Mankind has a history of long term projects. The Pyramids, Stonehenge, The Great Wall, getting Mickey Mouse into the Public Domain...
Some of these projects took multiple centuries of effort. Not a single person present at the start of those saw them completed. This is made worse when you consider lifespans that were half or less what they are currently.
But what was the LAST project that spanned lifetimes? Do you know of any going on today?
The Great Wall was started in 300 B.C. and completed some 1900 years later.
As humanity considers things like colonizing other planets and space megastructures we are talking about activities that will take centuries of effort. This turns into millennia as we look at things like terraforming and actually spreading humanity beyond our own star.
Does humanity in the current instant gratification social media quarterly results era have the appetite for projects that our grandchildren won't see completed?
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Tuesday December 25 2018, @03:28AM (1 child)
Businesses run by MBAs plan short-term to 1 quarter, long term to 1 year.
Government plans short term to 1 year, long term to 4 years or so.
In the USA, those are our only two real institutions for deciding what society does with it's time and money. Scientific and engineering institutions are at the whims of lawyers controlling the budgets. It's a completely impractical system for embarking on a long-term project. No long-term projects can survive in such a system.
Our only real hope is extremely successful private mega-corporations with no shareholders or board of directors and enough bribery cash to lock up government oversight. It's not an exactly ideal alternative, I must admit.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by https on Tuesday December 25 2018, @06:44PM
Thanks to the tax-exempt trusts system of the USA, the Kochs and Olins, etc. have their decades-long attempts to eradicate capitalism, education, and democracy.
Offended and laughing about it.