Your great analogy provoked a thought, and at risk of taking it too seriously: The bridge you describe sounds like one that was built and would be maintained i

Your great analogy provoked a thought, and at risk of taking it too seriously: The bridge you describe sounds like one that was built and would be maintained in a more organic way. If we repaired more, we'd perhaps have more objects built like this. And we'd in turn learn much more about interactions between materials, and have a larger body of knowledge (and maybe folk wisdom) about objects built with such interactions. But yes, more risk and uncertainty, which is intolerable in the current culture (though I suspect it could become more tolerable if our energy systems and supply chains start to break down, and the current calculus stops making sense)