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from the nothing-lasts-more-than-8-years dept.
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, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday December 25 2018, @03:38AM
Only if you're doing long-term projects by government. When you're not, those aren't problems.
And what is the value of those projects? Let us keep in mind that the Three-North Shelter Forest Program, for a prominent example, is probably clean up for up to a century of authoritarian bad planning by China, Mongolia, and Russia. The old USSR messed up badly with their long term exploitation of the Aral Sea.
In the developed world, one can do long term projects without involving a lot of other people. They just need enough support to do it which can come from anywhere. But the project has to be justified to the supporters in order to be supported. Governments on the other hand do all kinds of stupid and terrible ideas. Nor is it uncommon for a short term bit of greed or ambition to disguise itself as a long term project (Three Gorges Dam or the latest and greatest US military weapon, for example).
The envy that many feel in the developed world for the ambitious projects of the Chinese government and the like needs to be tempered by the fact that the interests of the Chinese government match no one else's, particularly their citizens. They are as likely to spend money for generations on the Great Firewall as they are actual infrastructure that people need.