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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, Touché) by Sulla on Tuesday December 25 2018, @03:47AM (4 children)
Slave labor makes it a whole lot easier to make the decision to expend peoples lives and time.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday December 25 2018, @07:25AM (3 children)
OTOH, the pyramids are a good example of what can be accomplished by treating your workforce well. At that, what multi-generational projects have used mostly slave labour? And by slave labour, I mean the type where the slaves are outright owned and have zero rights rather then conscription or having to work off debt and such.
Quickly Googling, it seems unclear as the ancient projects don't have much in the way of documentation left, so lots of guesses.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 25 2018, @08:30AM (2 children)
Your theory of how the pyramids were built was devised by people who loved slave labor. There are others, which are thousands of times more efficient...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 25 2018, @11:52AM (1 child)
is the modern workplace any better?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 25 2018, @06:58PM