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I think this is the most beautiful example I have ever seen of how inefficient, wasteful and unnecessary is almost all of the government. If the beavers built

I think this is the most beautiful example I have ever seen of how inefficient, wasteful and unnecessary is almost all of the government. If the beavers built it in two days, it means that half a dozen men could have easily built it at an extremely low cost in a week. Instead, they were planning it, fighting bureocracy and wasting money for years.

iancmceachern 2y ago
I dont know, this is literally what beavers do. I think you are really selling the beavers short here. I mean they've been evolving and being naturally selected to optimize for this specific activity for eons. You wouldn't expect the government to be better at making honey than bees? Better at swimming and catching fish than a dolphin? Better at making silk than silk worms? If I was going to be #2 at Dam building I'd want to be #2,to beavers.
- pavel_lishin 2y ago
  Yeah. You could argue that nature has been planning this dam for 2.4 million years. (Though, granted, it spent no money doing so.)
  - wahern 2y ago
    Nature's currency is blood.
    - ok_dad 2y ago
      It’s time, actually. Natures currency is a butt ton of time.
- joebob42 2y ago
  Id hope they are better at catching fish than a dolphin, yes.
  - iancmceachern 2y ago
    Personally? Like with their mouth or hands?
baerrie 2y ago
Friction in government is a good thing, otherwise the will of the few would outweigh the many and catastrophic projects would be allowed all of the time. Yes men could have done it but they wouldn’t maintain it like the beavers and they certainly wouldn’t have done it in a way that fits with natural cycles like the beavers did. This is more of a case for fewer nature altering projects and more restoration of ecosystems
- happyopossum 2y ago
  > they wouldn’t maintain it like the beavers What makes you think the beavers will maintain this dam? Beavers may maintain this for multiple generations, or they may move on next year due to predator pressure or lack of food.
- iisan7 2y ago
  True if the process of selection favors projects that produce the greatest social value, which is far from certain. Specifically in the case of projects with significant environmental impacts, I suspect you are right -- because Earth doesn't usually get a chance to present its counter-argument.
jncfhnb 2y ago
I challenge you to build a beaver dam in 30 days.
- stickfigure 2y ago
  "Start with two beavers..."
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
fastasucan 2y ago
>If the beavers built it in two days, it means that half a dozen men could have easily built it at an extremely low cost in a week. Not at all.
etchalon 2y ago
Beavers don't have to worry about regulations, don't care how long the dam lasts or what the downstream impacts of it might be.
HomeDeLaPot 2y ago
Yo, we decided to build a dam in the creek behind your house. We're not sure what the impact will be on your house and backyard, so watch out. You've got three days, construction has already started.
- HomeDeLaPot 2y ago
  It was gonna cost 1 million of your tax dollars to build the levee protecting your house, but we're saving you money by building it out of sticks. We'll send a dude out to throw a few more on every few days.
- qwe----3 2y ago
  7 years to estimate the impact? I'm guessing it would take a professional an afternoon.
  - HomeDeLaPot 2y ago
    About the same time it'd take me to build Twitter.
II2II 2y ago
Judging from the article, the intentions of the beavers aligned with the intentions of people. Yet that is not to say that the requirements are the same. Even if you ignore things like environmental assessments and safety (both during construction and during its lifespan), neither of which are codified by beavers, you still have things like maintenance. Beavers will only maintain a dam for as long as it serves a purpose to them. Once it does not, it is left to decay. Human society just doesn't live like that anymore. There are both short term and long term costs to consider. That wasteful government will likely mitigate some of those costs.
nrfulton 2y ago
My take-away from this story is almost the opposite of yours. Nature provides a lot of valuable resources, and this story is a beautiful example of how failing to properly steward our natural environment can be extremely expensive. > Instead, they were planning it, fighting bureocracy and wasting money for years. I do not know anything about CZ or about this project, but jumping to "waste" seems excessively pessimistic. It could just be that the agency's budget is finite and this project is low priority in the organization's capital projects prioritization. Just because they first planned this project 7 years ago doesn't mean they have been actively working on it continuously for the last 7 years... This is common even in tiny economic units. E.g., I planned out our family's new furnace setup a couple of years ago, but probably won't actually allocate capital to that upgrade for another few years. In the meantime, I promise I am not spending all day every day thinking about our furnace. Just because a project takes 7 years from start of planning to finished project doesn't mean that there were 7 years of work there :) > If the beavers built it in two days, it means that half a dozen men could have easily built it at an extremely low cost in a week. That really depends on what you mean by "it". I got to watch a beaver dam go up recently. Not the active work, but regular snapshots of the build site, as it were. I will use that as a case study. If the goal here is to literally build a beaver dam, then probably you're correct. The dam I saw go up is small and built out of pretty small trees. Maybe 3-5 inch diameter. Softer wood. I think a small group of humans with very cheap tools could make quick cheap work of felling and moving the trees. As for the dam itself, they'd figure something out. But I am skeptical that most teams would be able to build a like-quality dam out of felled trees and found materials. Beavers are dam good at what they do. More importantly, though, building a more typical modern human dam in that same location would not be cheap or fast. You would easily spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on cutting and blasting a path before you could even get concrete to the worksite. There's no way the entire project would be done in a week. It definitely wouldn't be low cost no matter the schedule. Getting it done in a few weeks would be... probably possible, but a logistical tour de force and astronomically expensive. This is all just talking about the actual work, ignoring government permitting entirely.
caseyy 2y ago
It’s true that our governments are quite inefficient. Large cities were built from scratch in China in fewer than 7 years.

iancmceachern 2y ago

I dont know, this is literally what beavers do. I think you are really selling the beavers short here. I mean they've been evolving and being naturally selected to optimize for this specific activity for eons. You wouldn't expect the government to be better at making honey than bees? Better at swimming and catching fish than a dolphin? Better at making silk than silk worms? If I was going to be #2 at Dam building I'd want to be #2,to beavers.

pavel_lishin 2y ago
Yeah. You could argue that nature has been planning this dam for 2.4 million years. (Though, granted, it spent no money doing so.)
- wahern 2y ago
  Nature's currency is blood.
  - ok_dad 2y ago
    It’s time, actually. Natures currency is a butt ton of time.
joebob42 2y ago
Id hope they are better at catching fish than a dolphin, yes.
- iancmceachern 2y ago
  Personally? Like with their mouth or hands?

baerrie 2y ago

Friction in government is a good thing, otherwise the will of the few would outweigh the many and catastrophic projects would be allowed all of the time. Yes men could have done it but they wouldn’t maintain it like the beavers and they certainly wouldn’t have done it in a way that fits with natural cycles like the beavers did. This is more of a case for fewer nature altering projects and more restoration of ecosystems

happyopossum 2y ago
> they wouldn’t maintain it like the beavers What makes you think the beavers will maintain this dam? Beavers may maintain this for multiple generations, or they may move on next year due to predator pressure or lack of food.
iisan7 2y ago
True if the process of selection favors projects that produce the greatest social value, which is far from certain. Specifically in the case of projects with significant environmental impacts, I suspect you are right -- because Earth doesn't usually get a chance to present its counter-argument.

jncfhnb 2y ago

I challenge you to build a beaver dam in 30 days.

stickfigure 2y ago
"Start with two beavers..."
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

fastasucan 2y ago

>If the beavers built it in two days, it means that half a dozen men could have easily built it at an extremely low cost in a week. Not at all.

etchalon 2y ago

Beavers don't have to worry about regulations, don't care how long the dam lasts or what the downstream impacts of it might be.

HomeDeLaPot 2y ago

Yo, we decided to build a dam in the creek behind your house. We're not sure what the impact will be on your house and backyard, so watch out. You've got three days, construction has already started.

HomeDeLaPot 2y ago
It was gonna cost 1 million of your tax dollars to build the levee protecting your house, but we're saving you money by building it out of sticks. We'll send a dude out to throw a few more on every few days.
qwe----3 2y ago
7 years to estimate the impact? I'm guessing it would take a professional an afternoon.
- HomeDeLaPot 2y ago
  About the same time it'd take me to build Twitter.

II2II 2y ago

Judging from the article, the intentions of the beavers aligned with the intentions of people. Yet that is not to say that the requirements are the same. Even if you ignore things like environmental assessments and safety (both during construction and during its lifespan), neither of which are codified by beavers, you still have things like maintenance. Beavers will only maintain a dam for as long as it serves a purpose to them. Once it does not, it is left to decay. Human society just doesn't live like that anymore. There are both short term and long term costs to consider. That wasteful government will likely mitigate some of those costs.

nrfulton 2y ago

My take-away from this story is almost the opposite of yours. Nature provides a lot of valuable resources, and this story is a beautiful example of how failing to properly steward our natural environment can be extremely expensive. > Instead, they were planning it, fighting bureocracy and wasting money for years. I do not know anything about CZ or about this project, but jumping to "waste" seems excessively pessimistic. It could just be that the agency's budget is finite and this project is low priority in the organization's capital projects prioritization. Just because they first planned this project 7 years ago doesn't mean they have been actively working on it continuously for the last 7 years... This is common even in tiny economic units. E.g., I planned out our family's new furnace setup a couple of years ago, but probably won't actually allocate capital to that upgrade for another few years. In the meantime, I promise I am not spending all day every day thinking about our furnace. Just because a project takes 7 years from start of planning to finished project doesn't mean that there were 7 years of work there :) > If the beavers built it in two days, it means that half a dozen men could have easily built it at an extremely low cost in a week. That really depends on what you mean by "it". I got to watch a beaver dam go up recently. Not the active work, but regular snapshots of the build site, as it were. I will use that as a case study. If the goal here is to literally build a beaver dam, then probably you're correct. The dam I saw go up is small and built out of pretty small trees. Maybe 3-5 inch diameter. Softer wood. I think a small group of humans with very cheap tools could make quick cheap work of felling and moving the trees. As for the dam itself, they'd figure something out. But I am skeptical that most teams would be able to build a like-quality dam out of felled trees and found materials. Beavers are dam good at what they do. More importantly, though, building a more typical modern human dam in that same location would not be cheap or fast. You would easily spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on cutting and blasting a path before you could even get concrete to the worksite. There's no way the entire project would be done in a week. It definitely wouldn't be low cost no matter the schedule. Getting it done in a few weeks would be... probably possible, but a logistical tour de force and astronomically expensive. This is all just talking about the actual work, ignoring government permitting entirely.

caseyy 2y ago

It’s true that our governments are quite inefficient. Large cities were built from scratch in China in fewer than 7 years.