both in skill and material, and it is more difficult to preserve continuity of training and knowledge through the generations.

msla 4y ago
> Do you know in the Bible, when Pharaoh took away the strawmen from the Hebrews so they had to make bricks without it? Yes, that's an origin myth with no basis in fact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Exodus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Exodus > Mainstream scholarship no longer accepts the biblical Exodus account as historical for a number of reasons.